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Weapons of Mass. Destruction: Hub cops sitting on DNC arsenal
By Thomas Caywood
Boston Herald
August 23, 2004

Armed to the teeth for a Democratic National Convention disaster that never happened, Boston police are sitting on a weapons stockpile of stun grenades, projectile launchers, rubber bullets, pepper spray and tear gas they may never use in a real-life crisis.

Footing the bill: federal taxpayers.

The city so far has submitted $1.9 million in expenses, including roughly $540,000 in police and fire overtime and $1.4 million for supplies and equipment, to the feds.

The police department bought more than $160,000 worth of crowd-control firepower - including nearly $14,000 worth of ``Stinger'' rubber-ball-and-tear-gas-spewing concussion grenades - for a political shindig that saw only one minor scuffle with protesters and five related arrests.

"We are going to be recycling these as part of our training. They are not going to sit on the shelf and expire,'' Boston police spokeswoman Beverly Ford said of the munitions.

Boston Fire Department officials also made major purchases of equipment but say some of the new supplies are already in use on the street, while the rest are reserved for training.

The eight-page expense report offers a chilling glimpse into the worst-case scenarios apparently considered by Democratic National Convention planners.

The fire department spent tens of thousands of dollars on the kinds of concrete-cutting power saws and jackhammer bits needed to rescue people from rubble and on sophisticated chemical and radiation monitoring equipment.

Other security expenditures forwarded in the first reimbursement request included nearly $5,000 worth of military-style pants, bull horns, batteries, bolt cutters, thousands of gas-mask filters, lumber, high-tech radio systems and a $300,000 custom surveillance camera system.

City officials expect the federal government to reimburse the multimillion-dollar shopping spree out of an initial $24.8 million grant and a second one nearing final approval. Police have estimated the total bill including overtime at $35 milllion to $40 million.

Boston Chief Financial Officer Lisa Signori said the city can submit DNC expenses as frequently as monthly and hopes to have them all in by midfall.

One item not yet submitted for reimbursement is the $256,000 custom Lenco B.E.A.R. armored personnel transport the BPD rolled out with such fanfare before the DNC.

Gerard Fontana, the fire department's chief of operations for field services, said none of the dozens of saw blades, drill bits and jackhammer chisels bought for the DNC will go to waste.

"We spend a lot of money replacing that stuff whether we have incidents are not,'' he said. "We have to train.''

The fire department also is flush with high-tech communications and gadgets for dealing with hazardous materials, thanks to the DNC. The department spent $383,000 on haz-mat gear, including sophisticated chemical and radiation monitoring equipment.

Some of the gear, such as the eight Neutron Rae radiation detectors for $28,360, doesn't seem particularly useful now that the Hub is no longer on its convention-terror footing. But Fontana said even the exotic stuff could come in handy.

"There's radiation in the construction industry, in hospitals,'' he said.

 

 

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