The people at Occupy Tampa have posted pictures of a large, specialized vehicle they say the Tampa police department drove past their camp. Occupier Heidi Halsworth writes that police helicopters overhead are loud enough to drown out general assemblies, and the tank-looking-thing is unsettling:
The city is making these flagrant displays to be intimidating while not actually doing anything antagonistic enough to draw the national media spotlight down on Tampa as has happened in New York, Denver and Oakland.
A Yahoo contributor says Occupy Tampa is being silly -- the vehicle in question is just an amphibious rescue vehicle, not an assault tank. FWIW, the city of Tampa says it bought the armored personnel carrier from the military with a "Federal security grant." More:
The APC is bullet resistant, can hold 13 passengers and it is virtually unstoppable. On pavement, it can reach speeds of 60 mph.
A second picture from Occupy Tampa shows a list labeled "our sponsors." Tampa police also have a smaller "amphibious tank type vehicle" used by the Marines in Desert Storm.
