Wyoming’s Goshen County Sheriff’s Office wants you to know they have a grenade launcher.
Actually, in the last 65 years three grenade launchers have been moved through the department, according to The Casper Star-Tribune. That’s despite the fact that none of the grenade launchers have been used by deputies in the department.
“We would use it in situations when less-lethal force is justified to get the situation under country,” Lt. Jeremy Wardell told the Wyoming newspaper in a report on Sunday. “That tool gives us an option not to use lethal force.”
Wardell described the grenade launcher as a “less-lethal” option.
“It’s just another option in that middle area between verbal and lethal force,” Wardell said. “We have the ability to use it in the jail as well.”
According to officials, members of the department can use the grenade launcher for firing tear gas in a hostage crisis. But Goshen County has not had a hostage situation in at least 15 years, according to the Star-Tribune.
The population of Goshen County is 14,000. It is the only county in the state that’s listed by the Department of Defense as having received a grenade launcher. The sheriff’s department there got its first grenade launcher, a 37 mm, in the 1950s, according Sheriff Don Murphy.
“I think the problem has been more about the fact that the federal government has encouraged people to take this equipment,” Burt said.
Just another example of how the police and the military are basically becoming the same thing. The difference is that the military uses its force against other countriies, and the police use its force against us.
" less - lethal " ? Explosives kill - unless he just wants to maim . Righttttttttt .
Don’t tell us, tell Clive Bundy.
Nice unstory.
They use it to launch tear gas rounds, not explosives…so far.
As long as they only have tear gas cannisters and not grenades to launch from the thing, I couldn’t care less if they have one.
PS: Who is “Burt” quoted in the last graf of the story/who is editing TPM these days??