The claims of scarce cash must seem odd, though, to anyone visiting the small New Hampshire town of Keene. Keene is not a violent place. Between 1999 and 2012, it saw only three homicides. Yet its police department has spent nearly $286,000 on an armored personnel carrier known as a BearCat. Asked why a town like Keene needed a vehicle better suited to trundling around Baghdad, the police chief explained that it would be used to patrol Keene’s “Pumpkin Festival and other dangerous situations.
