Norfolk had a fake police department

[Chucktshoes]

This is amazing.

Basically, post 9/11, someone leading a small unarmed guard contingent on Norfolk managed to grow their security program, COMPLETELY on their own and without any directive to or oversight for, to an unauthorized police force with 92 vehicles, an effing speed boat, and a full armory with all the kit you could imagine.

It looks like no one in the Navy ever really questioned whether or not they had the authority to do what they were doing, and it turns out that nope. They didn't. This is intense. Hahaha.

Like, i can completely see how this happened, down to the DLA just handing over massive amounts of unused vehicles to them because they had an address on Norfolk.

This is not the first story like this that I have seen. I feel like I missed out on some massive opportunities. 

[Garufa]

Once upon a time I would have been surprised.  The government is simply incapable of overseeing itself and any branch or agency with "defense" in its name is the worst.

If we had a congress with any kind of balls then $21M would be deducted from next year's appropriation.  The same goes for every misuse of taxpayer's funds.

Edited September 4, 2017 by Garufa

[jhc77]

I can see this slipping through. Having spent 29 years in that area I can see it being overlooked. One of the largest if not largest concentration of military personnel  in the US. 

I agree with Garufa also. 

[peejman]

Wow. Completely believable, but wow. 

[Dustbuster]

Black water lives!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Dolomite_supafly]

I suspect there will be a lot coming out about the 1033 program as well. I looked up my county and several sheriff's ago took possession of a BUNCH of machine guns. In talking with some officers they have never seen or heard of all those guns.

[Ronald_55]

Wow. I wonder if these guys ever actually did anything worthwhile.

[Chucktshoes]

Just now, Ronald_55 said:

Wow. I wonder if these guys ever actually did anything worthwhile.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say no, but I bet they had a lot of fun doing it. 

[Ronald_55]

Just now, Chucktshoes said:

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say no, but I bet they had a lot of fun doing it. 

I am sure. Playing is always more fun when someone else is paying. I bet these guys all still have a kick a$$ armory and motorpool at home.

[Erik88]

Unreal. I wish Trump would come down on government waste with an iron fist. A friend works for for ORNL as a laborer and was recently reprimanded for "working too hard". I wish I was joking. He told me that many of the employees will intentionally do nothing throughout the week just so they have an excuse to work the weekend and make overtime. On Sundays they get double pay. Some of these guys are making $70/hour on the weekend. They will make sure to spend every dollar in their budget to ensure its not reduced the next year.

Another friend works there as a researcher. He's not allowed to move any of his office furniture or someone will file a grievance against him for taking work away from the union guys. He has to put in a request to have someone come move things around. 

[Ronald_55]

1 hour ago, Erik88 said:

Unreal. I wish Trump would come down on government waste with an iron fist. A friend works for for ORNL as a laborer and was recently reprimanded for "working too hard". I wish I was joking. He told me that many of the employees will intentionally do nothing throughout the week just so they have an excuse to work the weekend and make overtime. On Sundays they get double pay. Some of these guys are making $70/hour on the weekend. They will make sure to spend every dollar in their budget to ensure its not reduced the next year.

Another friend works there as a researcher. He's not allowed to move any of his office furniture or someone will file a grievance against him for taking work away from the union guys. He has to put in a request to have someone come move things around. 

My Dad drove a dump truck for a few months in Oak Ridge on a government job. He actually got in trouble for doing too many loads in a day. He was told "We get paid by the hour, slow down." Telling my Dad that is like telling the grass not to grow. It seems unnatural for him. 

As far a the office furniture moving, my wife works for a large company that is not union, but still has to do they same crap. They can't even change a light bulb without sending in an electrician work ticket. So that is not all reserved for government. Still stupid though.

[monkeylizard]

Some crazy stuff happens with the government, especially when moving lots of equipment around. I had a friend who worked in the alarm shop on base when we were stationed in Germany. A few years before I met him, he had ripped out equipment from a nearby cruise missile installation being shut down in an arms reduction treaty. One of the salvaged items was a retina scanner. At the time, this was the kind of equipment that cost a crap ton of money, even by government standards. Knowing that, they tried to run it down by serial number to find it a home but the paperwork had gotten screwed up along the way so it wasn't officially even at the cruise missile site. That meant that as far as the bureaucracy was concerned, my friend didn't have it either....never mind that it was sitting on a shelf in the shop.

They didn't have any need for it, but couldn't send it back to anyone so it just sat there. Then that base closed and there's no telling where it ended up.

He always told me someone in the shop could walk out the door with it and sell it, but it never happened because they all knew that the kind of person who would need a military grade retina scanner would probably just kill you and take it than pay you for it.

Edited September 5, 2017 by monkeylizard

[Dolomite_supafly]

I was in Kabul and in one of our compounds sat a locked storage container. We spent several months looking and asking for an owner and no one knew anything about what was inside. So we popped the lock and it was nirvana. MP5's, belt fed machine guns, sniper rifles and a crap ton of other of other equipment. We never found the owners. The stuff I have seen sitting in warehouses is mindboggling.

[monkeylizard]

I'm reminded of the shipping containers filled with AKs and M-16s in the movie "Lord of War". There's definitely some crazy stuff out there. Makes you wonder how all the countries with the truly nasty stuff manage to keep it contained.

[Chucktshoes]

1 hour ago, monkeylizard said:

I'm reminded of the shipping containers filled with AKs and M-16s in the movie "Lord of War". There's definitely some crazy stuff out there. Makes you wonder how all the countries with the truly nasty stuff manage to keep it contained.

Simple, they don't. 

[Ronald_55]

2 hours ago, Dolomite_supafly said:

I was in Kabul and in one of our compounds sat a locked storage container. We spent several months looking and asking for an owner and no one knew anything about what was inside. So we popped the lock and it was nirvana. MP5's, belt fed machine guns, sniper rifles and a crap ton of other of other equipment. We never found the owners. The stuff I have seen sitting in warehouses is mindboggling.

Sounds like time to UPS some stuff home lol

[monkeylizard]

Like Radar mailing home a Jeep, piece by piece.

[JAB]

Maybe I should head up to Norfolk and wear one of those black t-shirts that says 'Security' in white letters across it.  I won't take much - I'd just kinda like to have a Humvee, a couple of those Berettas and maybe some night vision stuff, just for kicks.  Heck, to the government that's like asking for a stick of gum or something - they won't even miss that stuff and I'd enjoy the heck out of it.

You know, that gives me an idea that might help the national budget and give all this poor, homeless equipment a place to go.  You've got surplus/decommissioned equipment you don't need and that is perfectly legal for private ownership?  Well, tell you what - for, say, a 5000 to 1 exchange rate you can keep any tax return I may have coming and just give some of that equipment to me, instead (meaning I get $5000 worth of equipment for every $1 in tax return I am owed.)  Sounds like a good deal, to me!

Heck, all in all it would probably cost the government less to just give me that Humvee, a couple of pistols and some night vision goodies than it costs them to store and inventory it (or investigate where in the heck it went when they 'give' it away to someone unintentionally or just flat lose it.)

[Ronald_55]

4 minutes ago, JAB said:

Maybe I should head up to Norfolk and wear one of those black t-shirts that says 'Security' in white letters across it.  I won't take much - I'd just kinda like to have a Humvee, a couple of those Berettas and maybe some night vision stuff, just for kicks.  Heck, to the government that's like asking for a stick of gum or something - they won't even miss that stuff and I'd enjoy the heck out of it.

You know, that gives me an idea that might help the national budget and give all this poor, homeless equipment a place to go.  You've got surplus/decommissioned equipment you don't need and that is perfectly legal for private ownership?  Well, tell you what - for, say, a 5000 to 1 exchange rate you can keep any tax return I may have coming and just give some of that equipment to me, instead (meaning I get $5000 worth of equipment for every $1 in tax return I am owed.)  Sounds like a good deal, to me!

Heck, all in all it would probably cost the government less to just give me that Humvee, a couple of pistols and some night vision goodies than it costs them to store and inventory it (or investigate where in the heck it went when they 'give' it away to someone unintentionally or just flat lose it.)

Good idea....never will happen. That would mean that the IRS would have to give up money they want to get for the Navy/Army/Marines/ETC. to get the $x.xx. Different departments and organizations are touchy about giving their money away....even to another government agency.

[JAB]

20 minutes ago, Ronald_55 said:

Good idea....never will happen. That would mean that the IRS would have to give up money they want to get for the Navy/Army/Marines/ETC. to get the $x.xx. Different departments and organizations are touchy about giving their money away....even to another government agency.

The IRS wouldn't be giving up anything.  I'm talking about any amount of money that the IRS would normally have to send to me in the form of a tax refund (which, trust me, isn't much - but if I could get a $5000 to $1 excange rate in my favor I'd be able to get some nice things - especially if these arrangements were sales tax free.)  Heck, I'd say the IRS would be all for it, in fact.  See, when I load the back of my new (to me) Humvee up with my night vision goodies and a couple of cases of those Berettas and some, other goodies then get my FFL in order to legally sell all but the few I will keep for my private collection I will have to report any 'profit' I make off of my new (and temporary) business as a legal firearms dealer as 'income'.  Even if I sell those pistols at a really, really good price the IRS will make a decent chunk of change off of the taxes owed on that income (and I am sure I wouldn't be the only one doing that.)  So, rather than sitting in warehouses, gathering dust and being slowly lost/taken/stolen that equipment could be enjoyed by the American citizens who paid for them in the first place AND bring tax revenue back in to the government coffers.  How could they not go for it? 

Heck, maybe $5000 to $1 is a little steep.  I could probably settle for, say, $1,500 to 1 - as long as the value of the now technically used equipment involved is valued using real 'street' prices and not based on what the government actually paid for it (being that the government is notorious for doing things like paying $800 for a hammer or some such.)

Edited September 7, 2017 by JAB

[Ronald_55]

10 minutes ago, JAB said:

The IRS wouldn't be giving up anything.  I'm talking about any amount of money that the IRS would normally have to send to me in the form of a tax refund (which, trust me, isn't much - but if I could get a $5000 to $1 excange rate in my favor I'd be able to get some nice things - especially if these arrangements were sales tax free.)  Heck, I'd say the IRS would be all for it, in fact.  See, when I load the back of my new (to me) Humvee up with my night vision goodies and a couple of cases of those Berettas and some, other goodies then get my FFL in order to legally sell all but the few I will keep for my private collection I will have to report any 'profit' I make off of my new (and temporary) business as a legal firearms dealer as 'income'.  Even if I sell those pistols at a really, really good price the IRS will make a decent chunk of change off of the taxes owed on that income (and I am sure I wouldn't be the only one doing that.)  So, rather than sitting in warehouses, gathering dust and being slowly lost/taken/stolen that equipment could be enjoyed by the American citizens who paid for them in the first place AND bring tax revenue back in to the government coffers.  How could they not go for it? 

Heck, maybe $5000 to $1 is a little steep.  I could probably settle for, say, $1,500 to 1 - as long as the value of the now technically used equipment involved is valued using real 'street' prices and not based on what the government actually paid for it (being that the government is notorious for doing things like paying $800 for a hammer or some such.)

You are right in correcting me. Sign me up for it if you work it out. I will take all I can fit in the back of a Semi, even if I have to take out a loan to buy it. Can we get a waiver so that we can sell globally? Some of that night vision stuff would bring even higher prices in some other places. Naturally, I would not sell anywhere we had military involvement. 

[JAB]

21 hours ago, Ronald_55 said:

You are right in correcting me. Sign me up for it if you work it out. I will take all I can fit in the back of a Semi, even if I have to take out a loan to buy it. Can we get a waiver so that we can sell globally? Some of that night vision stuff would bring even higher prices in some other places. Naturally, I would not sell anywhere we had military involvement. 

Well, I think we would have to have buying limits.  Otherwise some uber-rich dude or group of dudes would swoop in and buy it all up, effectively cutting everyday, working schmoes out of the deal.  I want to see more of a 'spread the wealth' program where every working American gets a chance to play (as we all chip in at least a little, in the form of taxes, to buy the stuff to begin with I think everyone should have a chance.)  I would envision a situation where 1. only individuals can purchase, not business entities or investment groups 2. There would probably end up being a 'waiting list'.  As such, there would probably also need to be a limit (pretty high limit but still a limit) on how much an individual can buy in a particular year and possibly 3. a restriction which states that an individual who takes advantage of the program has to wait x number of years (somewhere between 3 and 5, maybe?) before being eligible to buy, again with the exception that near the end of each budget year any, remaining items which aren't 'spoken for' will be opened up to purchase by those folks, too.  I also don't want to see 'auctions' where stuff goes to the highest bidder or things being sold in 'lots' for several million dollars a pop.  Nope, I'm talking about everything selling individually for a set price (except, maybe, those unspoken for, end of budget year items that might be bundled and/or auctioned.)  I'm thinking kind of along the lines of the Civilian Marksmanship Program except without any need to be part of any kind of affiliated group or club - you only need to be an American citizen (obviously felons would be restricted from buying some of the equipment but not all of it.) 

Edited September 8, 2017 by JAB

[Ronald_55]

Sounds good. I just see some rich dude paying bus loads of 20 year olds to go buy for him. Or having his buddy hold listings up so they only sale at 11:59 the last day of the budget year. That way  he can buy all he wants. 

Then he probably "refurbs" the items and sells them back to the government at s 2000% profit. 

[JAB]

4 hours ago, Ronald_55 said:

Sounds good. I just see some rich dude paying bus loads of 20 year olds to go buy for him. Or having his buddy hold listings up so they only sale at 11:59 the last day of the budget year. That way  he can buy all he wants. 

Then he probably "refurbs" the items and sells them back to the government at s 2000% profit. 

Possible.  There would obviously have to be a lot of oversight and there would still be people who would find ways to abuse the system.  Luckily, those 20 year olds likely couldn't buy up all the Beretta's and other handguns, at least - would probably have to be 21 for that (I get what you are saying, just had to be a bit of a smart alec.)  It would still probably be better than the current system of stuff just disappearing or sitting in warehouses for years.