Palm Springs City Council to consider acquiring new armored vehicle
City News Service
PALM SPRINGS (CNS) – Replacing a two-decade-old armored vehicle with a new one for the police department’s SWAT unit will be top on the Palm Springs City Council’s agenda tomorrow.
Procurement of a 2026 Lenco BearCat G3 is proposed by the city’s Department of Public Works and will be considered among items on the council’s consent agenda Wednesday at City Hall.
The proposed allocation for the acquisition is $449,125, with a 10% allowance for unforeseen expenses tied to the purchase, which would be made via Pittsfield, Massachusetts-based Lenco Industries Inc.
The vehicle now in service, a 2006 BearCat, has 20,565 miles, exceeding the preferred service life of 15-20 years established by the city.
The existing BearCat is deployed not only within Palm Springs, but made available to Desert Regional SWAT, encompassing personnel from the Cathedral City and Indio police departments.
As the BearCat provides ballistic protection, it’s classified as military equipment, restricting use for high-risk situations and not for crowd control, unless violence escalates to a level that warrants deployment under those conditions.
“The deployment of this vehicle is limited to circumstances authorized by a watch commander or SWAT commander based on the specific conditions of a critical incident,” according to a city staff report. “Itmay, however, be deployed by trained patrol personnel during rapidly evolving emergencies to establish protected corridors, assist with evacuations and enhance officer and civilian safety while regional tactical personnel are mobilizing.”
Under the city’s 1996 Equipment Replacement Policy, the fleet manager, in consultation with an affected agency, is delegated with responsibility to determine when a specialized vehicle should be replaced.
With the council’s approval, the process of ordering, delivering, up-fitting and placing the new BearCat into service would take an estimated two years. In the meantime, the current BearCat would remain available.
With completion of the replacement process, the Palm Springs Police Department would be permitted to identify an eligible recipient of the old BearCat.