Complete photoset at [flickr].

Saturday, I got up close and personal with the controversial new Dodge Chargers the Seattle Police Department is using for their newly created “Aggressive Drivers Response Team” [spd]. I wasn’t arrested or anything but if I had been, they wouldn’t have been able to put me in the back of the car because it has a stock back seat that looks downright comfortable — even suburban. That’s right, the new bad-ass, expensive, “tough-looking” [p-i] Dodge Chargers the SPD bought to catch speeders and intimidate evil-doers aren’t capable of the most basic of police duties. So, as cited by the SPD themselves, when the ferocious Charger pulls over an abominable speeder on Aurora Avenue and the officer has reason to believe the driver is drunk or otherwise worthy of arrest, he must place the suspected offender in handcuffs and then call in a regular, dare I say practical, squad car to transport the suspect to jail for processing.

I imagine a lot of the public outrage over these new cars stems from the fact that the SPD is understaffed and the community is feeling the brunt of it in the form of delayed response times and stressed officers (stressed officers can be unpleasant officers). Adding insult to injury is that the creation of this team doesn’t add head count to the department, it shifts it from other areas. So, if you’re the Seattle Police Department, and you know that funds are tight and officers are stretched thin, you’d think it’d be obvious that adding six (soon to be eight) muscle cars that aren’t capable of simple police applications is illogical to the point of absurdity. Forgetting public perception for a moment, this stinks of incompetent wastefulness. If I’m wrong, somebody please set me straight.