If you see military helicopters buzzing through your neighborhood sometime soon, don’t freak out. It’s probably a military training exercise.
Miami-Dade police sent out a warning Monday that multiple police agencies would be providing support for a joint military training exercise somewhere over Miami and elsewhere in the county. The exercise will include the use of military helicopters.
“This is routine training conducted by military personnel designed to ensure the military’s ability to operate in urban environments, prepare forces for upcoming overseas deployments, and meet mandatory training certification requirement,” the police statement said.Liberals and moderates enjoy laughing at wingnuts who believe in loopy paranoid memes. It'd be a little easier to make fun of those people if the military did not contrive to make those paranoid memes real.
In 2011, a similar exercise took place in Brickell, a Miami suburb. Here's a description and here's a video.
On Tuesday, Miami police officers in Brickell said that it was all part of a planned Homeland Security exercise, but confusion about the helicopters was rampant about 6 a.m. Wednesday.I suppose we want the boys and girls of Homeland Security to be well-trained, but aren't there places away from actual cities where the choppers can practice? These days -- as opposed to ten years ago -- I'd say that there are more people who fear "the gummint" than fear the terrorists.
It all began about 9:15 p.m. Tuesday, when at least three large Black Hawk-like choppers landed in a parking lot of the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts on Biscayne Boulevard and 14th Street.
The choppers then charged over the Brickell and Miami river area. Men who appeared to be SWAT team members were also seen taking part in the exercise.
Witnesses were tweeting as the event unfolded.
"Three choppers just dropped a group of men on top of the Bank of America building in Brickell," tweeted a man identified as Ianik Drouin, about 9:45 p.m
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