If anything, the better defended our cops are, the less excuse they have to use lethal force. If a cop knew his life was never in danger, he would have almost no reason to use lethal force.
In many cases, this hardware's already built, it's built to survive a lot tougher duty than the police put it through, and it makes no sense to me why they wouldn't use it.
Because vehicles don't maintain themselves. For example, Redmond, WA has an armored personnel carrier. I assume, without knowing, that it was a gifted leftover. But the tires alone are outrageously expensive (>$1000 or more per, but don't quote me) and they don't last very long. And it's my understanding that something like an APC is like an RV: all stuff rattling around, something always needs work. I have seen that thing out and about a total of once, at the park for "bring the kids to see fire trucks and stuff" day. As a former professional auto mechanic, I look at that thing and see nothing but constant work, like painting the Golden Gate Bridge.
So even though the vehicle might have been of no cost to the city, you're not going to find parts at AutoZone (they might carry air and oil filter for it, if the engine is based on something used elsewhere). Your mechanic has to go to training to figure out how to work on it. If you actually use the thing, now you need at least another part-time mechanic because your other guy now diverts time to work on the APC (and he's the only one trained to do it). I also assume that if you need an APC, you really need it now, so it must be maintained to a state of "ready to roll" at all times.
In conclusion, I can see a lot of this "free" stuff turning into money pits.
On what grounds are you making this claim? There are countless families of slain, unarmed citizens shot by police who would say otherwise.
The problem, in my eyes, is that they want to appear as a military. They dress like soldiers, and now they have soldiers equipment. This reenforces the perverse wanna-be soldier attitude so many cops have now. It tells them that that mindset is ok, and projects it to the communities they're supposed to be serving.
Beyond that, maybe giving them more an more defensive capabilities is a bad idea because it allows them to be comfortable as they continue to escalate tension with, and levels of force against, the communities they operate in. Perhaps things would operate a little better if both sides had a healthy respect for each other, instead of one siding being armed to the teeth and knowing they can just continue to use force until they've won. Police need to remember that they're servants, not hired guns.
I'm looking for a daily driver for Midwest winters.
Face it, without specific laws blocking the use of military grade hardware by the police we will end up with a police state. First came over militarization of SWAT teams to the same with nearly all police. They even have tracked military vehicles in some jurisdiction as well as military transports never designed for road use (one of my neighboring counties has a tank and was ridiculed over it after someone put a training video to death metal; search for Doraville tank)