There are not impulse buys, these must be part of a program, which is not to be made public. Same with the billion rounds of ammo, same with every agency imaginable getting a SWAT team, same with fortifying federal buildings.
The most "benign" reason I can think of for all of this is that they are planning for massive civil unrest in a few years, and are prepping for it.
And if you haven't gotten the memo about this, you are on your own.
It’s a ‘gimmick’ or status-symbol. Once you get one....you go to the next level.
But here’s the other side of the story. You need a mechanic in the station who is certified and trained on maintenance. You can figure that it’s one guy and if the thing breaks down while he’s on vacation....tough luck.
The fuel bill? After the first year, most of these organizations with one....usually start to limit the usage of it. If you used it just once a month, that probably would add up to ten-percent of your total gas/diesel bill for the whole month with that one trip out.
Parts? Things wear out fairly fast....so if you were using twenty times a year....I think I’d calculate on at least $10k in parts, special oil, and tires.
Accidents? Well....as long as you creep along at ten to fifteen mph....ok. If you got up higher, you’d screw up on turns and hit other vehicles.
The bad guys getting smarter? Well, I think we’ve all been waiting for mortars and improvised explosives to be brought into the country, and be standard use against these armored vehicles. Americans in WW II Germany learned quickly how to counter them, and it’s not exactly rocket science.
There’s a town in Georgia which got one just after 911, and now uses it maybe two times a year for a real mission, and once a year for a parade appearance. They have a tow bar rigged up (I’m told) and have learned to have a wrecker on call to pull the thing back into the yard (it breaks fairly often). They won’t get rid of it, mostly because of the status involved. But they kinda admit that it’s killing their maintenance budget.