BearCat (ballistic engineered armoured response counter attack truck)

Article

15 June

The BearCat (Ballistic Engineered Armoured Response Counter Attack Truck) is an armoured personnel carrier produced by Lenco Industries. BearCats have become popular with police forces throughout the world as part of a trend towards police militarisation (1).

The BearCat is an automatic four wheel drive vehicle built on a Ford chassis. It has steel armour between 12 and 38 mm thick with bullet-proof glass.

The BearCat can resist .50 calibre bullets and explosives. It has run-flat tires, remote-operated cameras and it has a weapon mountable rotating roof hatch and gun ports in the side walls and doors. Depending on the model, the BearCat can carry up to 14 officers, plus additional officers on the running boards outside the vehicle.

In a crowd control situation, armoured vehicles like the BearCat can be used to intimidate or ram protestors and protect police from projectiles.

BearCats can be mounted with weapons such as a hydraulic ram, Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) (2) or water cannon (3). They can be fitted with a “mobile adjustable ramp system” to allow police to access multi-storey structures or gain an elevated firing position (4).

a brief history of bearcats

Before the advent of the BearCat and similar purpose-built armoured vehicles, the police generally repurposed military vehicles or added armour to civilian vehicles.

The BearCat was first manufactured in 2001 by Lenco Industries in the US based on their larger vehicle the B.E.A.R.

BearCats have been marketed as “rescue vehicles” and as part of a counter-terrorism push. The Department of Homeland Security has supplied grants for local police forces across the US to buy BearCats (5).

BearCats have been exported to over 50 countries (6), with 88 BearCats sold to their largest customer the Moroccan Auxiliary Forces in 2013 (7).

In 2014-2015 US police prominently deployed BearCats against Black Lives Matter protesters, for example in Ferguson after the killing of Michael Brown (8), and Baltimore after the killing of Freddie Gray (9).

In 2017 the US provided BearCats to their Kurdish ally Syrian Democratic Forces (10).

Police forces in every state in Australia, the Northern Territory and the Australian Federal Police have acquired BearCats. In 2021 a BearCat was deployed to counter protests against covid health orders in Melbourne (11).

In April 2024 students at Columbia University occupied an administration building to protest the university’s ties to Israel. Police used a BearCat with an elevated ramp to enter the second floor and attack the students (12).