By Katie Landan
FOX News
HARDIN, Mont. — When two brand new, shiny black Mercedes SUVs bearing a “Hardin Police Department” logo drove through the main thoroughfare of Hardin, Mont., last week, people took notice.
“How many police forces have Mercedes?” said Charlene Warren, a local business owner who has lived in Hardin for more than half a century. “That threw up a red flag.” And speaking of flags, it did not go unnoticed that the emblem on the sides of the SUVs bore a strong resemblance to the Serbian national flag.
Furthermore, those “police department” cars were rolling through Hardin, a small southeastern Montana town of 3,600 that just happens not to have a police department.
The luxury vehicles that rolled through town belonged to the American Police Force (APF), a California-based security firm that is drafting a contract that will give it control over a $27 million medium-security prison that was built in Hardin more than two years ago, but has never held any prisoners.
Read full story: Mystery ‘police’ force has small Mont. town on edge