Bunker Hill, Indiana, is a village of 900 people. It has not been consumed by the maelstrom of criminal violence that – we are told – would descend on any community even briefly deprived of the divine protection offered by a police department. The village obviously didn't need the department it had until December 12, when the Town Marshal and his four reserve deputies walked off the job to protest decisions by the town board.

"We have had issues with the town board, and there are some activities there where I felt like they were serving their own agenda," former Marshal Michael Thomison explained. Most of his complaints had to do with proposed budget cut-backs, and a refusal on the part of the council to purchase body armor for all five members of the department.

"I did not want to send someone out there with bad body armor," grouses Thomison. "I told them we have to provide this…. They were just not receptive to having a police department."

It's just no fun to play dress-up and swagger around the village unless the kids get the full costume and all of the accessories. The historical resonance of the village's name notwithstanding, Thomison and his buddies were not under siege by heavily armed adversaries, nor was there any realistic expectation that they ever would be.

Crime is practically non-existent in Bunker Hill – the most recent report lists one violent and ten property crimes – and the village is fifteen minutes away from the Miami County Sheriff's Office in the county seat of Peru (a deranged cartographer was apparently responsible for assigning city and county names). It's, therefore, reasonable to consider the police department as an unnecessary expense, and a potential source of avoidable trouble. That latter consideration, ironically, was underscored by the disgruntled officers themselves, who have accused town councilors of asking them to conduct unlawful background checks on each other.  The municipal officials stoutly deny ever making such requests.