Intimidating police vehicles

Driving around our local area today we saw two new police vehicles that caught our attention.  They were mid-sized sport utility vehicles which is not unusual these days.  What was unusual was that all of the side windows were blacked out.  That's in blacked out like those 3 Series BMW's that are ubiquitous in some neighborhoods that have gang activity, like the Fujian east side of Manhattan's Chinatown.

Why would the police in this quiet area have blacked out windows.  In the 29 years that we have lived there have been, to my knowledge, no serious injuries to police and no police killings.  The police are paid extremely well and have significant pensions after 20 years on the force.  Why would someone in the department for this county decide to have this unfriendly look on their vehicles. Almost all of the officers in this area wear shades almost all of the time, but isn't that enough.

This seems totally inappropriate.