Making and filming your own movie: Tips and tricks?

Hello.

A colleague and I are planning to produce a short film (roughly 30 minutes) that will require the use of
airsoft replicas and police vehicles, with several scenes set in public locations.
We aren't aiming for an amateur look; we want this to be a high-quality production. To achieve that, we also need to source
professional camera gear, lighting, microphones, and so on. My first question is whether anyone knows where to rent
high-end production equipment?

Since the script calls for police cruisers, we would need to rent them.
My next question concerns the logistics: is there any way to coordinate with the local police department to lease a vehicle, or
does anyone have experience or advice regarding how one might arrange something like that?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Depends on how you define "high-end" gear. You could probably find a Canon EOS 5D Mark II for rent on Craigslist for maybe $30 or $40 a day—and yeah, it’s an older model, but they used cameras like that to film shows like Gregory House... so it works. Real pro-level kits are going to cost you a fortune, and honestly, I don't know if it's worth the investment if you don't have any sponsors backing you up. Just try Googling "video equipment rental" or "photo gear rental"

There's this article here from 2008. I'm not really in the mood to dig through it, but since they apparently allow renting out police officers, there's probably a way to rent vehicles too. Or just head down to the local precinct and ask what's actually doable.