{"id":86625,"date":"2020-06-14T06:32:39","date_gmt":"2020-06-14T11:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=86625"},"modified":"2020-06-14T06:32:39","modified_gmt":"2020-06-14T11:32:39","slug":"auto-draft-31","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2020\/06\/14\/auto-draft-31\/","title":{"rendered":"Why American Police Officers Look Like Soldiers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"VOA \u2014 A decades-old Pentagon program that donates surplus military-grade weapons and vehicles to local police departments is drawing fresh scrutiny amid the weeks-long protests over the death of African American George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The initiative, known as the “1033 program,” has provided police departments with more than $7 billion worth of equipment since 1991, including hundreds of millions of\u00a0dollars’ worth\u00a0of military-grade equipment, ranging from semi-automatic assault rifles to 40-ton Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs) built for American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Local law enforcement officials defend the program, saying the equipment\u00a0has\u00a0saved lives and enabled police to respond to emergencies. But critics say the gear encourages officers to use heavy-handed tactics and weaponry during routine drug searches and street protests\u00a0such as\u00a0the ongoing demonstrations over Floyd\u2019s death.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In response to public outcry that the 1033 program helped foster police militarization, former President Barack Obama\u2019s administration in 2015 put severe limits on the program, banning the transfer of bayonets, grenade launchers and other military weapons and equipment. Police departments returned 126 tracked armored vehicles, 138 grenade launchers and 1,623 bayonets.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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In this Nov. 13, 2013 photo, Warren County Undersheriff Shawn Lamouree poses in front the department’s mine resistant ambush protected vehicle, or MRAP, in Queensbury, N.Y.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But President Donald Trump revoked the restrictions in August 2017, with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions dismissing the Obama administration\u2019s concerns about the program as \u201csuperficial\u201d and criticizing the limits on \u201clife-saving\u201d equipment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since then, the Defense Department program has provided an additional $1 billion of what it calls \u201cexcess property\u201d to police departments throughout the country, according to the\u00a0Defense Logistics Agency\u00a0(DLA).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Partly relying on donated military equipment, armed police officers decked out in riot gear have been deployed around the country, inviting comparisons to army soldiers. In parts of the country, police have used tear gas, flash bangs, pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse crowds of protestors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The badge on an Arlington County Police officer is seen as he aims a weapon as demonstrators are moved back after gathering to protest the death of George Floyd, June 1, 2020, near the White House in Washington.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0The display\u00a0of force suggests many police departments have \u201cnot gotten the message\u201d that demonstrators are protesting\u00a0heavy-handed police tactics, said Tom Nolan, a former Boston police officer\u00a0and\u00a0now a sociology professor at Emmanuel College.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe level of militarization that has been used to meet that increased level of protest is more significant and a more heavy presence than we saw in 2014,\u201d Nolan\u00a0said, referring to nationwide protests triggered by the fatal shooting of a young black man, Michael Brown, by white police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those demonstrations prompted debate about tensions between police and the\u00a0African American\u00a0community, the militarization of police and the excessive use of force.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Local law enforcement officials say it\u2019s unfair to blame the use of military equipment for excessive force by police.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe equipment is not the problem,\u201d said Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, who is also president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In San Marcos, Texas, police used an MRAP to rescue children during the historic floods of 2015, Acevedo said. Last year in Dayton, Ohio, police armed with a military-grade long gun took out a suspected shooter who had killed nine people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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An Arlington County Police officer aims as demonstrators are moved back after gathering to protest the death of George Floyd, June 1, 2020, near the White House in Washington.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Houston, the nation\u2019s fourth-largest city, police officers have not used MRAPs or Humvees during the current protests, he said.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Acevedo said, police militarization remains a \u201clegitimate issue\u201d worth debating.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we need to think about is what equipment is being provided\u201d\u00a0to\u00a0law enforcement, Acevedo said. \u201cHow is it being used? What are the policies and procedures for their use? What is the oversight? What is the command and control?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Roots in the 1960s<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Police militarization\u00a0dates back to\u00a0the 1960s when the U.S. government first began giving money to police departments to buy military equipment to fight crime. But it did not take off until Congress in 1989 authorized the transfer of surplus military equipment to local police departments in what eventually became known as the 1033 program.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The impetus for the initiative, according to Nolan, was America\u2019s then-raging war on drugs, when average police officers were outmatched by drug lords with powerful automatic weapons.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, this police militarization expanded further as the federal government poured billions of dollars in funding and equipment into police departments to fight terrorism, turning them from law enforcement agencies into \u201cfront-line shock troops in the war on terror,\u201d according to Nolan.<\/p>\n

Although the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice provide far more money to local law enforcement, police departments have long viewed the 1033 program as an easy catch with few strings attached. In 2017, the General Accounting Office created a fictitious federal agency and was able to obtain more than 100 controlled items worth an estimated $1.2 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s basically\u00a0like\u00a0a catalog of free equipment,\u201d said Carl Takei, a senior attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who focuses on police practices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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A military Humvee blocks an intersection along K Street in downtown Washington as demonstrators protest the death of George Floyd, Monday, June 1, 2020, in Washington. Floyd died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers. (AP Photo\/Alex\u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To date, the\u00a0Defense Department has transferred nearly $7.5 billion worth of equipment to about\u00a08,200\u00a0police departments, according to the DLA. Typically, small arms weapons make up 5 percent and tactical vehicles less than 1 percent of the transferred equipment, according to DLA.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The MRAPs, originally built for U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, are among the most\u00a0sought-after\u00a0items. Thousands became available for transfer to police departments after U.S. forces left Iraq and sharply reduced their presence in Afghanistan. To date, the DLA has transferred 3,915 MRAPs, 9,868 Humvees\u00a0and\u00a01,441 aircraft, according to a spokeswoman.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many of the MRAPs and other free military goods have gone\u00a0to\u00a0small to mid-sized police departments that critics say have no need for them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sheriff\u2019s office of Banks County, Georgia\u00a0\u2014\u00a0population 19,000\u00a0\u2014\u00a0has received nearly $2 million worth of equipment under the program, including an MRAP (valued at $733,000) and two utility trucks, according to DLA.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Idaho, the Caldwell Police Department has received two MRAPs,\u00a0valued at $1.5 million,\u00a0in addition to personal protective shields, laser range finders and other items, according to DLA data. Caldwell has a population of 56,000.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even school districts have gotten their hands on some of the surplus equipment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2014, the Los Angeles Unified School District police received an MRAP, three grenade launchers and dozens of semi-automatic assault rifles. Amid public outcry, the school police returned the grenade launchers but kept the rest, with the police chief saying at the time that the \u201clife-saving\u201d equipment would be used \u201cfor extraordinary circumstances.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite such claims that tactical gear is used only in extraordinary situations, a 2014 ACLU analysis of more than 800 SWAT deployments found that the majority was for routine drug searches.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because the Obama-era restrictions were so quickly rescinded, they had little impact on the flow of military goods into police departments.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the DLA, more than $1 billion worth of equipment was transferred to law enforcement agencies from 2017 to 2019. Although the program has stopped transferring armored vehicles and grenade launchers, it has provided 579 bayonets\u00a0\u2014\u00a0described by a DLA spokeswoman as \u201cutility knives\u201d\u00a0\u2014\u00a0to police departments since 2017.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the wake of Floyd\u2019s death,\u00a0congressional Democrats, backed by an assortment of advocacy organizations, are seeking once again to limit free access to the surplus military ware.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

A recently introduced Democratic bill known as\u00a0the\u00a0Justice in Policing Act would limit the use of military equipment to counter-terrorism operations and require police departments to notify their communities before requesting such equipment from the Defense Department.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Law enforcement groups and their supporters in Congress oppose the move.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey use bulletproof vests and bulletproof shields to protect our officers who protect our communities,\u201d Republican House member Greg Steube of Florida said Wednesday. \u201cStripping them of that\u00a0ability, and\u00a0stripping them of their ability to use weapons to protect themselves, is a dangerous path to go down. And I don\u2019t think that our country supports that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA \u2014 A decades-old Pentagon program that donates surplus military-grade weapons and vehicles to local police departments is drawing fresh scrutiny amid the weeks-long protests over the death of African American George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The initiative, known as the “1033 program,” has provided police departments with more than $7 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":86626,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recposts"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}