Towns Say 'No Tanks' to Militarized Police
Growing Unease Over Departments' Use Of Vehicles and Gear Designed for Battle
February 7, 2014Wall Street Journal - Residents in some towns have begun standing up to the large armored vehicles that local police departments are receiving from the federal government.
Six-figure grants from the Department of Homeland Security have been funding BearCats and other heavily fortified vehicles in towns and cities nationwide since soon after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Beginning last summer, the government also has handed out 200 surplus vehicles built to withstand mines and bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is considering requests from 750 more communities.
Most police and citizens welcome the extra protection, saying recent mass shootings show any local force could find itself facing an extremely violent or dangerous situation. But antipathy has grown in some pockets of the country—from New York to Ohio to California—which see the machines as symbols of government waste and a militarization of law enforcement, including the growth of SWAT teams and high-tech gadgets in recent decades.
A Lenco BearCat that the Manchester, N.H., Police Department has owned since 2007.
Thomas Roy/New Hampshire Union Leader
In libertarian-leaning New Hampshire, a state lawmaker just introduced a bill that would ban municipalities from accepting military-style vehicles without approval from voters. That came in response to the Concord City Council's vote in the fall to accept a $258,000 federal grant to buy a BearCat, despite intense opposition from citizens who submitted a 1,500-signature petition and rallied outside City Hall holding signs that said, "More Mayberry, Less Fallujah" and "Thanks But No Tanks!"
"This seems over the top and unnecessary to have this level of armament," said the bill's sponsor, Republican state Rep. J.R. Hoell.He said police in 11 communities in New Hampshire now have armored vehicles.
The Facebook page of the Salinas, Calif., police department drew torrents of complaints after the force recently got an armored vehicle from the military surplus program.
"When did Salinas turn into a battlefield?" a citizen wrote in December. "I feel the Constitution shredding under my feet."Peter Kraska, a professor in the School of Justice Studies at Eastern Kentucky University, believes recent revelations about federal surveillance programs are helping drive the discomfort with outfitting police departments like the military. The armored vehicles are "a pretty visual example of overreach," he said. He also noted that the passage of time since the 2001 attacks may have eased worries about terrorist events.
Defense Department spokesman Mark Wright countered that the armored vehicles help not only in active-shooter situations but in natural disasters. He said there has been "vigorous interest" from local police in the 11,000 mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) trucks that the Pentagon is giving away in the U.S. The trucks cost between $400,000 and $700,000 new and are free to communities, though local police have to pay to transport the vehicles and to maintain them so they will be ready whenever they are needed.
DHS allocated nearly $1 billion for grants to states and local governments in fiscal year 2010 to protect against potential terrorist attacks, with $6 million going to armored vehicles, the most recent figures available for spending on the vehicles. The overall grant program has drawn criticism from federal budget hawks.
In 2012, Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) complained that more than $35 billion had been spent since 2003, some of it on "questionable items." He specifically criticized "tank-like" BearCats for local police, noting that the grant application from one small New Hampshire town cited "protecting the town's annual pumpkin festival" as a reason why the armored truck was needed.
Lenco Armored Vehicles., the Pittsfield, Mass., maker of the BearCat, the armored vehicle most popular with law enforcement, distributes about 100 of them a year to local police departments, many of them federal-grant recipients, said Lenco President Len Light. Typically, police visit the company to learn the technical aspects of the vehicles, which are mostly used by specialized tactical teams.
He said police officials want the vehicles in part because they know they will face questions if they are unprepared for a major event.
"They're in a rough spot," he said.Amid tough competition for federal grants, some departments are raising money or finding other ways to pay for the BearCats, Mr. Light said. In Southern California, the Simi Valley Police Department put its BearCat to use just two days after it acquired the vehicle with $280,000 in drug-forfeiture funds in December, said Commander Stephanie Shannon.
After an armed suicidal man barricaded himself in a car at a local park, officers used the BearCat to get close to the car and detain the man, she said.
A federal MRAP gift didn't sit well with everyone in upstate New York's Jefferson County. After winning a tense 8-6 vote by county legislators in October, the local sheriff took possession of a 44,000-pound, 14-foot high MRAP that can stop a .50-caliber round.
"It's militarizing the police force," said Scott Gray, a Republican county legislator and opponent, who said the issue was the testiest one he could recall in his 13 years in his post.He believes the presence of the trucks alone could inflame tense situations, and there is a potential for injuries if police rolled the vehicle through a crowd. Mr. Kraska, the Eastern Kentucky professor who follows the debate nationally, said he wasn't aware of any citizens being injured.
Jefferson County Sheriff John Burns said the vehicle hasn't been used, but it gives him some peace of mind. Thirty years ago, he rarely saw standoffs or hostage situations, but they now happen fairly regularly, a trend he attributes to population growth.
"I agree it's big, it's intimidating, but again, it's going to save lives," he predicted.Corrections & Amplifications
The Department of Homeland Security handed out $6 million in grants to local law enforcement for armored vehicles in fiscal year 2010. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said it was 2013.
The Best Reporting on Federal Push to Militarize Local Police
A few facts you might have missed about the flow of military equipment and tactics to local law enforcement.
ProPublica - Protests have continued for more than a week since the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. Police officers initially met protesters with full riot gear, armored vehicles and assault rifles, escalating tensions and leading Gov. Jay Nixon to replace the St. Louis County Police Department with the Missouri State Highway Patrol, saying the St. Louis suburb looked like “a war zone."
Federal Pipeline
via Politico
The Defense Department has provided tens of thousands of pieces of military equipment to local police departments for free. As a “long season of war” draws to a close for the U.S., surplus weapons meant for foreign battlefields are finding their way into police departments across the country, the New York Times reports. The free supplies provided to local law enforcement include machine guns, magazines, night vision equipment, aircraft and armored vehicles. Local news outlets have investigated the flow of military-grade weapons and equipment into police departments in Utah, Indiana, Georgia and Tennessee.
The DOD program, known as 1033, has provided $4.3 billion in free military equipment to local police. The 1033 program allows the Pentagon to transfer weapons to local police departments on permanent loan for free. The program first started in the 1990s as part of an effort to arm police during the drug crisis.
How it All Started
via Los Angeles Times
The Justice Department, working with the Pentagon, began to pay for military technology in police departments during the Clinton years. In 1994, the Justice Department and the Pentagon funded a five-year program to adapt military security and surveillance technology for local police departments that they would otherwise not be able to afford. Even then, the technologies raised concerns with civil rights activists, according to the Christian Science Monitor.
States received at least $34 billion in federal grants to purchase military grade supplies in the decade after 9/11.Thousands of local police departments across the country went on a “buying spree” fueled by billions in federal grants, CIR reported. Even in remote cities like Fargo, North Dakota, rated one of the safest cities in America, police officers have traveled with military style assault rifles in their patrol cars. We talked to one of the reporters behind the story, G.W. Schulz, about his findings on a MuckReads podcast in January 2012.
Department of Homeland Security spending on domestic security hit $75 billion a year in 2011. But that spending “has been rife with dubious expenditures,” the Los Angeles Times reported, including $557,400 in rescue and communications gear that went to 1,500 residents of North Pole, Alaska, and a $750,000 “anti-terrorism fence” that was built around a Veterans Affairs hospital in North Carolina.
Local Consequences
via Salt Lake Tribune
St. Louis County has received at least 50 pieces of free tactical gear from the Defense Department in the last four years. Newsweek obtained a list of the “tactical” items that St. Louis County police procured through the 1033 program, including night vision gear, vehicles, an explosive ordnance robot, rifles and pistols. Popular Science breaks down the types of body armor, vehicles and weapons used by Ferguson police, as documented by journalists and witnesses on social media.
Police conduct up to 80,000 SWAT raids a year in the U.S., up from 3,000 a year in the early ‘80s. That’s according to criminologist and researcher Peter Kraska. But according to a recent study by the American Civil Liberties Union, almost 80 percent of SWAT team raids are linked to search warrants to investigate potential criminal suspects, not for high-stakes “hostage, barricade, or active shooter scenarios.” The ACLU also noted that SWAT tactics are used disproportionately against people of color.
The grenade launchers used by Ferguson police can cause serious injury. Flash grenades like those used in Ferguson have been shown to cause serious harm in the past. In one instance, a flash-bang grenade exploded near a toddler’s face during a drug raid by a local SWAT team in Georgia. The boy spent several weeks in a burn unit and was placed in a medically induced coma. County officials later said that they did not plan to pay the toddler’s medical expenses.
Militarization isn’t just changing the tools police officers use, but how they relate to communities they serve.Investigative reporter Radley Balko told Vice that police officers are often isolated from the communities they work in. “I think a much deeper problem is the effect all of this war talk and battle rhetoric has had on policing as a profession,” Balko said in an interview. “In much of the country today, police officers are psychologically isolated from the communities they serve.”
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