Two Years of Data On What Military Equipment the Pentagon Gave To Local Police

v3rgEz writes: Wondering how the St. Louis County Police ended up armed with surplus military gear, and what equipment other departments have? A FOIA request at MuckRock has turned up every item given to local law enforcement under the Pentagon's 1022 program, the mechanism by which local law enforcement can apply for surplus or used military gear.

Comments

No

[Anonymous Coward]

Military surplus doesn't kill people, cops kill people....

Re:No

[diamondmagic]

Military surplus makes such tyranny especially cheap, cheaper than it would otherwise be. Also something about the law of demand.

Re:No

[JDAustin]

When you give the police weapons of war then they will find someone to go to war with. Unfortunately, that is the general populace.

Re:No

[gmuslera]

When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Now police's only tool are military-grade weapons, intended to kill.

And sometimes the situation changes how people is, like in this Standford prison experiment

Add to that how police cover up miscarriages and that you can't film the police, is not just who watches the watchers, but who watches the watchers that have military-grade weapons in the streets and are abusing of them.

Re:No

[theshowmecanuck]

When you give everyone guns they will find someone to shoot. And if you listen to the NRA, then you know that just isn't true. So your statement can't be true either.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not really the weapons that make the police act this way, it's the lack of accountability.

Re:No

[cold fjord]

When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Now police's only tool are military-grade weapons, intended to kill.

Really? What makes you think that? The additional weapons are available as additional contingency weapons, not as a solitary replacement for all tools, weapons, technology, and methods that they used before.

You also overlook that police departments started substituting rifles for shotguns long ago due do demonstrated need, and the experience of being outgunned.

National Geographic Situation Critical Hollywood Shootout

Re:No

[erikkemperman]

I think the point is that when the police are shooting people in great numbers -- I don't think the US has a peer in that dept -- then it might not be a great idea to give them even more destructive weaponry. Sure it would be "contingency" equipment when anyone asks, but sooner or later it'll be standard issue.

Remember those billions (!) of rounds of ammo that DHS bought?

In combination with the, shall we say, questionable record of accountability of police actions, tooling up to this extent seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

Re:No

[hodagacz]

Private citizens are under far more accountability and surveillance than law enforcement.

Re:No

[Travis Mansbridge]

Actually, the drug addicts are the low hanging fruit, and the war on drugs is precisely why the US has imprisoned a far higher percentage of its population than any other first world nation.

Re:No

[PopeRatzo]

You could be downloading an illegal copy of a movie from Starbucks and be busted while simultaneously a drug addict and a pimp are engaged in some sort of dispute across the street.

It is not illegal for a "drug addict and a pimp" to be engaged in some sort of dispute.

Re:No

[Shawndeisi]

Launching rubber bullets and tear gas, which share the 40mm platform.

Too much surplus

[halltk1983]

If we have this much surplus, clearly we're buying too much. I know that if I find myself giving away cans of green beans, I make sure I don't buy a whole pallet the next time I'm at Costco.

Re:Too much surplus

[jd2112]

If we have this much surplus, clearly we're buying too much. I know that if I find myself giving away cans of green beans, I make sure I don't buy a whole pallet the next time I'm at Costco.

Perhaps, but unlike the military you don't have some Senator from a state with a lot of green bean farms and canning plants telling you that you must purchase pallets of green beans regardless of whether you want or need them.

Re:Too much surplus

[Firethorn]

Have you never bought something that it turned out that you didn't need? Amplify that to the scale the DoD operates on and you get some serious amounts of 'surplus'.

Add in that the military has to operate on the principal of being prepared, and thus have stocks in case of danger, it makes sense for durable goods to still be useful when declared surplus.

For example, rather than having eight types of truck around, cut it down to 2 and surplus the rest. Individual departments with ONE armored vehicle can worry about the parts it needs, and if it breaks down it's not normally that big of a deal. Meanwhile the Army has to worry about hundreds of them, and if they break down too often due to age it's just not worth it.

Re:Too much surplus

[ShanghaiBill]

We just finished with two useless wars.

Those wars were NOT useless. They generated enough ethnic hatred, extremism, and anti-Americanism to ensure generous defense budgets for decades to come. From the point of view of the MIC, these wars were a big success.

Re:Too much surplus

[rtb61]

There is your biggest problem right there, "LAW ENFORCEMENT". You keep letting that term slide through and your problems will only continue to get worse. They are not law enforcement, their duty is not to force the law, they are not the courts, the place where judge and jury enforce the law upon those that they have proven to have broken it. Police Officer are there to assist the public in upholding the law. When a police officer 'believes' a member of the public has broken the law, they arrest them and arraign them for trial. Where the claim is substantiated and the court enforces the law and applies a penalty.

What you have now is something wildly out of control, where Law Enforcement officers enforce contempt of cop laws by brutalising them or publicly executing them on the spot. What change then start by publicly banning and legislating against the term 'Law Enforcement' because that term direct implies the role of police, judge, jury, execution and is in fact contrary to constitutional laws and is a gross and huge over reach.

Re:Too much surplus

[riverat1]

Don't you think the inability to negotiate a status of forces agreement that gave US soldiers immunity from Iraqi law had something to do with it? Should we have forced ourselves on them and violated their sovereignty?

Re:Too much surplus

[erikkemperman]

US Defense budgets and military personnel strength are in steep decline and will be for years to come due to sequestration and other cuts.

I assume you mean the 2013 cuts -- those have been matched, basically dollar for dollar, by increasing the "temporary" budget for Afghanistan. US military spending remains outrageous, at about the level of the rest of the world put together.

The US was attacked on 9/11 because of existing religious extremism and anti-Americanism, not the other way around, the US didn't cause it.

Fundamentalism is a part of it, yes, but would never amount to anything like what we've seen were it not for widespread anti-US sentiments stemming from more pragmatic reasons, such as US foreign policy for the last, oh, seven decades. 911 was a scandalous crime, no doubt about it, but to state that it is completely unrelated to your own actions is patently false.

It is baffling how you could get such simple questions so wrong. Substituting slogans for facts and thinking?

Coming from someone who apparently still believes the Iraq war had anything to do with 911 other than rhetoric, and somehow still manages to delude himself that anti-American sentiment somehow thrives in complete isolation of its international posturing -- yeah, baffling is what that is.

Re:Real Problem

[lsllll]

Actually many (not all) of the policemen and policewomen in the U.S. are ex military. They've been trained on the equipment that was donated to the police departments. What we should be asking is why have we come to a time/place that we think we need a swat team knocking on a door for an eviction, or even a low profile drug related arrest.

Re:Real Problem

[CohibaVancouver]

Actually many (not all) of the policemen and policewomen in the U.S. are ex military.

That in itself can be a problem. Take a person who has been trained to shoot first and ask questions later and then make them into civilian law enforcement.

What could possibly go wrong?

Arms merchants are the real problem

[istartedi]

Arms merchants are the real problem. They should all be sho...umm. We should bomb their factorie.... ummm... Let's just nuke all the... umm..

Lemme get back to you on this.

Checked my own state

[gman003]

For Virginia, I skimmed through and found:
* Basically every county, city and even college police were involved. Specifically which department got each thing isn't listed.
* 2 "laser range-finder/target designators". They listed laser range-finders with a different name, so these are definitely ones that could illuminate a target for bombing. Scary.
* 4 explosive ordnance disposal robots
* 1 mine-resistant vehicle
* 23 5.56mm rifles, 14 7.62mm rifles, 4 .45 pistols and 3 12ga "riot-type" shotguns. I did not notice any other arms, specifically .50 rifles. Interestingly, there were no multiple transfers of weapons - either only one gun was given to each department, or they're logging individual serial numbers, or they're lying their ass off.
* On a lighter note, a single electronic calculator, a bicycle, two golf carts and a "mule" were also listed. Whether that mule was an M274 truck or an actual mule is unspecified - the M274 was obsoleted in the '80s while mules continue to be used in Afghanistan, so an actual mule isn't that implausible.

Re:Checked my own state

[sconeu]

MULE also stands for Modular Universal Laser Equipment, which is a tripod mounted laser designator. It's essentially the USMC equivalent of the Army's G/VLLD.

http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/marinefacts/blmule.htm

Only allowed to have civilian firearms ...

[drnb]

Sort of ... only allow police to have firearms that civilians are allowed to have. Solves two problems. The militarization of police and the disarming of the civilian populace.

Update on the mule

[Firethorn]

Okay, had a brain fart - I look up the rifle by NSN, and forget to check the mule, merely guessing.

Well, it's a Kawasaki mule model KAF400A per the NSN*

Going by the state that I remember us operating them in, I'd guess that the thing was probably a non-functioning worn out POS by the time the military lets go of it.

*National Stock Number.

Re:Real Problem

[ShanghaiBill]

Police departments across the USA are typically under staffed

There is little evidence that America is under-policed. Most studies have found a weak correlation between numbers of cops, and property crimes, and NO correlation with violent crimes. A meta-study found that a 10 per cent increase in officers will lead to a reduction in crime of around 3 per cent. There are far more cost effective ways to reduce crime, such as better prenatal and early childhood nutrition, better vocational training for teenagers, etc.

US cops need to grow a set.

[TapeCutter]

equipping all of their officers with riot shields/assault rifles, body armor, & armored vehicles they've ceased to be "peace officers".

Indeed, one of the first acts in the Irish/UK peace process in N Ireland was a military order for all UK soldiers to remove their helmets while on street patrol as a gesture of trust. The simple act of removing a helmet requires a hell of a lot more courage than shooting into a crowd with rubber bullets from atop of armored vehicles. Sure, the macho swat stuff must remain an option for serious incidents, but calling in a swat team with riot gear and snipers for a routine suburban drug bust is the hallmark of a coward.

Re:College and school police involved

[Zeek40]

Because college and university police departments are full of petulant man-children who were rejected by city and county police departments and who whine like 8 year olds: But mom! All the cool kids are getting issued M-16's and tear gas launchers!

Militiarization of police...

[bayankaran]

US has a serious problem with militarization of police. Its ironical that the "munitions" - what an inventive word by the way - are now targeted against your own citizens. The images coming from Ferguson remind you of Ukraine and/or other war torn nations.
All those police snipers/SWAT teams pointing laser weapons at protestors...one mistake by an adrenaline junkie will happen and you will get FPS action against your own citizens broadcast live around the world.
The superheroes, the best and brightest who planned putting military gear into the hands of police should be sent to GITMO.

Re:Militiarization of police...

[shutdown -p now]

Not really. The actual problem is the overuse and careless use of SWAT teams to serve mundane warrants.

It's not "overuse", it's literally 99% of what they do. Look up the stats that Maryland released after they passed a law mandating collection and public release of statistics on SWAT use. At this point we might as well conclude it's what those teams are created for.

Will you be among the best and brightest serving arrest warrants in barricaded drug houses to heavily armed drug dealers?

Can you give a single example of such a thing? This is often bandied around as a hypothetical scenario for why you need SWAT, but how often does it actually happens, if at all?

In other words, nothing has changed.

The things that changed, started to change in late 70s, and the militarization was mostly already completed under Reagan. Since then, not much has changed, indeed - it's just a slow but steady encroachment.

Not a Real Problem

[dbIII]

Somehow everyone coped in the 1950s without that when a large chunk of the population was ex-military with extensive combat experience and souvenir weapons.
Too many idiots watching fucking Rambo movies and thinking it's real.