Police Will Remain Militarized

Barack Obama has resisted calls to cancel or significantly curtail federal programs that transfer billions of dollars of military equipment to local police forces on Monday, choosing instead to focus on improving the training of officers given access to high-powered weapons and armoured vehicles previously used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[...]

Obama plans to issue an executive order before the end of February 2015, directing federal agencies to improve the way in which local law enforcement agencies procure, audit and manage a giant stockpile loaned and purchased from the Pentagon. However, the White House said the programs would remain in place.

Obama is also separately calling for a $263m, three-year spending package to reform police departments across the country which, if approved by Congress, could lead to the purchase of an additional 50,000 lapel-mounted cameras to record police officers on the job.

  The Guardian

Because nothing could go wrong with lapel cameras.

In a statement earlier this year, Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, who was among the cabinet members who met with the president on Monday, said police use of military equipment could backfire.

“This equipment flowed to local police forces because they were increasingly being asked to assist in counterterrorism,” he said.

Oh, really? I specifically recall the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999.

In 1990, section 1208 of the "National Defense Authorization Act of 1990" authorized transfer of military hardware from the Department of Defense broadly to "federal and state agencies" but specifically "for use in counter-drug activities" as this legislation was passed in the context of the War on Drugs. Until 1997, it was called the 1208 program and run by the Department of Defense from the Pentagon and its regional offices.

In 1995, the Law Enforcement Support Office was created within the DLA to work exclusively with law enforcement.

In 1997, the 1208 program was expanded to the 1033 program with the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997 allowing "all law enforcement agencies to acquire property for bona fide law enforcement purposes that assist in their arrest and apprehension mission", and that "Preference is given to counter-drug and counter-terrorism requests

  Wikipedia (references embedded)

1990. Not 9/11/2001.

A memorandum of agreement between the DLA and the states participating in 1033 requires, that local police forces use the military equipment within one year, or return it. The rules allow police to dispose of or sell some goods after at least one year of usage.

[...]

"For security reasons [1033 program record] information is not subject to public review", per DLA.

They have to “use it or lose it” within one year. I didn’t know that. They’ll definitely want to use it, then, won’t they?

In 2003, a Defense Department Inspector General audit found incorrect or inadequate documentation in about three-quarters of the transactions analyzed, declaring 1033 Program records unreliable.

The Government Accountability Office found in 2005 that the Pentagon "does not have management controls in place" to avert waste, abuse and fraud in the program. Investigators identified "hundreds of millions of dollars in reported lost, damaged, or stolen excess property ... which contributed to reutilization program waste and inefficiency."

[...]

The fact that in Arizona a Payson, Arizona Police Department Detective, was appointed as the state coordinator, made it easier for Paul Babeu, Sheriff of Pinal County (Arizona) to amass "more than $7 million worth of Humvees, fire trucks, firearms, defibrillators, barber chairs, underwear, thermal-imaging scopes, computers, motor scooters and other from 2010-2012, which he told county supervisors he would auction off to balance his budget.

But, I digress.

The president argued that “the law too often feels as if it is being applied in discriminatory fashion”, but qualified those remarks by saying racial bias was neither widespread nor “the norm”.

  The Guardian

Says the black man in the White House bubble. Does he never go out in the streets of DC?

“There’s been commissions before, there have been task forces, there have been conversations and nothing happens. And I try to describe to people why this time will be different. And part of the reason this time will be different is because the President of the United States is deeply invested in making sure that this time is different.”

Uh-huh. I noticed that he’s made race relations a ceaseless, major part of his presidency since the day he got into office. DEEPLY invested.

And BTW…

The report states that “[t]he 1033 Program prohibits the transfer of property whose predominant purpose is combat operations” – including “grenade launchers” – yet according to news reports, the LAPD got grenade launchers from the program, as did the cops in Springfield, Massachusetts. As the New York Daily News reported this summer, grenade launchers have “been documented as stockpiled among several agencies in Virginia and Utah” as well.

  The Guarian

Cops with grenade launchers.

 And, while we're on the subject:



...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.