{"id":3188,"date":"2014-06-10T13:58:59","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T19:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/?p=3188"},"modified":"2014-06-10T13:58:59","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T19:58:59","slug":"war-gear-flows-to-police-departments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments\/","title":{"rendered":"War Gear Flows to Police Departments"},"content":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Matt Apuzzojune,

NEENAH, Wis. \u2014 Inside the municipal garage of this small lakefront city, parked next to the hefty orange snowplow, sits an even larger truck, this one painted in desert khaki. Weighing 30 tons and built to withstand land mines, the armored combat vehicle is one of hundreds showing up across the country, in police departments big and small.<\/p>\n

The 9-foot-tall armored truck was intended for an overseas battlefield. But as President Obama ushers in the end of what he called America\u2019s \u201clong season of war,\u201d the former tools of combat \u2014 M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers and more \u2014 are ending up in local police departments, often with little public notice.<\/p>\n

During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.<\/p>\n

The equipment has been added to the armories of police departments that already look and act like military units. Police SWAT teams are now deployed tens of thousands of times each year, increasingly for routine jobs.\u00a0Masked, heavily armed police officers in Louisiana raided a nightclub<\/a>in 2006 as part of a liquor inspection. In Florida in 2010, officers in SWAT gear and with guns drawn carried out raids on\u00a0barbershops<\/a>\u00a0that mostly led only to charges of \u201cbarbering without a license.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Military Equipment for Local Police<\/h2>\n

As the nation\u2019s wars abroad wind down, many of the military\u2019s surplus tools of combat have ended up in the hands of state and local law enforcement. Totals below are the minimum number of pieces acquired since 2006 in a selection of categories.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>

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\"06TK-nat-ARMS-web-Artboard_1<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Source: Department of Defense<\/div>\n
Correction: An earlier version of this graphic included an incorrect label for an illustration of a magazine. The label should read \u201cMagazines: No ammunition\u2019’ \u2014 not \u201cMagazine cartridges: Cartridges only, no ammunition.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

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When the military\u2019s mine-resistant trucks began arriving in large numbers last year, Neenah and places like it were plunged into the middle of a debate over whether the post-9\/11 era had obscured the lines between soldier and police officer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just seems like ramping up a police department for a problem we don\u2019t have,\u201d said Shay Korittnig, a father of two who spoke against getting the armored truck at a recent public meeting in Neenah. \u201cThis is not what I was looking for when I moved here, that my children would view their local police officer as an M-16-toting, SWAT-apparel-wearing officer.\u201d<\/p>\n

A quiet city of about 25,000 people, Neenah has a violent crime rate that is far below the national average. Neenah has not had a homicide in more than five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody has to be the first person to say \u2018Why are we doing this?\u2019\u00a0\u201d said William Pollnow Jr., a Neenah city councilman who opposed getting the new police truck.<\/p>\n

Neenah\u2019s police chief, Kevin E. Wilkinson, said he understood the concern. At first, he thought the anti-mine truck was too big. But the department\u2019s old armored car could not withstand high-powered gunfire, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like it. I wish it were the way it was when I was a kid,\u201d he said. But he said the possibility of violence, however remote, required taking precautions. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to go out there as Officer Friendly with no body armor and just a handgun and say \u2018Good enough.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

Congress created the military-transfer program in the early 1990s, when violent crime plagued America\u2019s cities and the police felt outgunned by drug gangs. Today, crime has fallen to its lowest levels in a generation, the wars have wound down, and despite current fears, the number of domestic terrorist attacks has declined sharply from the 1960s and 1970s.<\/p>\n

Police departments, though, are adding more firepower and military gear than ever. Some, especially in larger cities, have used federal grant money to buy armored cars and other tactical gear. And the free surplus program remains a favorite of many police chiefs who say they could otherwise not afford such equipment. Chief Wilkinson said he expects the police to use the new truck rarely, when the department\u2019s SWAT team faces an armed standoff or serves a warrant on someone believed to be dangerous.<\/p>\n

Today, Chief Wilkinson said, the police are trained to move in and save lives during a shooting or standoff, in contrast to a generation ago \u2014 before the Columbine High School massacre and others that followed it \u2014 when they responded by setting up a perimeter and either negotiating with, or waiting out, the suspect.<\/p>\n

The number of SWAT teams has skyrocketed since the 1980s, according to studies by Peter B. Kraska, an Eastern Kentucky University professor who has been researching the issue\u00a0for decades<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ubiquity of SWAT teams has changed not only the way officers look, but also the way departments view themselves. Recruiting videos feature clips of officers\u00a0storming into homes with smoke grenades<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0firing automatic weapons<\/a>. In Springdale, Ark.,\u00a0a police recruiting video<\/a>\u00a0is dominated by SWAT clips, including officers throwing a flash grenade into a house and creeping through a field in camouflage.<\/p>\n

In South Carolina, the Richland County Sheriff\u2019s Department\u2019s\u00a0website<\/a>features its SWAT team, dressed in black with guns drawn, flanking an armored vehicle that looks like a tank and has a mounted .50-caliber gun. Capt. Chris Cowan, a department spokesman, said the vehicle \u201callows the department to stay in step with the criminals who are arming themselves more heavily every day.\u201d He said police officers had taken it to schools and community events, where it was a conversation starter.<\/p>\n

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Photo<\/p>\n
\"JP-ARMS-2-superJumbo<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>
Kevin Wilkinson, the police chief of Neenah, Wis., said having a vehicle built for combat would help protect his officers.\u00a0CreditDarren Hauck for The New York Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAll of a sudden, we start relationships with people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Not everyone agrees that there is a need for such vehicles. Ronald E. Teachman, the police chief in South Bend, Ind., said he decided not to request a mine-resistant vehicle for his city. “I go to schools,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I bring \u2018Green\u00a0Eggs\u00a0and Ham.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pentagon program does not push equipment onto local departments. The pace of transfers depends on how much unneeded equipment the military has, and how much the police request. Equipment that goes unclaimed typically is destroyed. So police chiefs say their choice is often easy: Ask for free equipment that would otherwise be scrapped, or look for money in their budgets to prepare for an unlikely scenario. Most people understand, police officers say.<\/p>\n

“When you explain that you\u2019re preparing for something that may never happen, they get it,\u201d said Capt. Tiger Parsons of the Buchanan County Sheriff\u2019s Office in northwest Missouri, which recently received a mine-resistant truck.<\/p>\n