Military equipment given to police by the Department of Defense tripled last year, in a sign of the increasing militarization of American law enforcement, a DailyMail.com investigation can reveal.
Data from the Department of Defense (DoD) lists more than $210 million of gear including armored vehicles, rifles and smoke grenade launchers sent to police forces last year – three times the $71 million worth of equipment obtained by cops from the department in 2018.
The data also shows a huge spike in the number of items obtained by police from the military, from 25,950 in 2018 to 182,005 last year, which is seven times higher.
And figures for just the first quarter of 2020 already show $60 million of military equipment, setting this year’s haul to be the most valuable since 2014.
Studies show police militarization leads to more killings by cops, and researchers say the true numbers of military items going to police departments could be much higher, as other army gear purchases by police are not tracked by the federal government.
Military equipment given to police by the Department of Defense tripled last year, in a sign of the increasing militarization of American law enforcement, a DailyMail.com investigation can reveal
Data from the Department of Defense (DoD) lists more than $210 million of gear including armored vehicles, rifles and smoke grenade launchers sent to police forces last year – three times the $71 million worth of equipment obtained by cops from the department in 2018
The data also shows a huge spike in the number of items obtained by police from the military, from 25,950 in 2018 to 182,005 last year, which is seven times higher
Interestingly, Minnesota, the epicenter of the nationwide riots over George Floyd dying while an officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes, has stockpiled $31 million of military equipment since 2016 and has increased its haul each year since 2017, the DoD data revealed.
Cottage Grove Police Department, near Minneapolis where Floyd was killed, picked up a $705,000 mine-resistant vehicle on March 10.
This year the department also obtained accessories for M4 assault rifles, night vision equipment, 24 grenade carriers and two bomb disposal robots.
Among the data, obtained by DailyMail.com from the Defense Logistics Agency, are records of police nationwide receiving 54,014 5.56 mm rifles and 12,235 larger 7.62 mm rifles, 1,216 riot-type shotguns and 34 mine-resistant vehicles.
The DoD data lists 82 ‘combat/assault/tactical wheeled vehicles’, 1,238 night vision sniper scopes, 466 laser range finders, 2,167 tasers and 22 ‘demolition firing devices’ given to police.
Among the military gear are also innocuous items such as gloves, binoculars and filing cabinets.
Military equipment is distributed to police forces under a Pentagon scheme called the 1033 Program.
The scheme was created in the 1990s to put surplus military equipment leftover from the end of the Cold War to use in the police crackdown on drug crime.
However, the scheme has since expanded and the most recent figures show more than a third of the equipment sent to police departments is brand new, creating a backdoor expansion of law enforcement budgets using DoD cash.
Interestingly, Minnesota, the epicenter of the nationwide riots over George Floyd dying while an officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes, has stockpiled $31 million of military equipment since 2016 and has increased its haul each year since 2017, the DoD data revealed. Pictured: Police officers in St. Paul, Minnesota
Cottage Grove Police Department, near Minneapolis where Floyd was killed, picked up a $705,000 mine-resistant vehicle (file photo) on March 10
The program was curtailed in 2015 by Barack Obama after an outcry over police killings of black people, but was reinstated by Donald Trump in 2017.
Last week Democrat and Republican senators backed a move to once again curb the program.
Hawaii Democrat Senator Brian Schatz said he would amend this year’s defense policy bill to shut down 1033.
‘It is clear that many police departments are being outfitted as if they are going to war, and it is not working in terms of maintaining the peace,’ Schatz told the New York Times.
A spokesman for Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul told DailyMail.com he was also introducing a bill to curb 1033.
‘Senator Paul has worked for years to address concerns with the 1033 program and to stop the federal militarization of local police departments,’ the spokesman said..
‘His Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act, which he’s planning to reintroduce soon, would establish limitations and create greater transparency on the federal transfer of surplus military-grade equipment to state and local law enforcement agencies.’
New York police departments almost tripled their procurement of armed forces gear from $1.7 million in 2018 to $4.8 million last year, the data reveals,
‘There is a place in policing for the use of some military style equipment. But that type of equipment and those tactics which go along with it are overused in the US, particularly in narcotics enforcement and crowd control,’ said David Sklansky, co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center.
The DoD data lists 82 ‘combat/assault/tactical wheeled vehicles’, 1,238 night vision sniper scopes, 466 laser range finders, 2,167 tasers and 22 ‘demolition firing devices'(pictured) given to police
The 1033 program data showed the most common military handouts to police were the 86,024 magazine cartridges, 66,249 rifles, 45,009 reflex sights and 6,347 .45 caliber automatic pistols
‘You can see the results with regards to crowd control just from pictures across the country over the last two weeks.
‘The places around the country where the protests have led to violence between police and protesters by and large are places where the police overused military equipment and military-style tactics.’
Sklansky, who has worked as a prosecutor, said the increase in military gear is part of a deliberate push by the Justice Department under President Trump towards more ‘militaristic’ policing.
‘The expansion is in keeping with a general push from the Department of Justice to make police departments move away from community policing and back towards more militaristic styles of policing – a push to make police departments do more of what President Trump has taken to calling ‘dominating’,’ he said.
‘It sends a message both to the officers and to the communities in which they work that the police are a paramilitary force of warriors instead of an agency of guardians.’
The data, which goes back to 1990, shows Arizona state troopers have received by far the most military gear of any police force with $55.2 million worth of equipment, followed by Tallahassee, Florida, department of law enforcement with $20.3 million in military supplies.
The 1033 program data showed the most common military handouts to police were the 86,024 magazine cartridges, 66,249 rifles, 45,009 reflex sights and 6,347 .45 caliber automatic pistols.
The most valuable items were the rifles worth a total $26 million, closely followed by 34 mine resistant vehicles costing a total $23,278,893 – or more than $684,000 each.
The program was curtailed in 2015 by Barack Obama after an outcry over police killings of black people, but was reinstated by Donald Trump in 2017
Last week Democrat and Republican senators backed a move to once again curb the program. Hawaii Democrat Senator Brian Schatz (pictured) said he would amend this year’s defense policy bill to shut down 1033
Studies have linked increases in law enforcement militarization to a rise in police violence.
A 2017 study published in the journal Research and Politics found that the police forces with the most military gear killed more than twice as many people as forces with no DoD equipment.
The paper found that police departments that got the most military equipment also killed more dogs, which researchers took as an indication that their cops got more violent in general.
The study’s lead author, Casey Delehanty, a political scientist at North Carolina’s Gardner-Webb University, told DailyMail.com that last year’s dramatic increase in army gear obtained by police forces could lead to more violence, especially against black people.
‘I’m not just worried about the escalated levels of killings we’ve shown tend to happen when you increase this gear. I’m also worried about the escalated level of harassment and violent coercive interaction.
‘It not only makes it more difficult to live in society as a person of color, but also makes it harder for police to do their job. To solve crime, police often rely on cooperating witnesses. Increasingly you’re seeing backlash against police who abuse their power with impunity.
‘As a consequence you have lower and lower clearance rates on crime, even though there are fewer crimes and more police.
New York police departments almost tripled their procurement of armed forces gear from $1.7 million in 2018 to $4.8 million last year, the data reveals. Pictured: NYPD officers
‘It comes from this increasing us-versus-them, militarized mentality.’
Delehanty said despite a push for transparency, the true numbers of military items going to police is still unclear.
‘We’ve had billions of dollars of equipment go out through the 1033 program,’ he said. ‘But that’s not the only source of military gear for police, it’s just the one where we have the most comprehensive data.
‘A lot of agencies will buy directly from their budgets. It’s not really centrally tracked. It’s impossible to say at a national or often even a state level how much gear police agencies actually have.’
And though Delehanty was able to show a rise in cops killing suspects after they received more military gear in his 2017 study, he said that there are likely other types of police brutality linked to militarization.
‘We looked at killings because it was the measure that we had the best data on. But we think it’s also important to recognize that killings are a very small part of the larger spectrum of police misbehavior,’ he said.
‘We don’t have the data on unlawful stops, beatings, or shootings that don’t end up in someone dead.’