![]() ![]() The controversy intensified in August, after news coverage of protests in Ferguson flashed images around the world of heavily armed and armored police facing off with protesters. The program came under scrutiny earlier this year due to reporting by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others. Department of Defense, Defense Logistics Agency, Disposition Services Even after Ferguson, the program continues to chug along, transferring $28 million in tactical equipment in the past three months. Most of it was general office and maintenance equipment – shovels, copiers, computers – but the Pentagon largesse included tactical military equipment worth more than $1.4 billion, disseminated in 203,000 transfers to about 7,500 agencies. The program has doled out $5 billion in equipment since 1990. The data is a national gift list of high-caliber weapons, armored vehicles, aircraft and similar military equipment, all delivered for the price of shipping and often with little civilian oversight. Then, events in Ferguson propelled the 1033 program, as the surplus distribution is called, into the public eye.įlooded with calls for greater transparency, in late November, the Pentagon quietly released data that details the tactical equipment it tracks through the program, and for the first time identified the agencies that received items. Defense Department officials closely guarded the details of which agencies across the country received which items. The warden service of Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife received a small aircraft, 96 night vision goggles, 67 gun sights and seven M-14 rifles.įor more than 20 years, the Pentagon program that distributes surplus weapons, aircraft and vehicles to police departments nationwide received little attention or scrutiny. 45-caliber automatic pistols.Ĭampus police at the University of Louisiana, Monroe, received 12 M-16s to help protect the 8,811 students there (or perhaps to keep them in line). The parks division of Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources was given 20 M-16 rifles, while the fish and wildlife enforcement division obtained another 20 M-16s, plus eight M-14 rifles and ten. The Johnson police department has 67 sworn officers. ![]() Police in Johnston, R.I., with a population less than 29,000, acquired two bomb disposal robots, 10 tactical trucks, 35 assault rifles, more than 100 infrared gun sights and two pairs of footwear designed to protect against explosive mines. Subscribe to MuckRock's newsletter, or follow it on Twitter.īrowse some of the most interesting items in our Department of Defense Gift Guide. This piece was reported and written by Tom Meagher and Gabriel Dance for The Marshall Project and by Shawn Musgrave of MuckRock, an independent investigative news site. ![]()
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