City and county police forces look more and more like armies, as the federal government donates or sells old military equipment to local law enforcement. This is a problem. American cities are not arenas of war, and when local police use military technology against their communities, they have been known to use more force than necessary. Local law enforcement generally also lacks the training and experience to safely use military equipment, and without proper training, people can be hurt. Finally, these tools, not to mention the image of armed military-style cops in urban and suburban communities, can scare people into not exercising their right to protest peacefully.
See the list of surplus military equipment sent to Ohio police departments under the federal 1033 program.
In 2017, the Trump administration lifted limits on the transfer of certain military equipment to local police departments that President Obama had put in place in 2015. The executive order reinstates the 1033 program in full which includes access to surplus equipment such as grenade launchers, bayonets and other large-caliber weapons.
- Militarized police use less-lethal and lethal ammunition. Weapons are named “less-lethal,” when the government does not consider them deadly, even though they can cause death. These weapons include rubber or wooden bullets, Tasers, tear gas, sound amplifiers (like the Long Range Acoustic Device used during the 2009 G-20 summit in Pittsburgh), bean bags, sting ball grenades, pepper spray, physical or hand-to-hand force, and other devices. But local militarized police forces can also have outright deadly weapons, like tanks and bombs.
- Militarized police use advanced surveillance. Non-weapon military technology includes drones, night-vision goggles, cell phone sniffers or stingray devices, biometric scanning technology, GPS, and helicopters, among other equipment.
With military tools, local police have more opportunity to overstep the Constitution. People should be aware of the existence of military force in their communities and document and report illegal police behavior.
