War Gear Flows to Police Departments | NYTimes

NEENAH, Wis. — 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.

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’s “long season of war,” the former tools of combat — M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers and more — are ending up in local police departments, often with little public notice.

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.

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. Masked, heavily armed police officers in Louisiana raided a nightclubin 2006 as part of a liquor inspection. In Florida in 2010, officers in SWAT gear and with guns drawn carried out raids on barbershops that mostly led only to charges of “barbering without a license.”

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Military Equipment for Local Police

As the nation’s wars abroad wind down, many of the military’s 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.

 

MRAPS BY STATE

WA

ME

432

= 1 vehicle

ND

MT

VT

MN

MRAPs

OR.

MA

ID

NY

WI

WY

Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicles

MI

CT

NE

IA

NJ

PA

NV

OH

UT

MD

CA

IL

IN

CO

WV

VA

KS

KY

MO

NC

TN

AR

AZ

OK

NM

SC

GA

AL

LA

TX

FL

HI

435

44,900

533

93,763

180,718

Other armored

vehicles

Night vision

pieces

Aircraft

Machine guns

Magazines

Planes and helicopters

5.56 mm and

7.62 mm rifles

Including cars and trucks

Including sights, binoculars, goggles, lights and accessories

No ammunition

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Curated from www.nytimes.com

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