Photo Courtesy: YouTube, MRAP’s such as the one above are being used to help flood victims in Texas this week.
The Trump administration is preparing to lift a controversial ban on the transfer of some surplus military equipment to police departments whose military style response to rioting in a St. Louis suburb three years ago prompted a halt to the program.
According to USA Today, the new plan would roll back an Obama administration executive order that blocked certain equipment from being re-purposed from foreign battlefields to America’s streets.
On Monday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is scheduled to address the annual meeting of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union, and he may outline the program changes there.
The administration’s action would restore “the full scope of a longstanding program for recycling surplus, lifesaving gear from the Department of Defense, along with restoring the full scope of grants used to purchase this type of equipment from other sources,” according to a administration summary of the new program recently circulated to some law enforcement groups.
“Assets that would otherwise be scrapped can be re-purposed to help state, local and tribal law enforcement better protect public safety and reduce crime.”
Called the “1033 program” Editor In Chief Travis Yates advocated for the lift of the ban when President Trump took office and he was highly critical of President Obama for blocking the same equipment that police used in San Bernardino and Orlando to stop terrorists.
We reached out to Yates as Attorney General Jeff Sessions prepares to address the Fraternal Order of Police.
Calling President Obama’s ban “intellectually dishonest,” Yates said that “Obama’s administration and the media wanted the public to believe that all they were doing was preventing law enforcement from getting rocket launchers and bayonets and the truth is that law enforcement doesn’t need or want those items. What law enforcement has needed the last three years (since this ban has been in place) are shields, helmets, and ballistic proof vehicles. This is common equipment and provides safety from violent protesters throwing rocks among other acts. ”
Yates says that it is not the equipment that militarizes the police but the way it is deployed.
“I know there have been some isolated instances where law enforcement deployed with equipment in the wrong way but that does not give anyone, including the President, the right to stop law enforcement from being as safe as possible when there is a real and violent threat that they must face.”
Yates anticipates that the ban will be lifted and that will provide some much needed equipment to a profession that needs it.
Yates continued, “law enforcement is being tasked with more and more and they have been provided with less and it is time that ends.”
