Congressional progressives this week urged top Biden administration officials to end the transfer of military weapons to local law enforcement agencies under a program that critics say disproportionately harms communities of color.
In a letter led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), the 22 lawmakers called on Cabinet members to implement part of a May executive order signed by President Joe Biden aimed at reforming federal policing standards.
“Police militarization has never made our communities safer,” Pressley tweeted. “It’s time to stop transferring military-grade weapons to local police.”
A provision of Executive Order 14704 requires administration agency heads to review military weapons transfers to law enforcement agencies, with an eye toward prohibiting such transfers when possible.
“Militarized law enforcement increases the prevalence of police violence without making our communities safer,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter.
Police militarization has never made our communities safer — & communities of color have been disproportionately harmed by militarized law enforcement.
Enough. It's time to stop transferring military-grade weapons to local police.https://t.co/7n7picq9yb
— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) July 21, 2022
“For example, many types of equipment transferred under the Department of Defense’s 1033 program have contributed to increasingly militarized law enforcement, which has in turn led to more prevalent police violence,” the signers wrote, a reference the program facilitating the transfer of military equipment to federal, state, local, and tribal police.
According to the Policing Project at the New York University School of Law, “since its inception in 1990, the 1033 program has transferred more than $7.5 billion worth of surplus military equipment to subnational policing agencies,” over 11,000 of which have registered for the program.
Noting the disproportionate impact of police militarization on communities of color, the letter asserts that “when law enforcement has access to military equipment, they are more likely to use it.”
“The property listed in E.O. 14074 includes firearms and ammunition of .50 or greater caliber, firearm silencers, bayonets, grenades and grenade launchers, certain explosives, tracked and armored vehicles, weaponized drones and combat aircraft, and certain long-range acoustic devices,” equipment that the lawmakers assert “should be prohibited from being transferred to or purchased by law enforcement agencies either with federal funds or from federal agencies or contractors,” the letter states.
Police militarization is out of control.
That's why @AyannaPressley & @brianschatz are demanding that Biden enact bans on transfers of surplus military gear to local cops.
It's time we demilitarize the police and abolish the 1033 program. pic.twitter.com/J57xyn1i0I
— Brave New Films (@bravenewfilms) July 21, 2022
Widespread public concern about the 1033 program surfaced after the 2014 police killing of unarmed Black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the subsequent militarized police response to protests led by the nascent Black Lives Matter movement.
In 2015 then-President Barack Obama signed an executive order banning the transfer of tracked armored vehicles, bayonets, grenade launchers, and large-caliber weapons and ammunition. Agencies with such weapons in their arsenals were required to return them. The Pentagon said agencies returned 126 tracked armored vehicles, 138 grenade launchers, and 1,623 bayonets in response to the order.
The 1033 program was in the news again during and after the 2020 racial justice protests following more police killings of Black people, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade.
In the wake of the 2020 protests, Pressley introduced amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have ended the 1033 program. She re-introduced the failed measures earlier this year.
Brett Wilkins is is staff writer for Common Dreams. Based in San Francisco, his work covers issues of social justice, human rights and war and peace. This originally appeared at CommonDreams and is reprinted with the author’s permission.
December 25, 2015 Homeland Defense: The Pentagon Declares War on America
State Terrorism directed against the American People and Democracy Itself. The Department of Defense now authorizes the domestic deployment of US troops in “the conduct of operations other than war” including law enforcement activities and the quelling of “civil disturbances”: “Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances…“
http://www.globalresearch.ca/homeland-defense-the-pentagon-declares-war-on-america/5335483
Aug 28, 2014 Pentagon Has ‘Everything Must Go’ Sale
After protestors in Ferguson, Missouri, were met with a militarized police force, new attention was brought to the Pentagon’s 1033 program, a program that supplies military-grade equipment to local police departments, often for free.
http://youtu.be/HcvyHMyhpaA