In Solidarity With Protesters, Kansas Cops Should Surrender Military Hand-Me-Downs

From the Kansas Reflector:

By Max McCoy, The Kansas Reflector
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Aug. 24, 2020

The problem with the militarization of the police isn’t the gear. It’s the mindset.

The Fort Hays State University Police Department, a few years ago, received 14 rifles, including nine M-16s and two sniper rifles, that the U.S. Department of Defense no longer needed. Fort Hays is one of 117 campuses across the nation that were granted such gear. In 2014, when the university was having a few mild protests in the wake of Ferguson, the director of campus police, Ed Helm, said he was grateful the school had the firepower, in case it was needed. He wasn’t thinking of the protesters, he told the Kansas City Star, but instead of “really bad situations,” such as an active shooter on campus.

Police agencies large and small have taken advantage of the federal 1033 program that allows them to obtain military equipment no longer needed by the Department of Defense. The program goes back to 1990, but there was a flurry of interest after the 2014 protests that shook Ferguson, Missouri — and the photos and video that showed police using what was obviously military gear, including armored vehicles.

What agencies got what gear was once a government secret, but battered by calls for transparency, the Pentagon eventually began to release lists.

Some agency heads watched the televised standoffs between heavily armed police and protesters angry over the police killing of Michael Brown and may have said if we have this kind of racial unrest in our community, we’re going to need armored vehicles, too. Ordinary folks may have watched the scenes from suburban St. Louis and asked why law enforcement looked more prepared to deal with house-to-house fighting in Baghdad than American citizens exercising their First Amendment rights and sometimes engaging in bad behavior to express their frustration at racial inequality. After three waves of Ferguson protests, there were six law enforcement officers injured, 10 members of the public, a few members of the press roughed up, and 321 arrests.

In 2015, President Obama imposed restrictions on some of the kinds of equipment available to departments through 1033, named for the section of the law that authorized it, prohibiting among other things bayonets and grenade launchers. But armored vehicles, assault rifles, and sniper rifles remained available.

Hundreds of pieces of vehicle and gear were distributed to agencies large and small across Kansas, and according to a spreadsheet from the federal Defense Logistics Agency, at least six agencies received armored vehicles called MRAPs. The acronym stands for “mine resistant, ambush protection,” and the vehicles are specially made to protect troops from improvised explosive devices. They come in versions weighing from 14 to 18 tons and cost up to $1 million each.

But the departments got them for free, or nearly so, while the Department of Defense retains title to the vehicles and other gear.

These vehicles are so heavy they can destroy normal roads, and because of their V-shaped hulls, are prone to rollovers. Some departments that received them — the list includes the Coffey County Sheriff, Coffeyville Police, Lyon County Sheriff, Olathe Police, Sedgwick County Sheriff and Shawnee Police — stressed they would be used primarily for water and other rescues.

But they do not seem to be vehicles especially suited for that, unless you’re taking fire.

While the armored vehicles have received the most media attention, by far the most common items received by police agencies in Kansas through 1033 have been rifles. The Obama-era restriction eliminated arms of .50-caliber or greater, but hundreds of smaller arms — the iconic M-16 assault rifle, the older M-14, and the M-21 sniper rifle — have been distributed.

A few Kansas agencies have been loaned trucks, trailers, night vision goggles and semi-automatic pistols. But perhaps the most unusual gear on the Defense Logistics Agency’s spreadsheet for Kansas are three remote-controlled bomb disposal robots taken by the Coffeyville Police Department. Yes, three.

Is there something going on in Coffeyville we should know about?

Once again, it is racial unrest that has raised questions about the militarization of police. This time, it’s the aggressive law enforcement responses around the country during a summer of protests following the death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis cop.

The protests in Kansas have been relatively free of violence, but the question remains: How much armor and firepower do local police need?

The message the MRAP vehicles send, with the shield of the local departments on their side, and their obvious military heritage, is that the police aren’t there to help; instead, the goal is domination. This image represents a policy stance that every law enforcement agency now has to revisit in 2020.

Amid greater calls for police accountability, demilitarization and even defunding, agencies should ponder whether these vehicles inspire trust or generate fear.

State and local jurisdictions should adopt clear policies that prohibit the acquisition of combat material by civilian police forces. State universities, in particular, should not have sniper rifles as part of their arsenals. Small departments should not have bomb disposal robots unless improvised explosives are a documented — not imagined — threat.

The problem is not that agencies have this combat gear, but that law enforcement imagines they might need it in the first place.

We should simply ask the Pentagon to come get their stuff.

The Kansas Reflector seeks to increase people's awareness of how decisions made by elected representatives and other public servants affect our day-to-day lives. We hope to empower and inspire greater participation in democracy throughout Kansas.