When Trayvon Martin was shot to death by an overzealous neighborhood watchman in 2012, no one knew much about the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) and the kinds of laws they secretly push – including the now-infamous “stand-your-ground” laws that allow Americans to shoot first and ask questions later.
It was a devastating wakeup call – but Alec and its corporate lobbyists and state legislators, who advance laws that benefit corporations at the public’s expense, was exposed. Slowly, my colleagues and I in Congress have been chipping away at this secret cabal ever since.
When another unarmed black teenager was shot and killed this August in Ferguson, Missouri, most Americans – my colleagues in Congress included – knew nothing about the militarization of our local police forces. In the days that followed, of course, the world witnessed a shocking display: peaceful protesters being met with equipment and tactics that we expect in Baghdad, not on Main Street. The already tense situation in Ferguson escalated when cops climbed aboard heavily armored vehicles, with military-style weaponry.
Michael Brown’s death should have led to mourning and positive change; instead, the infantry came in.
Now that a grand jury has decided to not indict police officer Darren Wilson in Brown’s killing, the armored vehicles have returned to Ferguson but Congress is returning home for the holidays. It’s time for the debate to continue; it’s time to stop serving warrants with flash-bang grenades and meeting protest with military might.
In a fundamentally misguided effort to wage a war on drugs, the US Department of Defense has provided some $5bn in surplus military-grade equipment – often from overseas battlefields – to local police since the late 1990s. This so-called “1033 Program” has secretly helped militarize our police forces over the last 30 years.
Excess military equipment – such as Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs) and other weapons – get transferred to police departments, to communities large and small across the country, for free. The citizens of these communities too often have no idea their police department requested – and received – military gear from the Pentagon.
Increasingly, this equipment is being used for basic police activities such as serving warrants, patrolling streets and responding to peaceful protests.
While these military-grade weapons are much-needed by our armed forces in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, they are mostly ill-suited for use by local law enforcement, whose purpose is to protect American civilians – not turn American towns and cities into war zones.
Earlier this year, I spoke out about the militarization of police. After the shooting in Ferguson, I introduced bipartisan legislation that would rein in the 1033 program and stem the free flow of military-grade weaponry to local police who have little or no training or understanding of how or when to use it.
The Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act has 45 bipartisan cosponsors in the House. It would, among other things, require each recipient agency to account for all military grade equipment it receives, to ensure that the equipment received is not lost or sold.
This may shock your conscience, but the bill would end a statutory requirement that local law enforcement must use the military gear they receive under the 1033 program within a year – or forfeit it.
You read that right: Right now, local cops are required to use that free MRAP or grenade launcher. Right now, Congress is producing a perfect storm for police violence, not ending it. We owe that much to the lessons of Ferguson: Stop forcing the use of military weaponry on Main Street!
The 113th Congress may be coming to an end, but I’m working hard to educate my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Expect more policy hearings on militarization in Washington such as the one I held two weeks ago.
In the new year, I plan to reintroduce the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act, and I will continue to build a bipartisan coalition to make these common-sense reforms a reality. I hope my colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee – and in the entire House – will agree, because most Americans think demilitarization of local law enforcement is a no-brainer. Already more and more Americans are making their voices heard through an online petition to raise awareness of this pressing issue.
In the meantime, I am writing a letter to the Department of Justice asking detailed questions so that we can better understand exactly how much training – if any – law enforcement agencies receive before they are enabled to deploy military-grade weapons, often by way of Swat teams which may not even be justified or necessary.
Because this isn’t just a Ferguson problem: In 2014 alone, there have been 34 deaths resulting from Swat raids, and I’m concerned this number will continue to grow. I’m alarmed by cases of officers raiding the homes of civilians who are wrongly suspected of being involved in drug-related activity. I’m worried that RoboCop attitudes will infest local law enforcement when officers are handed the tools of war, free of charge.
Just this year, an 18-month-old baby was badly burned and disfigured when police dropped a flash-bang grenade in his crib during an early-morning drug raid in the small town of Cornelia, Georgia. Tonight, the MRAPs could reappear on the streets of Ferguson. And until Congress wakes up to real, systemic reform, I sadly wouldn’t be surprised at all to see another example – in some town somewhere else, where an MRAP never needed to be – simply because we continue to overlook the true value of local law enforcement.
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