2014 was the year a little-known program called 1033 came under a harsh spotlight.
1033, officially called the Department of Defense Excess Property Program, is why protesters walking down the street in Ferguson, Mo., were accompanied by mine-resistant ambush protected armored vehicles, known as MRAPs.
“How did we ever get to the point where we think states need MRAPs?” Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., asked at a September hearing on police oversight.
In June, the House voted on an amendment to a DoD appropriations bill that would have halted the program from transferring a slew of military-style weapons to local law enforcement agencies.
The amendment failed, 62 to 355.
The 1033 program, which has been authorized under federal law since 1997, provides a surplus of DoD military style equipment to state and local law enforcement agencies for use in “counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism operations,” as well as to “enhance officer safety.”
More than $5.1 billion worth of DoD property has been transferred — including $450 million worth in 2013 alone — to more than 8,000 law enforcement agencies around the country.
Though the process of putting military style equipment has been around for more than 10 years, it has never been as big an issue.
But in 2014, the country came to a harsh realization that police officers wield far more tools than a badge and gun.
“Law enforcement needs to have military surplus adapted for use,” Rich Roberts, the public information officer for the International International Union of Police Associations, told the Washington Examiner.
The IUPA is the only AFL-CIO chartered union for law enforcement and support personnel.
It’s the look of the gear which people don’t like, Roberts argued. But the police “need to disclose what is owned,” he said, so the public is better educated on when, where, why and how it is all used.
Not all agreed that disclosure is the best step.
Police officers in 2014 used their power more than ever to “create fear in people with no safety justification,” Phil Telfeyan, president of Equal Justice Under Law, a self-described impact litigation group, said in an interview with the Examiner.
Telfeyan cited three major lawsuits his group this year against the District of Columbia that challenged the Metropolitan Police Department’s “widespread use of militarized home invasions in low-income communities of color.”
In one instance, 20 MPD’s stormed a house in which four sisters were getting ready for bed with their mother.
The officers, brandishing shields, machine guns, handguns and body armor, were in search of evidence relating to a traffic stop “13 days before and several miles away” that led to the arrest of the car’s driver for alleged marijuana possession.
The driver of that car was not living at that house and nothing illegal was ever found there.
“Why not bring a drug counselor to a house of someone who has been charged with marijuana possession instead of a surplus of cops and equipment?” Telfeyan charged.
The program has its defenders.
“During the height of Superstorm Sandy, Jersey Shore police drove two cargo trucks and three Humvees through water too deep for commercial vehicles to save 64 people,” Alan Estevez, a Pentagon official who oversees the 1033 Program, said during the aforementioned Senate hearing on police militarization. “In Texas, armored vehicles received through the program protected police officers during a standoff and shootout with a gang member.”
“Anybody who thinks we’re not going to have tactical teams or high-powered weapons in American policing is not paying attention to the reality of police officers,” Jim Bueermann, president of the the Police Foundation, a nonprofit resource and research organization for policing, told the Senate panel.
Many wonder why this type of equipment is being used in protests such as Ferguson or the situation in D.C.
President Obama asked a similar question in December, and after the Ferguson riots, he ordered a review of the 1033 program.
But the administration was clear there would be no complete end to the program.
“The vast majority of the equipment that gets purchased or transferred is not military style,” a senior administration official said prior to Obama’s announcement. “It’s office-related.”
Nonetheless, changes to the 1033 program are inevitable in 2015.
“Do they [police officers] see themselves as warriors or guardians?” Bueermann told the Examiner in an interview.
“There is enough evidence that this [military style] equipment is critical,” he said, reiterating that it is not necessarily about the equipment the police officers have, but their “mindset.”
In addition to changes Obama’s executive order will have on the 1033 program, Bueermann hopes there will be changes internally by police squads in 2015.
“Not everyone understands why something is being used,” he said.
“Militarization of police is not in line with our ideals and values,” he added. “In a democratic society, a police squad must be transparent and accountable.”
The debate over police militarization will undoubtedly extend into the new year.
Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., promised to renew in 2015 a bill that ended up failing before the midterm elections. That bill, which had bipartisan support, is currently supported by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in the Senate.
Johnson said in early December that without pushing for legislation to taper down police militarization, he “wouldn’t be surprised if we see another Ferguson or another example somewhere in this country.”
