Thread: It’s Not Just The Police – Feds Are Also Militarizing Public Schools W/Grenade Launch

It’s Not Just The Police – The Feds Are Also Militarizing Public Schools With Grenade Launchers, M16s & Tanks

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/17/2014 22:57 -0400

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Events last month in Ferguson, Missouri (read my detailed thoughts here) forced Americans to confront the frightening reality that many of of the nation’s police departments have been quietly, but consistently, militarizing over the past couple of decades. It’s one thing to intellectually understand that this has happened, it’s quite another to see cops deploy tanks and point sniper rifles at peacefully protesting U.S. citizens.
Just as disturbing as the scenes themselves, is the fact that this has been happening for so long under the 1033 transfer program with only muted criticism. The program was originated in the late 1990′s under the National Defense Authorization Act of 1997 (recall that the NDAA is also being used to allow for the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial), and it allows for the transfer of excess Department of Defense equipment to domestic police. In other words, it has been public policy for almost two decades to militarize the police.
With the issue squarely still in the public consciousness, it would behoove us to understand that this program is not only arming police with weapons of war. In fact, public schools are also receiving such items, including grenade launchers, M16s and MRAPs.
The Wall Street Journal reports that:

A federal program that has drawn criticism in recent weeks for supplying surplus military gear to local police has also provided high-powered rifles, armored vehicles and other equipment to police at public schools, some of whom were unprepared for what they were getting.

In the wake of school shootings in Newtown, Conn., and elsewhere, some school security departments developed SWAT teams, added weapons and called on the federal government to help supply gear. But now, the program is facing renewed scrutiny from both outside observers and schools using it.

The Los Angeles Unified School District stocked up on grenade launchers, M16 rifles and even a multi-ton armored vehicle from the program. But the district is getting rid of the grenade launchers, which it never intended to use to launch grenades or use in a school setting, said Steven Zipperman, chief of the Los Angeles Schools Police Department. The launchers, received in 2001, might have helped other police in the county disperse crowds by shooting rubber munitions, he said.

In July, the district received a massive MRAP armored vehicle. Mr. Zipperman said his department thought it could be useful for evacuations and to save lives in a “sustained incident.”

Just in case you aren’t aware, this is an MRAP:



Makes you wonder how schools survived in America for over two hundred years without tanks. More from the WSJ…

In Texas, near the Mexican border, the sprawling Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District has 34,700 students and operates its own SWAT team, thanks in part to military gear it received in recent years from the federal program. The gear included two Humvees and a cargo truck, as well as power generators, said district Police Chief Ricardo Perez. The district applied for weapons, too, but wasn’t given any, so instead purchased its own M4 and AR-15 assault-style rifles, he said.

The weapons are given to schools through the 1033 Program, created by Congress in the early 1990s to allow law-enforcement agencies to obtain excess Defense Department supplies, paying only for shipping. The program has transferred $5.1 billion in items, including $4.5 million worth in 2013.

Among recipients are more than a dozen school police departments, according to a spreadsheet from the Defense Logistics Agency, which runs the program. But for security reasons the list excludes districts that received only “tactical” gear such as weapons, as opposed to other types of supplies. That means the list likely understates the number of districts that participated.

California is one of few states that provides a list of participating school districts and what they received. Its state website shows that two school police departments received armored vehicles, others added M-16s and grenade launchers to their armories, while one district took in televisions, projectors and a podium but no weapons.

What I find most interesting about all of this, is where have all the “gun control” politicians and hysterics been on the dangers of the 1033 for all these years?
Indeed, while politicians in D.C. appear determined to invade half the countries on earth, while simultaneously arming the other half, from terrorist groups in the Middle East to police departments and school districts domestically, it appears the only group being singled out for disarmament is the citizenry itself. Makes you wonder doesn’t it…
For more thoughts on the matter read: How to Spot a Hypocrite in the Gun Debate and Other Reflections on Newtown.


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-0...de-launchers-m

Drudge Report

School districts load up on 'free' military equipment...
Grenade launchers...
M16 rifles...
Armored vehicles...




Schools stockpile grenade launchers, M16 rifles, armored vehicles and other military equipment -...
Education Research, Reporting, Analysis and Commentary powered by Education Action Group Foundation
By EAGnews.org

Schools stockpile grenade launchers, M16 rifles, armored vehicles and other military equipment

September 18, 2014

Victor Skinner

Victor is a communications specialist for EAG and joined in 2009. Previously, he was a newspaper journalist.
Archive »

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Nearly two dozen legal, civil rights, and education advocacy organizations recently sent a letter to the U.S. departments of Defense, Justice and Education to plead with federal officials to stop sending military equipment, weapons and armored vehicles to public schools.



The move comes as an increasing number of school districts across the country take part in the Department of Defense’s Excess Property Program, commonly known as the 1033 program. The Huffington Post reports that at least 20 schools have taken in military-grade equipment, from grenade launchers to laptops, since the program started in 1997.
The equipment is given to schools, public university police forces and local police agencies free of charge, but is considered to be on indefinite loan from the government.
“The recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, demonstrate the tensions that invariably develop between local law enforcement and the community when military equipment is unnecessarily deployed against citizens,” according to the letter submitted to Mark Harnitchek, director of the Defense Logistics Agency that oversees the program.
RELATED: Panic over student’s ‘military-type jacket’ sends school into lockdown
“These events also underscore the negative impact of militarization on the already tenuous relationship between communities of color and law enforcement.”
The education and civil rights advocates contend that “adding the presence of military-grade weapons to school climates that have become increasingly hostile due to their overreliance on police to handle routine student discipline can only exacerbate existing tensions, intensifying overly punitive atmospheres that criminalize and stigmatize students of color,” the letter reads.
Florida’s Pinellas County School District, for example, received almost two dozen M16 rifles, while San Diego and Los Angeles schools took in armored vehicles capable of withstanding mine explosions, according to the news site.
“Our hope is that our officers never have a need to use this equipment,” Pinellas schools public information officer Melanie Marquez Parra told the news site. “These are items we acquired so they could have equipment for worst-case scenario situations.”
San Diego Unified School District Police Chief Ruben Littlejohn told NPR the district’s mine-resistant vehicle will be used exclusively as a rescue vehicle, and that officials planned to fill it with teddy bears and trauma kits.
It’s not a militarization of public schools, he said.

“There will be medical supplies in the vehicle. There will be teddy bears in the vehicle,” he said. “There will be trauma kits in the vehicle in the event any student is injured, and our officers are trained to give first aid and CPR.”
Littlejohn told KPBS the vehicle, which arrived in April, was stocked with donated medical supplies and students in the district’s auto collision refinishing program repainted it, but some readers clearly disapproved of the idea regardless.
“They can call it a ‘love buggy,’ a ‘student patrol limo,’ or a ‘campus police fun bus’ and then paint it pretty colors, but that doesn’t change the fact it’s a piece of military equipment that is unnecessary and sends the message that local officials are at war with students,” according to one commenter on the KPBS site.
Other school districts in California, Texas, California, Utah, Kansas, Missouri, and Georgia have also received military-grade weapons or supplies, according to a Freedom of Information Act request filed with every state by MuckRock.com, a government transparency website. Only about half of the states have so far replied to the public information requests, the Huffington Post reports.
And at some school districts, like suburban Topeka’s Auburn Washburn Schools, local officials won’t discuss with the public what kind of equipment they’ve received.
Auburn Washburn superintendent Brenda Dietrich refused to divulge the details of that district’s 1033 acquisition yesterday, but the Topeka Capital Journal reports paperwork from the state Department of Administrations shows it was an M16 assault rifle, according to the Associated Press.
Public pressure, however, has apparently convinced officials in at least one school district to end its affiliation with the 1033 program. The Aledo School District in Texas is working to return military rifles it acquired through the program, despite assertions from police officials that the guns are a necessity.
“Police need to have the same or better equipment than the person who wants to do harm,” Jimmy Womack, chief of the Mansfield school district police, told the Star-Telegram.
A total of nine Texas school district participate in the 1033 program.
According to the Star-Telegram:
Various Texas police agencies borrowed six military helicopters, more than 40 armored vehicles and a Boeing 737, but more than 180 agencies nationwide and seven in Texas have been investigated and suspended over lost or stolen weapons, particularly assault rifles.
But the more than 200 Texas school districts operating their own campus police need the same gear as other agencies in case of an “active shooter” situation, Womack said.


http://eagnews.org/schools-stockpile...ary-equipment/

These Are The School Districts Around The Country With Military Supplies

Posted: 09/17/2014 11:27 am EDT Updated: 09/17/2014 5:59 pm EDT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5832484.html

US school districts given free machine guns and grenade launchers

Calls to hand back weapons and gear, from M16 rifles to mine-proof vehicles, obtained under Pentagon scheme

Associated Press in Los Angeles
theguardian.com, Thursday 18 September 2014 00.30 EDT
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An MRAP armoured vehicle of the type acquired by US school districts under a Pentagon giveaway of military equipment and weaponry. Photograph: Steven Valenti/AP

School police departments across the US have taken advantage of free military surplus gear, stocking up on mine-resistant armoured vehicles, grenade launchers and scores of M16 rifles.
At least 26 school districts have participated in the Pentagon’s surplus program, which is not new but has come under scrutiny after police responded to protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, with teargas, armour-clad military trucks and riot gear.
Amid that increased criticism, several school districts have said they will give some of the equipment back but others plan to keep it. Nearly two dozen education and civil liberties groups have sent a letter to the Pentagon and the justice and education departments urging a stop to transfers of military weapons to school police.
The Los Angeles unified school district, the nation’s second-largest at 710 square miles with more than 900,000 students enrolled, said it would remove three grenade launchers it had acquired because they “are not essential life-saving items within the scope, duties and mission” of the district’s police force.
But the district would keep the 60 M16s and a military vehicle known as an MRAP used in Iraq and Afghanistan that was built to withstand mine blasts.
District police Chief Steve Zipperman told the Associated Press that the M16s were used for training and the MRAP, parked off campus, was acquired because the district could not afford to buy armoured vehicles that might be used to protect officers and help students in a school shooting.
“That vehicle is used in very extraordinary circumstances involving a life-saving situation for an armed threat,” Zipperman said. “Quite frankly I hope we never have to deploy it.”
Law enforcement agencies around the country equipped themselves by turning to the Pentagon program, which the defence department has used to get rid of gear it no longer needs. Since the Columbine school shooting in 1999 school districts have increasingly participated.

Federal records show schools in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, Texas and Utah obtained surplus military gear. At least six California districts have received equipment, state records show.
Democratic congressman Adam Schiff said while there was a role for surplus equipment going to local police departments “it’s difficult to see what scenario would require a grenade launcher or a mine-resistant vehicle for a school police department”.
In Texas, Tina Veal-Gooch, executive director of public relations at Texarkana ISD, said the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, led the district to acquire assault rifles and it had no plans to return them.
In Florida, Rick Stelljes, the chief of Pinellas county schools police, said the county possessed 28 semi-automatic M16 rifles. They had never been used, and he hoped they never would be, but they were “something we need given the current situation we face in our nation. This is about preparing for the worst-case scenario.”
School officials in Utah’s Granite school district and Nevada’s Washoe county school district said they did not have any immediate plans to give back the M16s they received.
San Diego unified school district said it was painting its MRAP white and hoping to use the Red Cross symbol on it to assuage community worries, said Ursula Kroemer, a district spokeswoman. The MRAP had been stripped of weapon mounts and turrets and would be outfitted with medical supplies and teddy bears for use in emergencies to evacuate students and staff, she said.
Jill Poe, police chief in southern California’s Baldwin Park school district, said she would be returning the three M16 rifles acquired under her predecessor.
“Honestly I could not tell you why we acquired those,” Poe said. “They have never been used in the field and they will never been used in the field.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...nade-launchers

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1. LA schools police will return grenade launchers but keep rifles
   
   www.latimes.com/.../la-me-schools-weapons-2014091...
   
   Los Angeles Times
   2 days ago - The Los Angeles School Police Department, which serves the nation's second-largest school system, will return three grenade launchers but ...

Pinellas schools returning M-16 assault rifles
Tampabay.com
In September, Stelljes defended the weapons as necessary tools in case of a school shooting; they would allow officers to shoot from around corners ...