The 1033 Monthly #6

Republicans have attempted to attribute the lack of an adequate response to climate disaster, such as the incident where commuters were stuck on the Virginia I-95 for 27 hours due to a devastating winter storm, on the suggestion that Democrats have opposed the 1033 program. Increased militarization of the police has not led to lesser crime nor has it made police safer. Grenade launchers, MRAPs and similar equipment would have had no practical use in saving commuters who were stranded in below-freezing temperatures without food, medication and fuel for 27 hours. 

Both parties have consistently voted to increase the military and police budgets across the country instead of investing in infrastructure and curbing climate disaster. Most police departments, as noted in a recent investigation and our last newsletter, rarely use this militarized equipment for severe weather events. Furthermore, the U.S. military emits more greenhouse gasses than 140 countries combined in addition to using this equipment internationally and domestically to brutalize colonized people in an effort to protect oil supply interests. 

This coastal town needs federal aid for climate adaptation. Instead it’ll get a military truck.

• Rather than counties receiving federal funds to help combat rising sea levels, they are instead receiving military equipment

• This has been in large part a recent trend by law enforcement to justify its usage of the 1033 program to acquire military equipment for “climate change” mitigation

• Sheriffs in Johnson County, Iowa have used the military mine–resistant vehicles they claimed were using to help plow through blizzards; instead, they were used against BLM protestors

Johnson County Sheriff’s army truck is here to stay

• Johnson County, Iowa law enforcement has been battling for months to continue their usage of military vehicles

• The Johnson County Board of Supervisors has been increasingly ambivalent about unnecessarily funding and spending for law enforcement, a sign indicating a possible route towards reducing police funding

• Supervisors have begun funding community outreach instead of a new vehicle
   

Additional Stories

• Fox News Host Blames Virginia Traffic Jam On Left for Failure to Allow ‘Military Grade Equipment’

• This U.S. Coastal Town Needs Climate Aid, Not An Armoured Truck

Banner photo: SWAT teams advancing through a parking lot as a gunman opened fire at a grocery store in March of last year in Colorado. (Chet Strange / Getty Images)

The 1033 Monthly #3

International counterinsurgency has always informed U.S. domestic policy as well as counterintelligence within the United States. The FBI's counterintelligence program, or COINTELPRO, identified Black organizations, civil rights groups and more militant Black liberation organizations as "threats to the national security of the United States.” The response to this perceived threat was both political and military. Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams were developed in the late 1960s to meet the challenge of urban warfare the Black liberation movement was believed to represent. Today, the militarization of police agencies and the targeting of Black and other colonized peoples continues with programs like the U.S. Department of Defense’s 1033 program. 

How 9/11 helped to militarize American law enforcement

• Following the withdrawal of troops from U.S. imperialist efforts across the world, weapons and other military equipment make their way back to the United States through law enforcement

• Almost 65 percent of 18,000 law enforcement agencies have received equipment through the 1033 program as of 2020

• The 1122 program, related to the 1033 program, allows law enforcement agencies to use public funds to buy military equipment at discounted military rates

• Militarization of police leads to further use of such equipment, yet departments are less likely to reduce crime and increase the public’s perception of safety

House Democrats to offer amendment to limit transfer of military-grade gear to police

• Reps. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) are proposing an amendment in the next annual defense policy bill to the House Armed Services Committee

• The amendment calls for prohibiting the Pentagon from “sending police departments controlled firearms, ammunition, bayonets, grenade launchers, grenades, including stun and flash-bang grenades, explosives, certain controlled vehicles including mine-resistant vehicles, armored or weaponized drones, combat-configured or combat-coded aircraft, silencers, and long-range acoustic devices.”

• This amendment is no longer part of the recent police-reform legislation because it had been stalled, so they are hoping to see it addressed through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)

• It remains unclear why no clear call was made for the end of the whole 1033 program

• No clear plan forward can be seen, but the Biden administration reportedly could be open to proposing executive action, given the failure to implement 1033 restrictions in police-reform bills introduced in Congress

Additional Stories:

• Bay Area lawmaker’s bill regulating police obtaining military equipment heads to Newsom’s desk 

• To save the planet, we need to demilitarize the police

• San Diego mayor proposes greater scrutiny on police use of military weapons

Learn more about BAP’s work on the 1033 program by visiting the 1033 resources page.

Banner image: Heavily armed police officers facing off with protestors last year in downtown San Diego. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)