Ohio can’t get military surplus, yet
Relics of American COLUMBUS — military campaigns are housed in a locked and dusty warehouse on the city’s Northeast Side.
There are rusted knives from both the Korean and Vietnam wars. A camouflage-painted semi-truck is parked alongside the building. Elsewhere, greenpainted generators are stacked.
This is the home of the Columbus Division of Police’s military surplus equipment. The city acquired it through a federal program that allowed local law-enforcement agencies to get the military’s unwanted equipment for free.
Police departments, including Columbus, again will have the opportunity to get tactical equipment, now that restrictions have been lifted. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions outlined the plans last week at a national Fraternal Order of Police convention.
However, law-enforcement agencies in Ohio might have to wait until next year before they can ask for more.
Ohio has been the largest participant in the program, with 551 agencies in possession of equipment, but the state has been suspended for violating inventory-control protocol. Officials anticipate that it will be 2018 before the state is brought back into compliance with federal rules. In the meantime, no new orders will be granted.
Congress initially authorized the program during the 1990-1991 session so that excess Department of Defense property could be transferred to federal and state agencies to fight the war on drugs. Over the years, the scope expanded.
The Defense Logistics Agency has managed the surplus program since 1995. The surplus includes a range of items used by the military, from the benign to the lethal. Office equipment, computers, clothing, aircraft, boats, vehicles and weapons are among the items. Agencies have to meet specific criteria to be accepted into the program. Their requests are screened by a state coordinator appointed by each governor and later by the Defense Logistics Agency.
The agencies don’t pay for the items, but they do pay for shipping, storage and any needed repair or maintenance. General equipment, like office supplies or sleeping bags, is tracked by the federal government for a year. After that, the items belong to the law-enforcement agency. Tactical equipment, such as mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles or M16 assault rifles, is tracked for its life. Those items are considered on loan to law-enforcement agencies.
Ohio is one of two states suspended from participating in the program; the other is Rhode Island.
Ohio was suspended because of an unauthorized transfer of an M16 rifle between law-enforcement agencies in 2016 in violation of inventory-control protocol, said Dustyn Fox of the Ohio Department of Public Safety, who spoke on behalf of the state coordinator’s office.
“They’re very strict with how they handle the policies and procedures,” Fox said.
Although the state has fixed the transfer issue, the federal program requires that all participating law-enforcement agencies be retrained before Ohio’s suspension is lifted, he said.
Training has been conducted for 370 of the 551 participating agencies, or 67 percent. Officials estimate it will be sometime next year before that process is completed.
Local agencies will have to wait until the state’s retraining is completed to get access to more equipment.
Fairfield County Sheriff Dave Phalen said he plans to acquire more military equipment, although “probably no bayonets.”
His office’s current inventory includes a Peacekeeper Protected Response Vehicle, which is an armored personnel carrier, plus an MRAP and other vehicles. He said his office’s SWAT team has used the MRAP a few times since getting it in 2014, including in a barricade situation in which an armed man refused to come out of his house; he surrendered when the vehicle showed up.
“I think it was a great program because it didn’t cost anything,” Phalen said. “It fills a need for law enforcement to have these things and use them.”
Columbus Police Lt. Dave Hughes said the division has no plans to request equipment.
A Columbus defense attorney is accusing a Franklin County judge of failing to allow his client to be present for a hearing on a civil protection order, then falsifying the record about his absence.
Domestic Relations Judge Kim A. Browne “engaged in criminal conduct designed to hide her judicial misconduct,” attorney Sam Shamansky wrote in an appeal filed Aug. 23 with the Franklin County Court of Appeals.
Browne told The Columbus Dispatch reporter John Futty that although she can’t comment on an active case, “I strenuously disagree with (Shamansky’s) characterization of the facts.”
The appeal asks that Browne’s decision to grant the civil protection order against Shamansky’s client be reversed and the judge be disqualified from hearing future proceedings in the case.
According to Shamansky, his client arrived before the hearing was to begin on the morning of April 21 and was
Shots were exchanged between two Franklinton households.
The shooting between neighbors was triggered over a dispute of a stolen dog, Columbus police said in a search warrant request.
The Columbus Dispatch reports the first shooting happened at about 2 p.m. Aug. 10, resulting in police charging two people from a Cypress Avenue address with felony charges. However, about 12 hours later the fight continued.
Officers were called back out at 2:30 a.m. Aug. 11 when two people from the Cypress Avenue home shot up the other residence on Avondale Avenue.
Police had to send plainclothes officers to monitor the situation.
The plainclothes officers only had to wait about two hours before hearing more gunfire and watching “numerous males running from the area, back towards ... (the) Avondale Ave. (residence),” according to a search warrant.
The males were peeling off plastic gloves from their hands as they ran.
One person was hit near the Cypress Avenue residence, police learned.
It’s unclear what happened to the dog.