Tools of war for soldiers, not cops

President Trump’s “War on Crime” looks more like a war on anything backed by former President Barack Obama.

The latest is a reversal of Obama’s executive order imposing stricter rules on a government program that gives surplus military gear to civilian police departments.

Since 1996, when Bill Clinton signed the law allowing the Defense Logistic Agency to shed unused military weaponry by giving it to local law enforcement agencies, $6 billion worth of material has found its way into police hands.

That’s why we began seeing tank-like vehicles in St. Patrick’s Day parades, for instance, and police officers appearing at crime scenes carrying M16 rifles.

As the program grew, more than 8,000 police agencies queued up for a handout from the military. And the routine crime scene appeared at times like SEAL Team Six on the move.

Critics of the program were opposed almost from the start, but went into overdrive after the events in Ferguson, Missouri, where half-track vehicles let loose helmeted cops clad in body armor.

Congressional inquiries resulted in a number of recommendations to reduce the dissemination of such items as bayonets, grenade launchers, automatic weapons and tracked battle wagons.

Obama adopted the congressional findings in the executive order Trump just reversed. In just a few tweets, the “War on Crime” has gone from metaphor to reality.

The Defense Logistic Agency is touchy about charges that it has contributed to the militarization of civilian police forces. Weapons account for only 5 percent of the agency’s grants and 1 percent of so-called tactical vehicles, it says.

Here in South Florida, SWAT teams have the look of an invading army, with or without the military handouts, which simply round out the existing arsenal.

Criminal justice reformers have long supported community policing, cops seen as approachable friends, not invading occupiers. Tune into coverage of virtually any big-city police department’s handling of protesters for a sample of what community policing is not.

Long before this program began, police forces revealed their tendency to employ war-like equipment. In the early ‘70s, when Fort Lauderdale still ruled as America’s spring break capital and crowds of inebriated college students partied at Las Olas and the beach, the city bought “The Monster,” an enormous armored war wagon.

It’s first deployment was greeted with gasps. Photos of college students facing down what looked like a tank made front pages across America. Tourism officials were torn. Did Lauderdale get a black eye as a haven for mobs of drunken collegians or was it those photos of “The Monster” rolling into the crowds?

They opted to garage “The Monster” and the college students opted for Key West, Daytona and the islands.

But that was then. A little bit at a time, the cringe factor of tanks in the street diminished and it was a rare city that didn’t have at least one military vehicle gassed up and ready to roll.

These days the civilly disobedient face cops in body armor, combat boots and helmets pouring out of armored personnel carriers. While it is true that the majority of these trappings of war are paid for with local taxes, they are augmented by the military surplus program.

This growing chasm between police and the people they serve is only widened by the liberal distribution of military weaponry to civilian police departments.

The Obama administration’s modifications were a good but partial step in the right direction. The Trump administration’s reversal of them is inexcusable and should stop immediately.