Trump plans to lift ban on military gear to police

WASHINGTON The Trump administration is preparing to lift a controversial ban on the transfer of surplus military equipment to police departments, after a battlefield-style response to rioting in Missouri three years ago prompted a halt to the program.

The new plan, outlined in documents obtained by USA TODAY, would roll back an Obama administration executive order that blocked armored vehicles, large-caliber weapons, ammunition and other heavy equipment from being repurposed from foreign battlefields to America’s streets.

On Monday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is scheduled to address the annual meeting of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union, and he could outline the program changes there.

Administration officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The administration’s action would restore “the full scope of a longstanding program for recycling surplus, lifesaving gear from the Department of Defense, along with restoring the full scope of grants used to purchase this type of equipment from other sources,” according to a administration summary of the new program recently circulated to some law enforcement groups.

“Assets that would otherwise be scrapped can be re-purposed to help state, local and tribal law enforcement better protect public safety and reduce crime,” the summary said.

The FOP and some other law enforcement groups have long been pressing for a reversal of the Obama administration policy, arguing that access to such equipment was needed, especially in cash-strapped communities, to better respond to local unrest.

Local access to the high-powered gear was put on national display in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, where armored vehicles and heavily armed police clashed with protesters for days following the police shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old black man by a white officer.

The deployment of such equipment, President Barack Obama argued at the time, deepened a divide between law enforcement and a wary community.

“We’ve seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people a feeling like they’re an occupying force, as opposed to a force that’s part of the community that’s protecting them and serving them,” Obama said in announcing the ban in 2015.