Police expect Trump to lift limits on U.S. military gear

HAGERSTOWN, MD. — If president-elect Donald Trump keeps his promise, surplus military grenade launchers, bayonets, tracked armored vehicles and high-powered firearms and ammunition will once again be available to state and local U.S. police departments.

National police organizations say they’ll hold Trump to that promise.

President Barack Obama issued an executive order restric ting that access in 2015 amid an outcry over police use of armored vehicles and other war-fighting gear to confront protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. Since then, federal officials have recalled more than 1,800 items, which have been destroyed through target practice or otherwise disposed of, officials say.

But state and local police organizations have protested, insisting that military-style vehicles and gear help pro- tect officers’ lives and public safety — for example, a privately manufactured, tracked armored vehicle played a key role in the police response to the mass shooting at a county government building in San Bernardino, California, in December 2015.

D u r i n g h i s c a mpai g n , Trump sided with the police. In September, he promised to rescind the executive order in a written response to a Fraternal Order of Police questionnaire that helped him win an endorsement from the organization of rankand-file officers.

“T h e 1 03 3 p ro g r a m i s an excellent program that enhances community safety. I will rescind the current executive order,” reads the r e s p o n s e p o s t e d o n t h e group’s website.

National Sheriffs’ Association Executive Director Jonathan F. Thompson said his group has pressed the topic in discussions with Trump’s transition team. And William J. Johnson, executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, said he was encouraged by his conversations with Trump representatives before the Nov. 8 election.

“The feeling that we got is they absolutely hear us and they share our concerns,” he said.

Obama’s order was triggered partly by police use of military-st yle gear and vehicles in response to the 2014 unrest in Ferguson. The order prohibited the federal government from providing grenade launchers, bayonets, tracked armored vehicles, weaponized aircraft and vehicles, and firearms and ammunition of .50-caliber or greater to state and local police agencies.

Peter Kraska, a professor at Eastern Kentucky University’s School of Justice Studies who has studied the militarization of police, said Obama’s executive order has had little effect because there was relatively little demand for the prohibited items to begin with.

“It was more symbolic politics than anything substantive,” he said.