Small-town police departments across the country have been gobbling up tons of equipment discarded by a downsizing military—bicycles, bed sheets, bowling pins, French horns, dog collars, even a colonoscopy machine—regardless of whether the items are needed or will ever be used, the Associated Press noted at the end of July.
In the tiny farming community of Morven, GA, the police chief has grabbed three boats, scuba gear, rescue rafts and a couple of dozen life preservers. The town’s deepest body of water: an ankle-deep creek.
An Associated Press investigation of the Defense Department program, originally aimed at helping local law enforcement fight terrorism and drug trafficking, found that a disproportionate share of the $4.2 billion worth of property distributed since 1990 has been obtained by police departments AP study finds little restraint in military giveaways to cops and sheriff ’s offices in rural areas with few officers and little crime.
The national giveaway programoperates with scant oversight, and the surplus military gear often sits in storage, the AP found.
Using a series of public records requests, the AP obtained thousands of pages of emails and other documents related to the program locally and nationally. The documents, along with interviews with participants and regulators, reveal that staffing shortages and budget constraints have made it difficult for federal and state program officials to keep track of all of the property and to prevent police forces from obtaining excessive amounts of used military equipment and other Defense Department-transferred property.
For many, the opportunity to amass a vast array of gear with few strings attached has proven to be too tempting to pass up, leading to a belly-up-to-theopen-bar mentality.
Among other items acquired by Morven Police Chief Lynwood Yates, mentioned by the AP, was a shipment of bayonets, which have never made it out of storage in his 1.7-square-mile city.
Morven isn’t the only example of a giveaway program gone wild: Before his firing earlier this year for an unrelated matter, the police chief in Rising Star, TX—the only full-time officer in the town of 835 residents— acquired more than $3.2 million worth of property within 14 months. According to an inventory obtained by the AP, the hundreds of items included nine televisions, 11 computers, three deepfat fryers, two meat slicers, 22 large space heaters valued at $55,000 when new, a pool table, 25 sleeping bags and playground equipment. Federal officials suspended Rising Star from the program in March.
Known for its speed trap and annual peach festival, Morven also has been one of the most prolific users of the Defense Department program, getting more than $4 million worth of goods over the past decade.
The spoils have included 20 blankets, 10 two-man combat tents, a hammock, four demagnetizers, two leg curl machines, a shoulder press, a leg press, two treadmills, 20 red gym shorts, 20 fitted bed sheets, 50 flat bed sheets and 355 sandbags.
While a fleet of donated heavy machinery helped Morven build a firing range, some say it is difficult to see much additional benefit.
