A photo supplied by the Montgomery County Police Department in suburban Washington, DC, shows a war-surplus Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle acquired this spring -- free of charge -- from the Defense Logistics Agency. The commander of the county's Special Operations suit says that his force "would definitely push back" against any federal government attempt to take back the vehicle. More than 600 MRAPs have been distributed to large and small police forces across the U.S. as American forces are drawn down in Iraq and Afghanistan. Photo: Handout WASHINGTON — As momentum gathered in Congress and across the United States for the “demilitarization” of local police forces in the wake of this week’s events in St. Louis County, Missouri, the commander of one Washington-area S.W.A.T. team vowed Friday that he “would definitely push back” against any federal-government attempt to deprive his officers of state-of-the-art, Iraq- and Afghanistan-surplus vehicles and weaponry.
“I DO fear that,” Capt. Robert Bolesta of the Montgomery County, Maryland Police Department told Postmedia News in an interview. “The way I see it, those vehicles would either just sit and rot, or they can be taken over by agencies with a justifiable need. It’s all well and good do talk about demilitarizing the police until they take it away and you miss it.”
According to a purported Defence Department ledger published in June on the website scribd.com, Montgomery is one of more than 600 counties across the United States that have requested, and been furnished with, a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle by the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency. (St. Louis County, Missouri, did not appear on that list.)
Capt. Bolesta’s comments came after four-term Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson, an African-American legislator from the eastern suburbs of Atlanta, announced that he would introduce a bill after the summer recess to restrict the ability of local law-enforcement departments to amass the kind of high-powered ballistics and hardened-steel personnel carriers that were used to confront protesters in the streets of Ferguson, Mo., following the fatal shooting of an African-American teen by a white constable.
Police stand watch as demonstrators protest the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown on August 13, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer on Saturday. Scott Olson/Getty Images
Rep. Johnson noted that the campus police at Ohio State University also have acquired a MRAP and jibed that “Apparently, college kids are getting too rowdy.”
Rep. Johnson’s bill may face a tough sell in the House of Representatives. According to a published report on Friday, when a similar measure came up for a vote in June, the 355 Congressmen of both parties who voted to continue funding the Defense Logistics Agency giveaways had received,on average, 73 per cent more money in campaign contributions than did the 62 who voted against it.
The demilitarization proposal has been seconded from the opposite end of the political spectrum. White Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky wrote on Time.com that “Washington has incentivized the militarization of local police precincts by using federal dollars to help municipal governments build what are essentially small armies — where police departments compete to acquire military gear that goes far beyond what most of Americans think of as law enforcement.”
But in suburban Washington, Capt. Bolesta argued, a well-kitted mini-militia may be exactly what is required, should a mass-scale terrorist event occur. Montgomery County, he noted, was the scene of the manhunt for the so-called Beltway Snipers in 2002 after 10 citizens were murdered at random, and of what he called “America’s only suicide bombing,” a 2012 event in which a man was shot dead by police after taking hostages and threatening to blow himself up in the lobby of the headquarters of The Discovery Channel in the city of Silver Spring.
“The fact of the matter is, there has been a shift in recent years in the way that terrorists operate,” said Capt. Bolesta, a 27-year veteran of the Montgomery County force whose father set up Baltimore’s first S.W.A.T. team in the 1960s. “Look at what happened in Mumbai. We might have to report to multiple locations. The MRAP is one of many types of equipment that we might need to bring to bear. The fact of the matter is, we have to take those types of vehicles to the scene.”
A demonstrator holds a sign during a moment of silence on August 14, 2014 in Oakland, California. Hundreds of demonstrators observed a national moment of silence in solidarity with police brutality victims including 18-year-old Michael Brown, an unarmed teen fatally shot by police in Ferguson, Missouri. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Capt. Bolesta said that his department’s MRAP was being retro-fitted into what he called a “medical variant” — a Life-Saving Task Force Vehicle that could be used to extract casualties from an active-shooter scenario. The truck has not been out of the county garage since it was acquired two months ago.
U.S. President Barack Obama, meanwhile, was criticized Friday by the head of the Fraternal Order of Police for saying that there was “no excuse” for Missouri officers “to use excessive force against peaceful protests or to throw protesters in jail for lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights.”
Police officers work their way north on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson, Mo., clearing the road of people Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014. AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Robert Cohen
“I would contend that discussing police tactics from Martha’s Vineyard is not helpful to ultimately calming the situation,” Executive Director Jim Pasco told a Capitol Hill newspaper.
“I don’t want to be a talking head and give an opinion without all the facts,” Capt. Bolesta said, when asked about the events in Ferguson. “But I understand that there may be a lot of deep-rooted issues in that particular case. It’s important not to take one or two incidents and use a broad brush and take away those capabilities.
“There are countless examples across the country of officers who have not been trained as effectively as they should have been in how to execute a high-risk search warrant. Many officers have been killed in these sorts of operations. There are many agencies out there that only have part-time S.W.A.T. teams, and sometimes, bad things can occur.
“We are proud to be able to say that, ever since our S.W.A.T. team has been in existence, we have never shot or killed a civilian or a suspect, and we have never had an officer shot.”
Capt. Bolesta was not the only police commander to argue in favour of the acquisition of military firepower and protective gear. In Walkerton, Indiana, Police Chief Matthew Schalliol complained to the South Bend Tribune that “There’s been a little bit of hype with departments getting M16s, MRAPs, that type of stuff. It’s not for the purpose of becoming more militarized. It’s for the purpose of being prepared for any type of scenario that could come our way.”
“If we didn’t have this program, there’s a good chance we’d still be in the dark ages, so to speak.”
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