Today’s map
Friday, Aug 15, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From the New York Times…
State and local police departments obtain some of their military-style equipment through a free Defense Department program created in the early 1990s. While the portion of their gear coming from the program is relatively small (most of it is paid for through department budgets and federal grants), detailed data from the Pentagon illustrates how ubiquitous such equipment has become.
Highlighted counties have received guns, grenade launchers, vehicles, night vision or body armor through the program since 2006.
* Keep in mind that “recipients” can include state and local governments based within the counties. The national map…
* A few random Illinois counties. Check out all the armored vehicles…
Go play with the interactive map and report back.
- Apocalypse Now - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:35 pm:
A waste of money and resources. Lots of these departments don’t have the proper training to handle this equipment or the situations where it may be needed.
- Norseman - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:41 pm:
This is a tragedy turned into a farce by poor decisions on the part of too many people. Now we have to blame the equipment that was distributed to hundreds upon hundreds of organizations that are using this adapting this surplus equipment in new way because of budget problems.
We’d all be better served if people would take a deep breath and gather the facts necessary to analyze how all can respond better.
- Ghost - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:43 pm:
Have seen seen the State polic armored vehicle and bridging vehicle at the State Fair?
I so want to drive that down the highway…..
- Norseman - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:44 pm:
Oops. To quick on the enter. Meant “that are adapting this surplus equipment in new way”
- train111 - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:46 pm:
Lump that waste of money into that done during the first decade of the 2000’s under the guise of ‘homeland security’ when places like Bumbledump Nebraska population 25 were able to buy new fire and police equipment with federal dollars.
Now, its probably because we aren’t in a whole lot of active combat situations and the military doesn’t need all the equipment produced. Despite all the tough talk about cutting expenses, the local Congresscritter isn’t going to have 2 or 3 hundred jobs cut in HIS/HER district because of declining military spending, so there is a glut of it out there.
- Joe Bidenopolous - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:47 pm:
Sangamon County received more than 600 assault rifles? Are there even 600 law enforcement officers in the county? And what the heck could they ever need that many for - to start a war? If I lived on the east side of Springfield, those numbers would make me extremely nervous and have me thinking a lot about Ferguson.
Likewise, what does Fulton need 3 armored vehicles for? What does it need any for? Has Canton gotten that bad since the last time I was there years ago? I doubt it.
To me, if there’s a situation that calls for any of these things, aside from body armor, then it’s probably time to call in the National Guard. I have no desire to live in a militarized state, but that’s exactly where ‘Merica is headed, if not already there.
- Federalist - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:47 pm:
Armored vehicles for Fulton and Adams Co???
- Bemused - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:48 pm:
654 Assault Rifles for Sangamon County? I had no idea it was so dangerous down here. Good thing we can tip cows over for cover.
- unclesam - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:48 pm:
I’m curious on why eight helicopters are needed in Lake County…
- VanillaMan - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:52 pm:
Thanks NYT!
According to your map, we should have little challenge from Missouri, if we invade the northern counties first!
Tell me which police department should have turned down this free defense equipment? It was a great source of free equipment when a department needed new free stuff, wasn’t it?
How many police personnel are you guys willing to see killed because they didn’t have the free defense equipment?
At what level do we stop trying to fight crime?
- d - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:53 pm:
People, don’t you realize we are fighting a war in our midst?? The war on drugs is raging around us, this is just another consequence
- d - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:55 pm:
The state has to have a monopoly on violence, otherwise orderly society wouldn’t exist
- Anonymous - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:55 pm:
this could only be used against the people they protect (the war on drugs has expanded)
- illlinifan - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:57 pm:
This is a lot about keeping all the companies that build military equipment working….build new items and what do you do with the surplus…give it to police departments at a low price, and the DOD pays a big price for the newer and better replacements. Helps to keep on churning the military/industrial complex which has grown.
- Wensicia - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:58 pm:
Two mine-resistant vehicles in Lake County? They’d be better off with skunk-resistant vehicles.
- js - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:58 pm:
=I’m curious on why eight helicopters are needed in Lake County…=
Rush hour traffic is hell in Lake county.
- VanillaMan - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:02 pm:
Bumbledump Nebraska
Nebraska is a fantastic state and the people there are amazing. You should spend some time there, because your example doesn’t reflect Nebraskans in a way that they deserve to be reflected.
And even if there was a BumbleDump with a population of 25, gathering free defense equipment - it shouldn’t reflect on them in a negative way, should it?
- OneMan - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:02 pm:
Guessing the Sangamon numbers include the state police…
- OneMan - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:04 pm:
But yeah 8 helicopters, those things cost a fortune to operate per hour. Surprised they can afford 8 of them.
- Anonymous - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:06 pm:
Well, Sangamon County will survive the zombie apocalypse.
- Nonplussed - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:07 pm:
So DoD doesn’t need this equipment. Our local cops get it for free. And people are complaining? Because we are so crime free we don’t need it or since we are so flush with cash we should pay for it?
- VanillaMan - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:08 pm:
How about if we start questioning the kind of fire-fighting equipment communities get without cost from the Federal government?
Would you have a problem if a majority of US counties had fire-fighting helicopters and other heavy-duty equipment?
I suspect that since the issue would be fighting fire, a lot of you wouldn’t have a problem with that because you can imagine your home being consumed by fire - so you support advanced fire fighting equipment. Yet, since you don’t see a need for your police personnel to have advanced defensive equipment, you think having that isn’t smart.
Right?
- anonymoose - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:14 pm:
Quoting John Stossel from a recent Fox news piece entitled “Policing America.”
http://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2014/07/23/policing-america-n1864677/page/full
“The equipment is surplus from the long wars we fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
To a hammer, everything resembles a nail. SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) teams were once used only in emergencies such as riots or robberies where hostages were taken. But today there are more than 50,000 “no-knock raids” a year.
It’s not because crime got worse. There is less crime today. Crime peaked around 1990 and is now at a 40-year low. But as politicians keep passing new criminal laws, police find new reasons to deploy their heavy equipment.”
- Imjustabill - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:15 pm:
I wonder what it costs to maintain an armored vehicle? Seems like a poor way to allocate tax dollars. The money would be better spent on education.
- plutocrat03 - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:19 pm:
Assault rifles are one thing, but helicopters and amrmored vehicles are possibly over the top.
Most departments would sink on the operational costs alone for these kinds of things alone.
- Keyser Soze - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:19 pm:
The Sangamon County Sheriff’s office recently sent its assault vehicle to an armed wack-job standoff. It was like kids on a sugar high with a new toy.
- Formerly Known As... - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:22 pm:
Fulton County needs 3 armored vehicles?
Sangamon County and the ISP needs 654 military grade assault rifles? 300 just isn’t enough? We needed to go big?
What in the world for?
- Formerly Known As... - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:23 pm:
Is Lake County suddenly suffering from an influx of vampires?
How else to explain 190 “night vision pieces”?
- phocion - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:23 pm:
Police love their toys. This is just another excuse to give them things they don’t need (or God forbid, would be tempted to use because they have it) just because it’s “free.” Giving this type of firepower and equipment to local law enforcement should have both civil libertarians on the left and Tea Partiers on the right very, very nervous.
- Just Observing - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:31 pm:
=== I’m curious on why eight helicopters are needed in Lake County… ===
As a Lake County resident, I must defend this. We must be prepared in the event McHenry County tries to attack us.
- Just Observing - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:32 pm:
“Other recipients of the weaponry include the Brookfield Zoo which obtained M-16 and M-14 combat rifles from the Pentagon. A Brookfield spokesperson would not say how many guns they got but said zoo police are thankful that they are better able to protect the public, the animals and save money.”
http://abc7chicago.com/news/widespread-militarization-of-illinois-police-forces-uncovered-by-i-team/259740/?r=7666I7035145E4R
- Arizona Bob - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:37 pm:
Look out Wisconsin, the Illinois Dems are comin’ for ya’! If only Illinois can seize the key breweries in Milwaukee…..it’ll be like the Russians taking Czechoslovakia in ‘68!
- Mason born - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:39 pm:
Lets clear something up. The military assault rifles mentioned are select fire weapons (fully automatic) not semi-auto like an ar-15. No police force anywhere in this country including feds need automatic weapons!! A police officer is responsible for every round that leaves the muzzle of his weapon he has no business sending 600 of them every minute. I have no problem with a semi-auto patrol rifle and if DOD would require all rifles and submachine guns to be demilled (rendered semi-auto only) this might make sense. Body armor, night vision, pistols, shotguns, and unarmed helicopters make sense.
Vman usually I think you have some pretty good insights. However arming police with automatic weapons and MRAPS is nuts. What next Bradley IFV with 25 mm cannons to patrol south Chicago?
- Arizona Bob - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:40 pm:
I guess we’ll be well prepared when Obama sends to Springfield all those MS-13 teenage gangbangers that just crossed the Southern sieve border….
- Precinct Captain - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:41 pm:
==- VanillaMan - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 1:52 pm:==
You’re insane.
- Precinct Captain - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:42 pm:
==- Arizona Bob - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:40 pm:==
You’re insane too.
- PoolGuy - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:44 pm:
if the armored vehicles can be useful during flooding or snowstorms then it might make sense. otherwise not sure what the point is.
and if the locals have to pay the costs for upkeep and maintenance and they never use them, ugh.
- Mason born - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:46 pm:
The temptation to use this stuff overides common sense and good police practice. Look at Ferguson for the first 3 nights cops decided to “roll heavy” end results 3 nights of violence. MO highway patrol takes over park all this paramilitary crap and actually treat citizens like human beings no violence.
Police aren’t and should never act like soldiers.
- PoolGuy - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:46 pm:
careful equating young kids coming to the border as being MS-13 members. not very nice.
- wordslinger - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:47 pm:
–How about if we start questioning the kind of fire-fighting equipment communities get without cost from the Federal government?–
That comparison makes sense to you? Unbelievable.
They’re police forces, not armies. Their missions are quite different.
Did you see the photos of St. Louise County officers training mounted machine guns on unarmed protesters? What sort of “crime fighting” scenario do you envision employing machine guns on unarmed American citizens?
How scared are you, all the time? What price your “security?”
- FormerParatrooper - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:47 pm:
This is a hard one. On one hand the police are becoming a paramilitary force. It reminds me of my time in Panama in the 80’s where Noriega used his police as a military arm.
On the other hand I see the aspect of needing a strong armed response to a terrorist action within our borders. The local police would be the first responders and need heavy equipment if terrorists were well organized and armed with weapons you cannot get at gun shows or sent via FedEx.
Also we have the gang culture who has infiltrated the military and have learned combat techniques. There have been those who had clean records who were able to enlist and have returned to the streets and backwoods. In both the Gulf Wars we recorded gang affiliated graffiti left in several areas. Two factions I saw most of the time where KKK and Latin Kings. Many of these guys are out and back in their environments.
My opinion is that we are straddling the line of being a free state and a military police state. As long as the line is not crossed we shall be fine. I don’t believe it will happen personally, yet I find it prudent to watch.
- js - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:49 pm:
Exercising the Second Amendment with a well armed militia?
- d - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:49 pm:
Nothing in this whole deal is “free.” We the people have already paid for it all, my friends. Who do you think gave DOD the money to buy it all in the first place. Oh, and as if giving the Taliban weapons to fight Russians which they later used on us wasn’t bad enough, now we are blowing up US made equipment that Isis is abandoning in northern Iraq, which Isis had because the Iraqi army left it all behind when it dissipated. So let’s just keep whistling right along paying the military industrial complex. It is real. But, come to think of it, need to start buying stock in the companies that profit from it, cause it is just going to keep going on and on and on
- VanillaMan - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:52 pm:
==Precinct Captain==
There has been no mass insanity sweeping across the US and just detected by the NYT. There are perfectly good reasons for this situation because it depended upon perfectly good and dedicated people for it to happen.
- Anon. - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 2:56 pm:
No F-16s?
- Anon - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:02 pm:
FormerParatrooper: You are right that this equipment would be useful in a terrorist situation but that’s not how it is currently being used. If DoD put restrictions on the use, fine. They don’t so the police become paramilitary as a matter of routine.
Also, if it is terror related, you don’t need it in downstate Illinois or Ferguson, MO. I don’t see terrorists making a big splash by attacking those areas. No need for them to get this equipment.
Last, you’d be better served giving this equipment to the National Guard of each state and establishing some sort of on-call units to react to terror operations. Keep the military military and the police police.
- Trooper - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:05 pm:
The 3 “armored vehicles” in Fulton County are unarmored Humvees. Also the rifles the ISP received are all semi-auto only. They were modified to remove the auto function.
- wordslinger - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:06 pm:
– Keep the military military and the police police.–
Now you’re talking. Why isn’t this stuff in National Guard armories?
- js - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:10 pm:
Kendall County has only got 43 rifles and one mine resistant vehicle. Better watch out. Joliet is invading from the east to change your way of life.
- FormerParatrooper - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:10 pm:
Anon: Agreed, restrictions should be placed. I wanted to present a few angles not presented by the statistics or article. Downstate Illinois probably isn’t a high probability target, but Ferguson is a suburb of STL and proximity to probable targets are close.
I know the Illinois Guard had a counter terrorist team at one time but not sure if it exists now or was absorbed into the Infantry Battalion.
- Anonymous - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:11 pm:
Mason Born:
Media reports rainbows and sunshine in Ferguson last night. Here’s an update from a credible source: “Update from last night: Police backed off….and……innocent woman shot, person stabbed, a person was robbed, Police did respond to a report of people smashing a window at McDonalds….and they pelted the officers (not in riot gear) with bricks striking a female officer in the head, they surrounded and destroyed both of their cars, a camera man from the media was badly beaten. Also several white protesters were beaten. But hey it was all calm according to the media…ha”
- Big Muddy - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:12 pm:
I’m really surprised that DuPage county doesn’t have a whole Air Cav wing and a matching armor division?
- Anon - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:16 pm:
Mason born, not that I agree or disagree with your overarching point but your assessment of how a “military assault rifle” operates is incorrect. The M-4 and the all versions of the M-16 since the M-16A2 are select fire with the option of semi-automatic or 3 round burst. They are not fully automatic weapons. As a matter of fact almost all of the fully automatic weapons in use in the US military are not select fire, contrary to your assertion, and nearly every one of them falls into the light and heavy machine gun category which would not include assault rifles.
- 47th Ward - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:18 pm:
“Dress them like the military and they’ll start acting like the military.”
- 47th Ward - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:20 pm:
I think Chicago got some F/A-18 Hornets and they’re out training right now…
- Precinct Captain - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:21 pm:
==- Anonymous - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:11 pm:==
You also could have made your lede, “This is an unsourced racist report with no factual basis in reality.” Somehow we have pictures of nearly everything that has happened in Ferguson but this anonymous blog comment. What next, it’s to distract from Benghazi? Go away lunatic.
- Todd - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:28 pm:
JS ==Kendall County has only got 43 rifles and one mine resistant vehicle. ==
I got more than they do
- Trooper - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:29 pm:
The upgrade from shotguns to rifles occurred mostly in response to the 1997 North Hollywood shootout between LAPD and two bank robbers armed with fully automatic rifles. The two men held off a legion of LAPD patrol officers for nearly an hour before SWAT arrived.
In the wake of this many departments let officers buy and use their own rifles or provided some on a limited basis. After 9/11 federal money came pouring in and the first thing many departments bought were civilian versions of the M-16. In the ISP’s case, the .223 cal Armalite M-4. Every patrol trooper is now issued one.
- OneMan - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:34 pm:
VM man I love you, but the example is sort of wrong and even if it is right it is still sort of wrong.
I am reminded of a fire years and years ago where I grew up, Dolton. For those of you who don’t know Dolton had a lot of chemical plants (explains some things I know) and one day one of them caught fire and it put out a nice toxic cloud (made the CBS news with Dan Rather) and the local fire department fought it and then called in the fire department from Whiting IN.
When asked why the Fire Chief of Dolton said “We have foam, we don’t have that much foam”.
While it might make sense for a county or counties to have a mine resistant vehicle, it doesn’t make sense for most police departments to have them. Because there are costs of training and maintenance they incur. In order to justify these costs they may feel the need to use these items more than they should since they are trained on them and have them.
Heck watch the SWAT shows and ask yourself if in most of those instances if you need that many guys that heavily armed to do that stuff…
There is a great tidbit in a story in the National Review…
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/376053/united-states-swat-john-fund
The number of raids conducted by local police SWAT teams has gone from 3,000 a year in the 1980s to over 50,000 a year today. That’s about 137 times a day…
Also even using the example I sited of Lake County. Eight helicopters cost a lot of money to keep flight ready, lets say it costs $250 an hour to operate them.
So if each of them just operates 10 hours a month, thats 240,000 a year.
That doesn’t include the cost of getting the things law enforcement ready.
- Joe Bidenopolous - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:34 pm:
Anonymous 3:11 - if the source is so credible, why not identify either the source or yourself?
- Joe M - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:34 pm:
The county I live in received five assault weapons. That doesn’t seem too extravagant considering there is an Illinois State Police district with headquarters in the county, as well as the county sheriff’s headquarters, and a large city police force - and a large campus police force. Not sure which group received the rifles. But with recent college shootings in the U.S. over the years, the five assault rifles seem like necessary equipment. Especially since there have been a couple of campus shooting threats and bomb threats in the county over the years.
- wordslinger - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:41 pm:
–The two men held off a legion of LAPD patrol officers for nearly an hour before SWAT arrived.–
Rather than militarizing the nation’s police forces over two crooks, perhaps a better solution would have been for LA County to work on its SWAT response time.
Did you see the pictures of cops taking dead-aim at unarmed demonstrators? What kind of “police” tactic is that? For crying out loud, it’s a miracle there wasn’t a massacre, because those boys sure looked like they were itching for a fight. A couple of thrown bottles or rocks, and we might have seen it.
- OneMan - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:43 pm:
Anonymous 3:11 calling BS on that…
- vise77 - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:49 pm:
Madness. That is the only word to describe this militarization.
I am in my early 40s. Grew up in Metro East in a culture that taught respect for cops. Thanks to the useless and lost drug war, something has happened that I never thought would happen: The population does not trust the police, no matter one’s political leanings. I doubt that trust is ever coming back. This arming up of the cops certainly does not help.
God help a society where the population’s trust in its law enforcement is gone.
- North by Northwest - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:50 pm:
After looking at the detailed map, I’m really sort of surprised that more departments are getting night vision. That’s equipment that would be handy to have in any supervisor’s squad working a night shift.
- Abraham Froman - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:53 pm:
Driving Rt. 45 or Rt. 120 in Lake County pretty much required a mine resistant vehicle until the recent construction, but some patches are still pretty dicey
- Norseman - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 3:59 pm:
Word, I’m afraid we have to agree to disagree on this thing. Based on one incident that I agree was extremely poor judgement by the police folks are espousing the cessation of a surplus equipment program that up to now has not been an issue. The egregious sniper incident was a problem with judgement not surplus equipment.
As I said before, calm heads need to review the program.
- Deep South - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 4:14 pm:
Geez…when did ordinary U.S. citizens become “the enemy?”
- Sunshine - Friday, Aug 15, 14 @ 4:49 pm:
One never knows when a rabbit might attack you. Saw a movie once where one did a lot of damage. Can’t be too prepared!
Actually, I’d rather we have it here than letting our “friends” turn it over to our enemy’s. The key is when to use it. Don’t want to ratchet up a situation when it isn’t necessary, but is good to have when senseless riots break out and there is rampant destruction of property and harm to innocents.
Perhaps the small town police need sniper rifles and tanks at deer crossings? Yep….F18s might help with the Asian Carp problem.