President Barack Obama Bans Some Military-Style Equipment Provided To Police

WASHINGTON — In an unex­pect­ed move, President Barack Obama on Monday will ban the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment from pro­vid­ing cer­tain mil­i­tary equip­ment to police depart­ments. Effective imme­di­ate­ly, the gov­ern­ment will no longer pro­vide local law enforce­ment with armored vehi­cles, grenade launch­ers and bay­o­nets. Other items like explo­sives and riot equip­ment will be trans­ferred to police only if they pro­vide addi­tion­al cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and assur­ances that the gear will be used respon­si­bly. The changes stem from rec­om­men­da­tions made to the pres­i­dent in a new report pro­duced by a White House work­ing group. Obama cre­at­ed the task force ear­li­er this year via exec­u­tive order.

The pres­i­den­t’s action is part of a broad­er effort to relieve ten­sions between law enforce­ment and minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties after the deaths of sev­er­al black men at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri; Baltimore; and oth­er cities. In Ferguson, for exam­ple, local police rolled out armored tanks and riot gear in response to protests over the 2014 death of Michael Brown, a reac­tion that many saw as mak­ing the sit­u­a­tion dra­mat­i­cal­ly worse.

“The idea is to make sure that we strike a bal­ance in pro­vid­ing the equip­ment, which is appro­pri­ate and use­ful and impor­tant for local law enforce­ment agen­cies to keep the com­mu­ni­ty safe, while at the same time putting stan­dards in place so that there’s a clear rea­son for the trans­fer of that equip­ment, that there’s clear train­ing and safe­ty pro­ce­dures in place,” White House Director of Domestic Policy Cecilia Muñoz said in a Sunday call with reporters.

The rea­son police depart­ments have access to mil­i­tary-style weapons at all goes back to the gov­ern­men­t’s ini­tial response to the ⁹⁄₁₁ attacks. But the work­ing group con­clud­ed there is “sub­stan­tial risk of mis­us­ing or overus­ing these
items, which are seen as mil­i­taris­tic in nature,” and that their use by police “could sig­nif­i­cant­ly under­mine com­mu­ni­ty trust.”

News of the ban on mil­i­tary weapons comes ahead of Obama’s Monday vis­it to Camden, New Jersey, where he will high­light the suc­cess of the city’s police depart­ment in build­ing trust with its com­mu­ni­ty. The pres­i­dent will vis­it police head­quar­ters and meet with offi­cers before giv­ing pub­lic remarks. He will also announce $163 mil­lion in grants to encour­age police depart­ments to adopt the rec­om­men­da­tions of the White House work­ing group report.

Beyond Monday’s action, the admin­is­tra­tion has been tak­ing oth­er steps to pro­mote account­abil­i­ty for

law enforce­ment. The Justice Department ear­li­er this month announced a $20 mil­lion grant pro­gram for

increas­ing the use of body cam­eras by police. Obama has also pro­posed increas­ing that amount in his 2016 budget.

“What we’re wit­ness­ing in cities across the coun­try is not only about polic­ing, but it’s also about oppor­tu­ni­ty and cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for all,” Valerie Jarrett, White House senior advis­er, said on the call.

UPDATE: 3:07 p.m. — During his remarks Monday in Camden, Obama explained his rea­son­ing for pulling cer­tain mil­i­tary equip­ment from police departments.

“We’ve seen how mil­i­ta­rized gear can some­times give peo­ple the feel­ing like there’s an occu­py­ing force as opposed to a force that’s part of the com­mu­ni­ty,” he said to applause. “We’re going to pro­hib­it some equip­ment made for the bat­tle­field that is not appro­pri­ate for local police departments.”
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