Police Peeved by Obama Order to Return Surplus Military Vehicles

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The White House has ordered law enforcement agencies in Michigan and across the country to return surplus military equipment they’ve accumulated over the years, and local sheriffs and other officials aren’t happy about it.

President Obama ordered a review of surplus military equipment acquired under the Defense Department’s 1033 program after the Ferguson, MO, riots stemming from the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.

After a working group headed by officials with the defense Department, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice officials was released in May, Obama said:

“We’ve seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people a feeling like there’s an occupying force, as opposed to a force that’s part of the community that’s protecting them and serving them. It can alienate and intimidate local residents, and send the wrong message. So we’re going to prohibit some equipment made for the battlefield that is not appropriate for local police departments.”

This month, metro sheriff’s offices are packing up the equipment, including the armored personnel carriers that move on tracks that they have been using for more than a decade in SWAT operations, so it can be hauled away, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Local police agencies that have received the equipment argue it saves them money and strengthens their ability to respond to tense situations and is a kind of upcycling that gives a second life to equipment that’s already been paid for by the government.

Macomb County Sheriff Anthony Wickersham said his department hasn’t abused the tracked armored vehicle its SWAT team has used since 2004 and “it really upsets” him that “in just a blanket order we can no longer have it.”

On Wednesday, Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel said during his annual State of the County address that Obama should “rescind that order” if he truly wants to make America safer, as he said after Wednesday’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, CA.

Wickersham says he’ll ask the Macomb County commissioners if he can bankroll the purchase of a replacement vehicle from money saved by his office this fiscal year. It will cost about $350,000.

Previously, Hackel told WXYZ-TV the government made the equipment available “for the protection” of officers, but is removing it for what amounts to a public relations problem. “They want to demilitarize law enforcement,” he said.

Sheriff’s offices in Oakland and Wayne counties were among 15 counties affected by the recall. Oakland County was asked to return its tracked armored personnel carrier on Wednesday, and Wayne County must return its track armored vehicle by Monday.

“This administration has done an about-face on supporting law enforcement,” Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard told the Free Press. “As a result, America is less prepared for a variety of situations, like the attacks in Paris.”

The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office has been one of the biggest recipients under the program, which has brought more than $40 million in surplus military equipment to Michigan since 2006.

The haul in Oakland County — a total of 7,000 items valued at nearly $4.8 million since 1999, according to The Center for Michigan, a nonprofit news organization — includes the armored personnel carrier, 250 pairs of night-vision goggles, six sets of body armor and six utility trucks.

Bouchard said the president’s order is “actually taking away a proven asset from law enforcement all over the country, destroying on many levels our ability to handle a very big situation, any situation like Paris.”

“Those are going to be handled by the local police and this is the type of equipment needed,” he said.

Oakland County isn’t without a tracked vehicle, however, after having purchased one with federal grant money.

The agencies losing their armored tracked vehicles under the give-back program can ask to be put at the top of the list for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, according to Susan Lowe, public affairs specialist with the Defense Logistics Agency, which oversees the federal surplus program.

Other items prohibited under the president’s executive order included weaponized aircraft, vessels and vehicles; .50-caliber firearms and ammunition; bayonets; camouflage uniforms, and grenade launchers.

Oakland County must return 16 bayonets used for ceremonial purposes, though.

“Apparently, they thought they were too threatening,” Undersheriff Michael McCabe told the Free Press.

Congresswoman Candice Miller, a Harrison Township Republican representing the 10th District, told the Free Press in an e-mail that the give-back plan is “beyond ridiculous.”

“It hinders our first responders’ ability to do their jobs as effectively as we need them to,” she wrote. “ … This surplus equipment has already been paid for by taxpayers, and they should continue to benefit from it.”

» Photo courtesy of Oakland County Sheriff’s Office