Sheriff's Offices Lost Armored Vehicles, Get Them Again

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METRO DETROIT, MI – What the government taketh away, the government giveth back.

Sheriff’s offices in Oakland and Macomb counties will receive Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MARPs, from a government surplus program just weeks after they were ordered to return tracked vehicles used in SWAT team responses.

The two agencies were among 11 nationally recently approved for the wheeled armored vehicles, the Detroit Free Press reports. Wayne County is “on a waiting it of sorts,” Undersheriff Daniel Pfannes told the newspaper.

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The agencies that returned tracked armored vehicles were given first priority for the wheeled MARPs, Susan Lowe, a public affairs specialist with the Defense Logistics Agency, which oversees the federal surplus program, said in an e-mail to the Free Press.

In all, 396 law enforcement agencies have asked for MARPs, Lowe said.

More than a dozen police agencies in Michigan were required to return military surplus equipment acquired under the Defense Department’s 1033 program after President Obama ordered a review following the Ferguson, MO, riots stemming from the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.

“It can alienate and intimidate local residents, and send the wrong message,” the president said. “So we’re going to prohibit some equipment made for the battlefield that is not appropriate for local police departments.”

Local police agencies that have received the equipment argueD 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.

Since 2006, 15 Michigan sheriff’s offices have received more than $40 million worth of surplus military equipment no longer needed for military operations in iraq and Afghanistan.

The MRAPs Macomb and Oakland counties will receive will cost about $3,500 each to transport to Michigan from Little Rock, AR, where they’re currently located. They could arrive in as early as next week.

» Photo of tracked vehicle loaded for return via Oakland County Sheriff’s Office