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“Surplus military equipment for law enforcement? They don’t need that,” U.S. President Joe Biden proclaimed in July 2020, at the height of rebellions that took place in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. Yet, despite that acknowledgement, Biden has failed to sign an executive order the White House prepared at the start of his term that would have limited the 1033 program. And despite calls from activists and members within his own party to limit or end the program, Biden has chosen to remain silent. 

We must remember the first raid SWAT teams executed in the late 1960s against Black revolutionaries of the Black Panther Party in Los Angeles, which led to a number of violent encounters with party members. From the start, police militarization has always been about bloodshed and violence regardless of “criminal” evidence, or lack thereof. The so-called “War on Drugs” in the late 1980s was used to legitimize the need for a 1033 program, which was later revitalized in the late 1990s under the guise of “counterterrorism.” Both of these reasons have been used to brutalize, incarcerate, and kill poor and working-class African/Black and other colonized people. It is our duty as working-class Africans to oppose this war the police have brought to our doorsteps and demand an end to a program that largely terrorizes our communities and feeds mass incarceration. 

In solidarity,
Rhamier & Noah
1033 leads in the Black Alliance for Peace’s Research & Political Education Team

New Documents Show Pentagon Rubber-Stamping Police Requests for Military Gear, The Huffington Post

  • The Huffington Post has exclusively received documents that law enforcement agencies sent to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2017 and 2018 requesting armored vehicles. The most popular of these vehicles is the MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicle. MRAPs were designed to protect U.S. troops in Afghanistan from IED explosions. Police often use these vehicles on U.S. streets to carry out search warrants, crack down on social justice protests and deliver civil lawsuits. The “you never know” logic is often deployed in these requests, which shows how broad the criteria is for requesting militarized equipment and how increasingly militarized the mindset of police has become.

  • 8,000 law enforcement agencies participate in the 1033 program across the nation. 

  • Law enforcement agencies in larger cities requested militarized equipment, notably MRAPs, by citing “dense urban areas,” while smaller locales claimed they needed it because their population is spread out. 

  • More than 90 percent of SWAT raids in Maryland aimed at serving search warrants (based on a 2018 analysis). The same study showed SWAT teams neither reduce crime nor improve officer safety.

  • Law enforcement in Corsicana, Texas even went as far as to specifically ask for armored vehicles to police its poorer citizens. 

  • “Safety equipment” is the catch-all term that pigs use in lieu of “military equipment” or “militarized equipment” that we advise people to look for 

Joe Biden Could Easily Recall the Billions in Military Equipment Police Received From the Pentagon, Jacobin Magazine

  • Although congressional legislation is required to completely abolish the 1033 program, Biden could have reinstated Obama-era plans to return 126 tracked military vehicles and 138 grenade launchers by issuing an executive order.

  • Biden has not signed the order, nor spoken since being inaugurated about taking any steps to limit the 1033 program, which he had spoken directly in favor of during the summer of 2020.

  • The provisions within the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act that detail some restrictions in police militarization have stalled because the legislation has yet to make it through the U.S. Senate.

Additional Stories

Learn more about BAP’s work on the 1033 program by visiting the 1033 resources page.

Banner photo: The scene at protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after the killing of George Floyd in May 2020. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)