FOI Requests:
The village of
Quogue on Long Island’s south shore boasts fewer than 1,000 residents,
but last month its police department received two surplus military
trucks worth a combined $150,000.
Since enrolling in
the same program in 2012, police in Albion, a village of 6,000 near the
Canada border, have added a bomb robot and two Humvees to inventory.
Both departments paid only the cost of shipping for their new equipment.
Over the past
several years, more than 120 law enforcement agencies across the state,
from the NYPD to Tuckahoe, have obtained military-grade equipment
through the Pentagon’s 1033 program, which transfers excess military
equipment to state and local police across the country. Late last week,
for the first time, state officials released a detailed inventory of the
equipment obtained by individual agencies. A review of the data
revealed:
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Since enrolling in 1995, the NYPD has obtained four armored trucks valued at $65,000 each and two former artillery vehicles known as mortar carriers valued at more than $200,000 each. The NYPD received one such heavily armored vehicle in June 2012.
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The New York State Police received two cargo planes, one in 1996 and another in 2010, together valued at $2.8 million, as well as a $900,000 helicopter in 2013.
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The New York State Park Police also obtained a dozen M-14 rifles and two military trucks.
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University police at three State University of New York campuses have received equipment through the 1033 program: police at Morrisville, Oneonta and Old Westbury each obtained one Humvee and three assault rifles since 2011.
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The law enforcement division within the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation received 68 M-16 rifles, all in May 2012.
The complete file is available on the request page, or can be downloaded directly here.
This, the antithesis to the previous post (here) is part of the growing world wide phenomenon of shutting populations out of free access to both space and information and tightening or curtailing the ability to be heard on any matter deemed off limits by the authorities. What public debate was there prior to the decision to militarise police forces around the world? It seems we are expected to curb all aspirations of democracy except to maybe put a tick in a box once every few years? No thank you, that's not my choice.
JS
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