Feds censure police, yet give lethal weapons

LOS ANGELES - A Pentagon program that distributes military surplus gear to local law enforcement allows even departments that the Justice Department has censured for civil rights violations to apply for and get lethal weaponry.

That lack of communication between two cabinet agencies adds to questions about a program under review in the aftermath of the militarized police response to protesters in Ferguson, Mo.

The Pentagon, which provides the free surplus military equipment, says its consultation with the Justice Department will be looked at as the government reviews how to prevent high-powered weaponry from flowing to the untrustworthy.

The Justice Department has opened civil rights investigations into the practices of about 20 police departments in the last five years, with the Ferguson force the latest. The investigations sometimes end in negotiated settlements known as consent decrees that mandate reforms. Yet being flagged as problematic by Washington does not bar a police department from participating in the program.

"Given the fact that they're under a consent decree it would make sense that the Department of Defense and Department of Justice coordinate on any such requests, [but] that is currently not the state," said Jim Bueermann, who heads the nonprofit Police Foundation.

At a Senate hearing this month, Alan Estevez, a Defense Department official who oversees the program, acknowledged that consultation with the Justice Department was "lacking" and he said that would be reviewed. Under questioning, he acknowledged the Pentagon does not take federal civil rights investigations into account in shipping out weapons, but that could change. "We need to do a better job there," he said.

The Los Angeles Police Department received multiple shipments, totaling 1,680 M16 assault rifles, under the Pentagon program, even while the department was under the watch of a federal monitor and had been accused of poor practices, government records show.

The Pentagon program was authorized by Congress in 1990 to help fight drugs, with terrorism-fighting a more recent objective. The Defense Department views the program, which has handed out more than $5.1 billion in property since it started, primarily as a way to get rid of equipment it no longer needs.