-Michigan law enforcement agencies are returning donated surplus military equipment to the federal government this month — including tracked armored vehicles that metro Detroit sheriff's offices have had for more than a decade— under orders of the White House, and they are not happy about it.
"It really upsets me. We have a great asset. We have not abused it, and in just a blanket order we can no longer have it," Macomb County Sheriff Anthony Wickersham said of the tracked armored vehicle his office has had for its SWAT team since 2004. "Look what's happening around the country — mass shootings, barricaded gunman. An armored vehicle gives law enforcement the upper hand."
But Friday, that piece of now-stripped equipment will get picked up and hauled away, supposedly to a Department of Defense military training range to use as a more realistic target for aviators and ground forces. Next week, Wickersham plans to ask Macomb County commissioners whether he can roll over about $350,000 in savings from his office from this fiscal year to next fiscal year to buy a wheeled vehicle as a replacement...
..."This administration has done an about-face on supporting law enforcement," Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said. "As a result," he said, "America is less prepared for a variety of situations," like the attacks in Paris.
"We're 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," Bouchard said. "Those are going to be handled by the local police and this is the type of equipment needed."
The images in Ferguson — a police force dressed in full combat gear and riding around in armored vehicles —prompted a nationwide call to end the militarization of police and all or part of the federal surplus program known as the 1033 program...
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