Pennsylvania police have received over $6M worth of military surplus since 2018

ERIE, Pa. -- A federal program has provided more than $6 million worth of military surplus to Pennsylvania law enforcement agencies in the past two years alone.

The federal military surplus 1033 program administered by the Defense Logistics Agency has let municipal, county and state agencies collect a bevy of gear for the price of shipping or other fees.

The Department of Defense 1033 program, which began in the 1990s, provides excess or obsolete military equipment at no cost other than shipping and potential storage fees.

Last month, six agencies received more than $65,000 of a variety of items including weather-resistant boots, hazardous warning marking kits and even two all-terrain vehicles, in the case of one Carbon County police department.

DLA data on recent shipments shows the Weatherly Police Department said its $25,385 acquisition would use the vehicles for “back country emergencies” and search and rescue.

More than 30 military-grade vehicles have been given to local departments since 2016, each valued between $500 to $865,000 each.

Lower Makefield, in Bucks County, got its 49,000-pound Mine Resistant Ambush Protected, or MRAP, vehicle originally valued at $865,000 in February of 2016.

The only cost associated with that vehicle was a $3,100 fee to deliver it from Texas, but SIMS Metal Management, a scrap metal company that operates in Falls, paid that fee for the department.

Requests for comment by the USA TODAY Network on how the vehicles have been used since its purchase were not immediately returned.

While the township is listed as the primary agency for the vehicle in the DLA data, the MRAP officially belongs to the South Central Emergency Response Team, a Bucks County group of officers from departments in 14 municipalities.

More: Protests against police put $454 million in military gear under spotlight

Officials from that team said then the vehicle was needed to offer police officers greater protection in extremely dangerous situations, like a shooting at a Doylestown Township home four years prior to acquiring the MRAP.

Richard Klementovich, a trained SWAT officer formerly with Clifton police in New Jersey, opened fire on police officers as they approached after they responded to a civil dispute call he made in June 2012.

Klementovich was attempting suicide-by-cop after luring officers to his home with a false report. Two police cars were destroyed and one officer was injured in a shootout leading to a 10-hour standoff where Klementovich was eventually taken into custody.

While an MRAP might offer the same protection to U.S. soldiers who served in Iraq, recent protests against claims of police brutality and excessive force nationwide have brought increased scrutiny on police departments.

Civil rights groups like the American Civil Liberties Union have for nearly a decade warned against militarization of police through adopting tactics and equipment used on the battleground.

Between 1994 and 2015, the DLA data show nearly 70 law enforcement agencies across the state acquired over 700 rifles through the federal program.

Over 250 of those rifles were given out in 2009 to a department within the Philadelphia Police Department, a total value of $30,600.

The agency name included in the DLA data has “Philadelphia PD DNA Labs” as the lead agency, and an internet search for that specific agency returns the city’s Office of Forensic Science.

The data does not provide a specific model name for rifles or other firearms doled out, but military standard issue assault weapons like the M16 rifle and M4 rifle use 5.56 caliber ammunition.

A request for comment from the Philadelphia police office by the USA TODAY Network were not immediately returned Thursday.

The state’s Department of Community and Economic Development’s municipal statistics website states there are over 6,500 full-time and 1,000 part-time officers on the city’s police force.

The city’s budget documents online at www.phila.gov only go back as far as 2010 and it is unclear how much the city actually paid for the weapons.

The Philadelphia order is not a common occurrence, however, as most firearm acquisitions in the data are mostly in the single digits.

The Northern York County Regional Police Department received 14 rifles in October 2011 valued at $120 a piece, or $1,680 total.

The West York Borough Police Department got three rifles of the same value the year prior, but also acquired a $431 pair of binoculars.

These were the only times the two York County departments used the program over the last 25 years, the data show.

Sgt. Jennifer Bredemeier, of the Beaver County Sheriff’s Office, said Thursday she couldn’t recall seeing available firearms under the program in the three years the county has been using it.

“It all depends on what’s being turned in (by the Department of Defense),” Bredemeier said.

Bredemeier added the office had also recently used the program for a 2006 Ford F-150 and two all-terrain vehicles just this week, a cost of only $1,800 to the county for shipping.

The county sheriff’s office has used the 1033 program mostly for extreme weather clothing, but it also acquired an unmanned ground vehicle for bomb disposal two years ago.

Bredemeier did not immediately have the shipping costs for the two-year-old purchase, but the data show the vehicle was originally valued at $139,503.

The program’s inventory is made up of either extra or out-of-date equipment the military has no use for.

The unmanned vehicle, which Bredemeier referred to as “the robot,” and the MRAP vehicles would have both been a product of the Iraq war.

The defense department program developing MRAPs began in 2006 as improvised explosive devices and ambushes from insurgent forces posed a significant danger to service members.

A 2013 study of the program by the Project Management Institute estimates 28,671 vehicles were made between 2006 and 2012, costing the U.S. more than $48 billion.

A total of 17 “mine resistant vehicles,” like the one in Bucks County in 2016, have been awarded through the program since 2014, the data show.

While the program does provide police forces with affordable access to military equipment, Bredemeier said the program isn’t just for riot gear and guns.

“When people talk about militarization, I think of riot gear ... and that’s not what all of this is,” Bredemeier said.

While the program has seen several hundred ammunition cartridges acquired by police departments over the last two years, it’s also given out several hundred first-aid kits and office chairs over the same period.

The Newberry Township Police Department, another York County agency, used the program for an $80 coffee maker, “miscellaneous welding equipment” and at least 200 other items in 2019 alone.

Along with the aforementioned all-terrain vehicles acquired last month by Weatherly police, the department also purchased a mirror, fencing and storage cabinets for its new police station.

Out of the department’s entire order valued at nearly $40,000, the majority of items acquired are either maintenance, training or day-to-day administrative gear, the data show.

More information about the 1033 program, which is only available to certain qualifying law enforcement agencies, can be found through www.dla.mil.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Pennsylvania police received $6M worth of military surplus since 2018