It started with the best of intentions: In an attempt to find productive uses for military surplus that would be otherwise mothballed, sold to other nations or scrapped for parts, the federal government created a program to pass outmoded equipment to state and local law enforcement agencies at little or no cost. Equipment -- such as the
Who Benefits From Police Militarization? (INFO-GRAPHIC)
Local and state police are more than happy to take the military’s materiel cast-offs, but the people they’ve vowed to serve and protect aren’t the ones benefitting most from increasingly armored and heavily armed police — just ask the people of Ferguson.