{"id":24266,"date":"2021-03-09T15:03:56","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T20:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/?p=24266"},"modified":"2021-03-16T17:28:35","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T21:28:35","slug":"georgia-congressman-introduces-bill-to-de-militarize-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/?p=24266","title":{"rendered":"Georgia Congressman introduces bill to &#8216;de-militarize&#8217; police"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A Georgia Congressman has introduced a bill that aims to get military-grade weapons and equipment out of the hands of local law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat who represents Georgia&#8217;s 4th Congressional District, re-introduced the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hankjohnson.house.gov\/media-center\/press-releases\/rep-johnson-reintroduces-bipartisan-bill-de-militarize-police-1\">bipartisan Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2021<\/a>\u00a0that would place restrictions and transparency measures on the \u201c1033 program,\u201d which allows the Department of Defense  to transfer excess military equipment to law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bipartisan bill was introduced with 75 cosponsors. To view the bill, click&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/hankjohnson.house.gov\/sites\/hankjohnson.house.gov\/files\/documents\/SMLEA2021pdf.pdf\">HERE<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOur neighborhoods need to be protected, but Americans and our founding fathers opposed blurring the line between police and the military,\u201d said Johnson. \u201cWhat has been made perfectly clear \u2013 especially in the aftermath of George Floyd\u2019s murder \u2013 is that Black and Brown communities are policed one way \u2013 with a warrior mentality \u2013 and white and more affluent communities are policed another way. Before another town is transformed into a warzone with gifts of grenade launchers and high-caliber rifles, we must rein in this program and revisit our view of the&nbsp; safety of American cities and towns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Johnson, a former DeKalb County Commissioner, said there is something fundamentally flawed with local law enforcement departments bypassing their local governing authority \u2013 such as a county commission, board or council \u2013 to receive weapons of war without any local accountability.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Through the Defense Logistics Agency\u2019s Law Enforcement Support Office, which oversees the 1033 program, the Department of Defense has transferred $7.4 billion in surplus military equipment \u2013 often from warzones overseas \u2013 to local law enforcement agencies across the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act would:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Prevent transfers of equipment inappropriate for local policing, such as military weapons, long-range acoustic devices, grenade launchers, weaponized drones, armored military vehicles, and grenades or similar explosives.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Require that recipients certify that they can account for all military weapons and equipment. In 2012, the weapons portion of the 1033 program was temporarily suspended after the Department of Defense found that a local sheriff gifted out army-surplus Humvees and other supplies. This bill would prohibit re-gifting and require recipients to account for all weapons and equipment.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The bill adds requirements to enforce tracking mechanisms that keep up with and control transfers of the equipment, implements policies ensuring that police agencies can\u2019t surplus the equipment for resale, and defines drones more clearly.<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Georgia Congressman has introduced a bill that aims to get military-grade weapons and equipment out of the hands of local law enforcement agencies. Today, Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat who represents Georgia&#8217;s 4th Congressional District, re-introduced the\u00a0bipartisan Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2021\u00a0that would place restrictions and transparency measures on the \u201c1033 program,\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":24267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[9601,9486,8473,9602,8474,9485],"class_list":["post-24266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","tag-hank-johnson","tag-latest","tag-media","tag-police-reform","tag-sun","tag-top","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}