The hearing, convened to probe “police militarization” in the wake of the police response to protests in Ferguson, Mo., focused on three federal programs designed to help local police departments respond to drug crime and terrorist attacks. Lawmakers and witnesses suggested that programs have run amok, haphazardly doling out military equipment that has transformed some local police into paramilitary forces.
Pressed by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and other lawmakers on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, federal officials who oversee the programs testified they had no way to track any “military-grade” equipment supplied by the government or purchased with federal dollars.
“How in the world can anyone say that this program has one lick of oversight?” McCaskill declared, specifically referring to a Pentagon program that gives surplus military equipment to local police at little or no cost.