Report on police militarization released by Monterey County civil grand jury

MONTEREY, Calif. —Increased militarization of local police departments is an emerging issue as more and more police forces acquire military-style weapons, vehicles, and tactics.

For its 2015 report, the Monterey County Civil Grand Jury decided to focus on how militarized our local police departments have become under the Department of Defense's 1033 Program.

"In Monterey County, two large armored MRAP vehicles have been obtained from the Department of Defense," the grand jury wrote in its report, released Monday. 

The Salinas Police Department acquired a mine resistant armored vehicle, as well as 30 M-16 rifles. Del Rey Oaks also received a mine resistant armored vehicle, which its officers described as a "rescue vehicle" when interviewed by KSBW. 

Seaside acquired a smaller, light armored vehicle, and 20 M-16 rifles.

The American Civil Liberties Union has raised red flags about SWAT teams using military equipment against civilians. 

The ACLU asserted, "American policing has become unnecessarily and dangerously militarized, in large part through federal programs that have armed state and local law enforcement agencies with the weapons and tactics of war, with almost no public discussion or oversight."

"Even though paramilitary policing in the form of SWAT teams was created to deal with emergency scenarios such as hostage or barricade situations, the use of SWAT to execute search warrants in drug investigations has become commonplace and made up the overwhelming majority of incidents the ACLU reviewed -- 79 percent of the incidents the ACLU studied involved the use of a SWAT team to search a person’s home, and more than 60 percent of the cases involved searches for drugs," the ACLU stated. 

The civil grand jury concluded, however, that all police departments in Monterey County were not over-stepping boundaries in how they battled crime. 

Key findings in the Monterey County report include:

- The Salinas Police Department currently deploys its MRAP vehicle on all SWAT operations, and during 2014 it was not used for any rescue, barricade, or hostage situations.

- The deployments of the Salinas Police Department’s SWAT team and the Monterey Peninsula Regional SRU appear reasonably limited to potentially dangerous situations.

- The Del Rey Oaks Police Department’s MRAP is not likely to be requested by other local 
agencies for anything but a rare prolonged active shooter situation or a catastrophic natural disaster.

- The problems noted in the American Civil Liberties Union’s 2014 report, in which they concluded that American policing has become "unnecessarily and dangerously militarized," do not appear to be present in the Monterey area police departments reviewed by the MCCGJ or in the Salinas Police Department," the grand jury wrote. 

June 2, 2015

KSBW The Central Coast

By Amy Larson