In the wake of national protests against police brutality, the University of Maryland police department will be returning 50 M16 semiautomatic rifles, an armored truck, 300 magazine cartridges and 79 gun sights to the U.S. Department of Defense. It’s also selling two camouflage Humvees.
The university is divesting from the Department of Defense’s 1033 program, which allows police departments to get surplus military equipment at low cost, only paying for delivery. On July 1, Dr. Darryl Pines’ first day as president of the University of Maryland, he tweeted that the university would rid itself of its military gear, calling the move a “big step forward,” after over 1,300 students signed a petition in favor.
According to data from the Defense Logistics Agency, over 100 university police departments have acquired military equipment this way, including Purdue University, Western Kentucky University, Arizona Western College, Illinois State University, Florida International University and Black River Technical College, all of which have guns through the program.
Created in 1990 as a part of the National Defense Authorization Act, the 1033 program has waxed and waned over the years. Former President Barack Obama cut back the program in 2015 after the police shooting of Michael Brown, a Black man in Ferguson, Missouri. But President Donald J. Trump revived it in 2017.
The 1033 program mostly serves state, local and sometimes tribal law enforcement, where research shows a connection between access to military equipment and increased police violence, said Viviann Anguiano, associate director of postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress, a left-wing think tank. She recently published a list of recommended campus police reforms, arguing that military gear increases aggressive behavior among officers and contributes to a “culture of militarization.”
“Part of what happens is when a police officer has a gun, just the act of him having a gun makes him more likely to use it,” she said. “The same sort of concept applies to other military equipment. Having riot gear makes police more likely to use the riot gear.”
At the University of Maryland, the program’s removal has been an ongoing discussion, said the institution’s police chief David Mitchell. He first recommended the suspension of the 1033 program in 2014 when students expressed concerns about military-grade weapons on campus after police brutality protests in Ferguson.
