More than 20 national education and civil rights advocates sent a letter Monday to Department of Defense officials, urging them to stop giving U.S. school police departments anti-mine vehicles, military-grade firearms like M16s and even grenade launchers.
News reports and lists of recipients of surplus hardware reveal that assault-style rifles, armored vehicles and other military supplies have been handed over to school districts large and small, from California, Texas, Nevada and Utah to Florida, Georgia, Kansas and Michigan.
In California, the San Diego Unified School District acquired an 18-ton Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, called an MRAP, through the DOD’s 1033 program to transfer surplus supplies to civilian law enforcement. In June, the Los Angeles Unified School District also received an MRAP, which was designed to protect U.S. troops under attack in Iraq.
[For more of this story, written by Susan Ferriss, go to http://jjie.org/childrens-righ...ary-hardware/107623/]
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