Close to Home: Accounting for sheriff’s arsenal

The Press Democrat’s May 19 editorial (“Scaling back on militarization of police”) concluded, “Good policing begins with interacting with the public in parks and street fairs - not on tanks with turrets.” Bravo, Press Democrat. Now it’s time for the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors to take concrete and immediate steps to demilitarize.

America has a long history mandating separation of the military from civilian law enforcement. Colonists fighting the British protested the stationing of Red Coats in private dwellings. The intense disdain for military interference in public life was subsequently encapsulated in the Third Amendment to the Constitution. The 1877 posse comitatus statute promulgated specific laws governing this sacrosanct principle of military/police separation.

A series of federal lawsuits invoked provisions of posse comitatus in cases arising out of the 1973 American Indian Movement uprising at Wounded Knee, S.D., during which the National Guard provided arms and logistics for civilian law enforcement.

In United States v. Banks, a federal court, disturbed by the abundant military hardware utilized by law enforcement in Wounded Knee, including “ammunition, weapons, flares, armored personnel carriers and clothing … either loaned or sold to the Department of Justice by the Department of Defense …”, held that it was improper to even lend military equipment to civilian law enforcement.

The posse comitatus statute stands in tatters. Billions of dollars of military hardware has been transferred, according to the Department of Defense, to more than 8,000 state and local law enforcement agencies.

Pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request by the New York Times, we learned Sonoma County acquired 100-plus items of military hardware - including 30 bayonets, now expressly prohibited by an executive order issued by President Barack Obama.

While the Freedom of Information Act response lists a value for military equipment transferred to Sonoma County at $311,318, that figure falls far short of full disclosure. For example, on May 17, 2014, the Sheriff’s Office, responding to a domestic call, unleashed its armored Bear Cat, valued at over $250,000, flash bang grenades, CS gas canisters, body armor and assault rifles in an 11-hour siege at the Larkfield home of now deceased Glen Swindell.

Where is the accounting of the military hardware utilized in the Swindell siege?

Moreover, there is no accounting for training required to utilize the military hardware. There are no guidelines in place regulating the use of lethal military hardware. In fact, there is no line item in the Sonoma County budget for training Sheriffs to use the equipment, despite a $75 million budget for the Sheriff’s Office.

California Assembly Bill 36 would prohibit a local agency from receiving surplus military equipment unless the legislative body of the local agency votes to approve the acquisition at a regular public meeting.

Now is the time for the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors to preemptively act in line with the proposed mandates of AB 36. The Board of Supervisors should hold immediate public hearings not only before the purchase of any new military equipment but to transparently investigate the extent of the military arsenal of the Sheriff’s Office, what training procedures are in place, what are the guidelines for employing lethal military hardware and whether any of the already acquired military hardware should be returned, as has been done by other municipalities.

It is time for Sonoma County to take stock of the military armament of its Sheriff’s Office.

Jonathan D. Melrod is a Sebastopol attorney.