POLICE BENEFIT FROM CASTOFF MILITARY GEAR

Armored Vehicles Get a New Civilian Life

For many law enforcement agencies in Georgia, the Pentagon has become
a Costco for military surplus: quality merchandise at can't-beat-it
prices. For more than 15 years, police and sheriff's departments
across the state have used the Department of Defense's excess
property program to stock their arsenals with new and used equipment
that ordinarily would have been out of their budgetary reach.

The Doraville Police Department's SWAT team got an armored personnel
carrier -- worth about $400,000 when it was new a few years ago -- at
virtually no cost to taxpayers to aid officers in hostage situations.
Columbus police picked up a used helicopter last year and saved the
city nearly $200,000.

Newnan police have gotten everything from M-16s to camouflage
uniforms to vehicles and a boat with a motor and a trailer, much of
it for counter-drug operations.

Newnan Chief Douglas Meadows estimates his department, with an annual
budget of about $5 million, has received $750,000 worth of excess
military equipment over the last 10 years simply by asking.

"It's a darned good program," Meadows said. Last year, Georgia law
enforcement agencies received nearly $2 million worth of surplus
equipment, according to the Defense Logistics Agency, which
administers the program nationwide.

That's money saved by local city councils or county commissions. And,
ultimately, by local taxpayers.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, more than $22 million in excess equipment has
come to Georgia for homeland security or drug interdiction. In most
cases, the surplus equipment is outdated or has been otherwise
replaced by upgrades that better fit the military's needs.

"What is made available is only excess to our needs," said Jack
Hooper, a spokesman for the Defense Logistics Agency. Law enforcement
agencies "are not competing with the military for these items."

Despite the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the toll they are taking
on equipment, there seems to be no lack of surplus items. In 2005,
about 16,000 law enforcement agencies across the country received
more than 380,000 pieces of surplus equipment. They ranged from
armored personnel carriers and helicopters to desks and laptop
computers. California led all states in gobbling up the excess gear
that year, with about $17 million worth, followed by Indiana with
$10.5 million and North Carolina with $10 million.

"It's been a good resource for small departments with small budgets
but which may have big demands," said Buzz Weiss of the Georgia
Emergency Management Agency, which administers the program in the
state. Federal requirements stipulate that the states must certify
that the equipment be used either for homeland security or drug
interdiction. Thus, the need for such items as body armor, Kevlar
helmets, night-vision devices and all-terrain vehicles.

"It gives us a capacity that as a small agency we normally wouldn't
have," said Pelham Police Chief Nealie McCormick.

His South Georgia agency of 14 full-time officers and eight
reservists has received M-16 rifles, camouflage uniforms,
night-vision devices and generators.

The generators proved particularly useful when tornadoes swept
through the area in March, knocking out electricity to thousands. "We
had a neighboring force that was operating only with candles and we
were able to get them back on-line with our generators," McCormick
said. Agencies that receive surplus equipment must be able to certify
in occasional audits that it is being used for the intended purpose.
Weapons are monitored especially closely by federal inspectors. But
one agency can pass equipment on to another. The Coweta County
Sheriff's Department obtained a surplus OH-58 Kiowa helicopter from
the Georgia Department of Corrections that was in need of repairs and
maintenance after it had been sitting idle for three years.

Capt. Tony Brown of the Sheriff's Department said seized drug money
was used to repair and maintain the helicopter, which is often used
in manhunts or to locate lost Alzheimer's patients.

"It's one of those things that, when you need it, you're really glad
you have it," Brown said.

If equipment is no longer used for its intended purpose, or becomes
too expensive to maintain, it reverts to federal ownership, said the
DLA's Hooper. "It's not available for them to sell," he said. Which
is fine with the local law enforcement agencies. "A lot of this stuff
we can afford to maintain, but we can't afford to buy," said Pelham's
McCormick.

Newnan's Meadows said: "One way to look at it is that it's recycling
the taxpayers' money."