Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, is expected to introduce a similar bill in the House next week.
Their legislation would require more formalized training in the use of surplus military and other federal equipment obtained by local police agencies, and it seeks to prevent the federal government from giving police departments one type of heavy mine-resistant armored vehicle, known as an MRAP, while allowing the transfer of other kinds of armored vehicles.
The measure would require more oversight by local elected officials of what their police departments procure from federal aid.
It also would direct that 5 percent of a top Justice Department grant program go toward police body cameras, dashboard cameras, gun cameras and similar technology.
Additionally, the measure would set minimum manpower requirements for SWAT teams in departments that receive federal aid.
The legislation also sets up a national task force to study what equipment is suitable to be passed from the Pentagon and other federal agencies to local police departments, and how that equipment should be used.
“The bottom line is, this equipment saves police lives, but these programs need reform,” McCaskill, D-Mo., told the Post-Dispatch. “And that’s exactly what this bill would do.”
Clay said the bill “directly addresses the excessive militarization of local police, which I witnessed first-hand in Ferguson.”
Clay said his bill “will also mandate new standards for sensitivity training to help officers interact more effectively with racially and ethnically diverse communities, new immigrants, the mentally ill and disabled Americans.”
The legislation is supported by the NAACP, the National Tactical Officers Association and the Urban League of Greater St. Louis, McCaskill’s office said.
The National Tactical Police Association has a membership of about 40,000 and represents police specialty units. Its executive director, Mark Lomax, praised McCaskill’s collaborative work on the bill.
McCaskill said she talked with other police organizations, including the Fraternal Order of Police, before drafting the measure. The police chiefs of the three largest jurisdictions in the state — St. Louis County, St. Louis city and Kansas City — have told her they support it, McCaskill said.
St. Louis police Chief Sam Dotson said in an interview that he supports McCaskill’s bill in part because he has heard community concerns about police militarization since the police shooting death of Michael Brown.
Dotson said the last military surplus equipment that he can recall his department receiving was a helicopter during the 1990s, which is no longer in service, and some helmets.
The vast majority of the police equipment used in Ferguson did not come from the Department of Defense, the Pentagon has said.
“I don’t depend on hand-me-downs from the military,” Dotson said, noting that his department routinely applies for federal grants to buy police equipment. “Responsible law enforcement doesn’t mean you have cool toys. What it means is that you’re able to provide services to the community.”
St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar refused to do an interview but he issued a prepared statement supporting McCaskill’s measure.
“The bill ensures that law enforcement will continue to have access to life-saving equipment, but it brings more public awareness to these programs, and that transparency is essential to building and maintaining trust,” Belmar said.
But the legislation could draw opposition from those who say it is a top-down solution, or that it addresses a problem that was overstated to begin with.
While not commenting specifically on McCaskill’s legislation, Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said Wednesday he believes the “militarization” claims during the unrest in Ferguson were “driven by a whole lot of misinformation.”
Much of the debate centered on police equipment, including armored vehicles, body armor and weapons, used to confront demonstrators and rioters in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of Brown, 18, by Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson. Local and federal investigations ruled the shooting was an acceptable use of force by a police officer who felt his life was endangered.
The police response to civil disobedience and criminal looting created a separate debate. Last August, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Ferguson at times resembled “war more than traditional police action.”
McCaskill said Wednesday her bill was designed to address that image while still giving police the protection they need to handle dangerous situations.
“We have managed to draft a bill that has the support of the National Tactical Officers Association and the NAACP. In this climate right now, to have these police officers, who understand the importance of this equipment in terms of saving lives, join forces with the NAACP to institute reforms to the programs, is a major accomplishment,” she said.
One provision in the bill calls for police SWAT teams to include at least 17 officers and come from departments of at least 35 officers.
McCaskill said the idea came from the tactical police organization. The legislation carves out exceptions for high-risk arrest teams and other smaller, sophisticated police units.
The legislation also bans police from obtaining through federal aid MRAPs, the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles designed for use in roadside-bomb infested war zones like Iraq.
None of those were deployed in Ferguson, and Blunt said misidentification of some of the armored vehicles deployed there helped fuel the debate about militarization.
But McCaskill said Senate hearings last fall revealed that “itty bitty” police departments around the country had obtained the huge vehicles, which can heavily damage roads, from the Pentagon’s surplus programs.
McCaskill said a key provision of her legislation requires more community awareness and oversight from elected officials regarding equipment acquired through federal surplus or grant programs.
Joseph Brann, former director of the federal Community Oriented Policing Services program, said there have been several recent cases where police departments obtained the equipment without the knowledge of their local government officials. He said he welcomes reforms in that area.
But he said other areas in McCaskill’s bill, such as the SWAT team restrictions and the banning of surplus MRAPs, may be viewed in some police departments as overreaching.
“Should (MRAPs) be used extensively? No. But I think that requires further debate, discussion, based on what law enforcement can and does encounter,” he said.
Blunt said Wednesday he has signed onto a separate bill, pushed by Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Gary Peters, D-Mich., calling for a national study of policing.
“I think it is very important that people on the scene, law enforcement officers on the scene, get to decide whether it is time to take their white shirt off and put on some other piece of equipment,” he said.
©2015 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
