Like agencies across the nation, they're the beneficiaries of the Pentagon's 1033 program. Created in 1990, the program was intended to save the taxpayers money by handing off obsolete or excess military equipment like office furniture.
Beginning in 1997, and especially since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it's also been the way that local communities — many of them initially terrified that they would be the next target of international terrorism — have been able to get weapons, armored vehicles and other equipment traditionally used in warfare for use in local communities.
Today, nearly every Inland Empire law enforcement agency, from sheriff's to city police to school district police departments, has a stockpile of equipment originally designed for use in battle.
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Among their arsenals:
* The Corona Police Department owns 18 drones, 16 of which are various models of camera drones, plus two "enterprise" drones equipped with thermal cameras, and loudspeakers, meant to help in search-and-rescue operations.
* The Riverside Police Department owns four robots, including a pair of $30,000 Aardvark Avatar tactical robots.
* The Ontario Police Department owns four armored vehicles, including three Lenoco BearCats designed to carry officers through a variety of environments.
* The Fontana Police Department owns 85 "less-lethal" launchers, including 35 shotguns designed to fire beanbags and 50 40mm launchers designed to fire foam projectiles.
* The Riverside County Sheriff's Department owns more than 700 military-style rifles of multiple brands and styles.
All of this information is publicly available. Under a 2021 state law, Assembly Bill 481, law enforcement agencies are required to release a self-reported annual inventory that describes what military gear they possess and how it's used. Agencies must also get annual approval from the elected body that oversees them — such as a city council, county board of supervisors or school board — in order to continue using the military equipment.
AB 481 was passed in the aftermath of widespread protests following the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
"When communities saw tear gas launched from military grenade launchers and rubber bullets shot from behind armored vehicles at peaceful protesters, it really crystallized the trust challenges," former Assemblymember David Chiu, D- San Francisco, the author of AB 481, was quoted as saying in a September 2021 news release. "Our streets are not war zones, and our citizens should not be considered enemy combatants. Law enforcement should be viewed as our partners in public safety — they're not military generals, so the weapons and equipment they carry should reflect that reality."
Chiu, now the city attorney for San Francisco, hoped that public awareness of the kind of military hardware that California police departments had at their disposal would lead to public conversations about how communities should be policed.
There is a role for the kind of military equipment covered under AB 481, according to Christie Gardiner, a professor of criminal justice at Cal State Fullerton.
"We need police to be as well-armed as the citizenry. Even though the military equipment is more than most people have access to, there are some very well armed people in America, some intent on doing harm, others intent on protecting themselves and their loved ones from harm," Gardiner wrote in an email.
But the equipment isn't always limited to use by SWAT teams and even police organizations without SWAT teams, like school district police departments, seek out military equipment.
According to their most recent military equipment inventory report, the Fontana Unified School District's police department has seven aerial drones, three robots, two armored vehicles, 85 less-lethal launchers and 105 rifles. According to Interim School Police Chief Steven Griffin, it's important that the district have the equipment available and ready to go.
"These items have all been deployed during police-related incidents on or off our school campuses. Having this police safety equipment available to our police officers at a moment's notice is just as important as using it during any deployment," Griffin wrote in an emailed statement. For instance, "drones can be utilized for searching for missing children, searching for suspects on or near our school campuses, and can be a vital tool during large gatherings."
Research suggests that more than 25 years of increasingly militarized police departments hasn't made either police or the public any safer, according to experts.
"Generally, it hasn't been shown to improve safety or reduce crime and there have been links to increased violence and it's been showed to reduce trust in police and government," said Abdul Nasser Rad, the managing director of research and data of Campaign Zero, a nonprofit that advocates against police violence.
He cited a 2018 Northwestern University study that suggests militarization does not make police officers more safe or reduce crime in their community — but it does hurt the department's reputation with the public they serve. He pointed to another 2018 study, by the University of Utah and the Western Political Science Association, which shows a correlation between how militarized police departments are and the number of people killed by that department.
"There are some cases where it might be good to have this sort of equipment," said Zachary Powell, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Cal State San Bernardino. "But in terms of making people feel safe or increasing public safety, the evidence is pretty thin."
There are elements of a militarized police force that the public does support, according to Gardiner.
Some of the equipment is "quite helpful and saves jurisdictions money without damaging public relations," she said. "Helicopters are one example. The public are also supportive of drone usage by police. I would suspect that robots, especially those that detect and disarm bombs, would also be welcomed by most members of the public."
But militarization has eroded the public trust's in police in some cases.
In a 2018 study conducted by Princeton professor Jonathan Mummolo, participants were shown four different photos of police officers with increasing amounts of military gear, each described as "standing guard during a local protest." The higher the amount of police militarization in the photos, the more survey participants believed there were high crime levels in the city and the less they believed the department needed more funding, and their confidence in the highly militarized police officers decreased.
Those results come as no surprise to advocates opposed to police militarization.
"It's pretty obvious when police are getting military-grade equipment, they are going to act like an occupying force. We have seen it over and over again, especially during protests for racial justice," said Avalon Edwards, a policy associate with Starting Over, a Corona-based nonprofit focused on serving the homeless and formerly incarcerated that has called for defunding the police.
Edwards cited law enforcement agencies using armored vehicles, riot gear and tear gas in a June 2021 Black Lives Matter protest in Riverside.
"The issues facing our communities are often public health issues that you're never going to resolve with military grade weapons, but with the provision of services" to fight poverty and food insecurity and to provide mental health and other medical services, Edwards said.
In contrast, any investment in militarizing police "is a complete misuse of public funding," Edwards added.
Rad at Campaign Zero doesn't believe the militarization of police in the United States is going to stop — but it will change as new technologies emerge.
"The evolution will be more like drones and predictive policing," he said.
Rad pointed to products produced by companies like ShotSpotter, which sells software intended to determine where gunfire has occurred within a city; and Palantir, which uses police data to predict the locations and types of future crimes, as well as suggesting who might be responsible. Some Southern California police departments are already using license plate readers to monitor motorists in their cities. In the future, robots may be joining police on the streets. And that's despite the fact that many of these technologies alarm privacy advocates and there are questions whether some products, like ShotSpotter, work at all.
"In every other area of government, you need to have evidence that something works," Rad said. "But in policing, it's just a matter of 'Well, we want it.'"
Staff writers Nova Blanco-Rico, Jordan Darling, Sarah Hofmann, Jeff Horseman and Monserrat Solis contributed to this story.
©2023 the San Bernardino County Sun (San Bernardino, Calif.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
