[89502] in Cypherpunks
Fix Bayonets
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Wed Nov 5 10:42:19 1997
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 09:50:32 -0500
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Reply-To: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
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Date: Mon, 3 Nov 1997 22:30:33 -0500
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To: rah@shipwright.com
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Los Angeles Times
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11-01-97 1552EST
L.A. Cops Return Military Bayonets
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By STEVE GEISSINGER= Associated Press Writer=
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) Bayonets, weapons of deadly hand-to-hand
warfare, have bolstered the arsenals of police in 23 states as part of
a massive flow of surplus military gear. Now one of the nation's
biggest police departments, Los Angeles, says it was a mistake and
it's sending its bayonets back to the military.
More than 6,400 surplus bayonets, large knives that can be used
separately or mounted on the end of rifles to be used like lances,
went to law enforcement agencies between Oct. 1, 1996, and Sept. 30,
1997, according to the federal Defense Logistics Agency in Washington.
Some question whether military weapons, particularly bayonets, have
any place in civilian law enforcement.
``We can imagine no circumstances whatsoever where it would be
appropriate for a local police agency to put a bayonet on the end of a
rifle,'' said John Crew, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney.
The Los Angeles Police Department got 42 bayonets but is giving them
back. After an inquiry by The Associated Press, the department
conducted an internal investigation and concluded the acquisition of
bayonets by a sergeant was inappropriate.
Cmdr. Rick Dinse said the bayonets are being sent back to the military
because the department has no use for them. He said regulations will
soon be in place to carefully monitor transfers of excess military
gear to the agency.
Nationally, a total of 43,253 items originally valued at $204.3
million went to more than 11,000 government law enforcement agencies
in all 50 states over the one-year period, said Tara Jennings-May, a
Defense Logistics Agency spokeswoman.
The surplus program began in 1990 with a requirement that agencies use
the gear to fight drugs, but that rule was dropped with the expansion
of the program last year, Jennings-May said.
The biggest number of bayonets went to North Carolina, followed by
Connecticut and Indiana, the agency said. No detailed state-by-state
list was available.
In California alone, more than $30 million in excess military hardware
has gone mostly free of charge to more than 200 law enforcement
agencies since November 1996, said David Shaw of the state Criminal
Justice Planning office.
Los Angeles is one of eight California law enforcement agencies that
acquired a total of 415 bayonets since May 1996, according to records
obtained from the Governor's Office of Criminal Justice Planning.
No California law bars arming law officers with knives or bayonets,
said Ron Allen of the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and
Training. Most standards for arming officers are left to local
jurisdictions.
California officers also have received everything from surplus fatigue
uniforms and office equipment to helicopters, armored vehicles, body
armor, assault rifles and night-vision gear.
``As long as it's not a cannon, they'll probably get it,'' said Shaw,
who determines whether requested equipment is appropriate for a
department.
Most California departments that received bayonets said they would use
them not on rifles but only as utility knives for jobs such as
chopping marijuana plants.
``I don't see them as stabbing or defensive weapons,'' said San
Joaquin County Sheriff Baxter Dunn, whose department got 75 bayonets.
He said SWAT team members, besides using them as utility knives, might
use them on the end of rifles but only to cut screens or pry open
doors when storming a building.
Gary Philp, chief deputy of the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office, said
the 50 bayonets his department received are useful as cutting tools in
the rugged, heavily forested redwood country of northwestern
California.
``We wouldn't allow anybody to put them on their guns,'' he said.
``There's only one reason (to put them on guns). We're not the Army.
We don't do hand-to-hand combat. It doesn't meet our needs. It's not
what civilian law enforcement should be doing.''
Copyright Los Angeles Times
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Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
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