Snow camouflage, mine-resistant vehicle among metro-area military purchases | THELENSNOLA.ORG

image: ap.org

This week, we’ve seen lots of pictures of police officers in Ferguson, Missouri, armed with military weapons. The same Pentagon program that arms cops in Ferguson also outfits police around New Orleans.

So when The New York Times released data on military equipment sent to state and local law enforcement agencies, we decided to take a look at purchases in Orleans Parish and Jefferson Parish.

The relevant data is posted online. The figures show what each county in the United States purchased from the Defense Department’s 1033 Program since 2007.

The data comes with two important caveats. First, law enforcement agencies might purchase other equipment with their own money or with federal grants. So this is not a comprehensive list of all the military equipment these agencies have. Second, the data does not specify which agency purchased the equipment. Any one of the many police agencies in a parish could have bought them.

What did New Orleans law enforcement buy?

Here are some pieces of military equipment sold to police in New Orleans:

• Eight night-vision sniper scopes
• 20 snow camouflage parkas
• A “rough terrain” forklift
• 40 “laser modules”
• 14 thermal sights
• 21 7.62 mm rifles and two 5.56 mm rifles
• 30 survival axes

Some of the equipment is more mundane, such as:

• 360 men’s scarves
• Four data-entry computer mice
• Nine folding chairs
• One garbage can
• A pair of pliers

How about Jefferson Parish?

Law enforcement in Jefferson Parish purchased:

• Two 5.56 mm rifles and seven 7.62 mm rifles
• A utility helicopter
• A mine-resistant vehicle
• Three bridge erection boats
• A utility truck
• A personnel carrier

How much does all this cost?

Since 2007, Orleans Parish agencies have spent $240,993 on military gear. Jefferson Parish agencies spent $2.6 million — including $733,000 on the mine-resistant vehicle in March.

The annual expenditure breakdown for New Orleans shows that police spent three times more money on equipment from the Pentagon in 2013 than 2012. The records from 2014 end in April — but if the pace of police purchases remains constant throughout the year, the 2014 total would be $237,126. That would mean that New Orleans law enforcement would spend twice as much in 2014 than in 2013.

*Projected

Does New Orleans buy a lot of military equipment or a little?

A quick look shows that Orleans Parish spends more than Caddo Parish (Shreveport) but less than Ouachita Parish (Monroe) on military gear from the Pentagon.

St. Louis County, the location of the Ferguson protests, spends roughly two and a half times more than New Orleans on military equipment through the 1033 program. However, the population of St. Louis County, about a million, is roughly two and a half times greater than Orleans Parish’s 380,000. So New Orleans and St. Louis spent roughly the same amount per capita on military equipment.