  Last summer, as one city after another broke out in protest against the murder of George Floyd, some of the most enduring images were not of the demonstrators, but of the police: decked out in riot gear, aiming automatic weapons at peaceful crowds, and riding around on armored vehicles built for war.
The crackdowns on protesters renewed furious demands to end a suite of federal programs that have put billions of dollars’ worth of military weapons in the hands of local police. President Joe Biden singled out the most infamous of these — the Pentagon’s 1033 program, which transfers weapons and equipment from America’s foreign wars directly to domestic law enforcement agencies — for special condemnation. “Surplus military equipment for law enforcement? They don’t need that,” Biden said last July. “The last thing you need is an up-armored Humvee coming into the neighborhood.”
But as calls to demilitarize the police have intensified, so has the belief in countless police departments that they need the tools and weapons of war to police America’s cities and towns.
Under a Freedom of Information Act request, HuffPost has exclusively obtained hundreds of letters that local law enforcement agencies wrote to the Department of Defense in 2017 and 2018 making the case to receive an armored vehicle under the 1033 program.
President Joe Biden called on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) to resign Tuesday after an explosive report concluded that Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women. “I think he should resign,” Biden said at a press conference. New York state Attorney General Letitia James released a 165-page report on Cuomo Tuesday, the work an independent investigation into harassment claims. James said the investigation found that Cuomo “sexually harassed current and former New York State employees by engaging in unwelcome and non-consensual touching and making numerous offensive comments of a suggestive and sexual nature that created a hostile work environment for women.” Five Miami Beach police officers have been charged with battery after video appeared to show them violently assaulting two Black men last week. The Miami-Dade County state attorney announced charges Monday against Sgt. Jose Perez and officers Kevin Perez, Robert Sabater, Steven Serrano and David Rivas, who were all previously suspended over the violent July 26 incident. “Police officers face a variety of dangers on the job each and every day,” State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said at a press conference. “However, as I’ve previously said, excessive force can never, ever, ever, be an acceptable foundation for the policing of any community.”
ICYMI:
 Does somebody keep forwarding you this newsletter? — Subscribe here!
©2021 HuffPost BuzzFeed, Inc 111 E 18th St, 13th Floor, New York, NY 10003 You are receiving this email because you signed up for updates
| |||||||||||||||||||