Fact check: BLM falsely says police getting more military equipment under Biden
Some activists and lawmakers on the left want President Joe Biden to either ban or reign in the military giveaway effort known as the 1033 program. The Black Lives Matter group tweeted that giveaways have gone up since Biden took office, which PolitiFact found to be inaccurate.
Posted — UpdatedBlack Lives Matter activists want President Joe Biden to ban the transfer of military equipment to local police agencies.
A renewed push by activists and some lawmakers to halt or rein in the longstanding military transfer program comes in response to a year of protests against police brutality and for racial justice in cities nationwide following the murder of George Floyd.
Black Lives Matter said on Twitter that Biden has ramped up the program to send military equipment into local communities.
"Biden’s first 100 days are up in 10 days. By then we need him to #End1033, which transfers military equipment into the hands of police across the country-- including school & campus police. Another example? The military you see out on your streets ahead of the Chauvin verdict.
"Biden is currently sending more military equipment to our neighborhoods than Trump did. You read that right. Our communities are being terrorized at a greater rate than they had been under Trump."
We sent emails to Black Lives Matter asking for evidence of the claim and did not receive a response. We don’t know if the group was comparing all equipment transfers under the program or only certain types of equipment. It also isn’t clear if it compared Biden’s first quarter in office to any particular time period during Trump’s tenure.
We found that comparing the use of the program under Biden to its operation under Trump is problematic. First, Biden has been in office only three months while Trump served for four years. Second, a president has virtually nothing to do with the amount of equipment transferred through the program. Even when past presidents have issued orders related to the program, they have had little control over how much equipment was transferred.
"The Black Lives Matter assertions are overbroad," said Kevin Govern, a law professor at Ave Maria University and an adjunct instructor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "Some greater perspective than one single quarter in a fiscal year is necessary for a meaningful assessment."
Background on the 1033 program
After one year, general property becomes the property of the local law enforcement agency while the controlled property is considered a loan.
More than 8,000 agencies participate in the program, according to the Defense Logistics Agency, the government body that oversees it. That adds up to less than half the agencies in the country. Using the initial acquisition value, the total amount transferred since the program’s inception in 1990 is $7.4 billion.
Participating law enforcement agencies submit electronic requests to a state coordinator who then routes requests to federal officials for further review. The White House generally isn’t involved in that process, although recent presidents have issued orders related to the program.
But in reality, these orders by Obama and Trump didn’t change the overall amount of equipment transferred to law enforcement agencies.
The vast majority of the transferred equipment consists of common commercial items. Small arms weapons such as rifles and side-arms normally make up about 5% of the total, while less than 1% of property issued is tactical vehicles.
The Defense Logistics Agency provided us a quarterly breakdown of equipment under Biden’s first quarter in office and quarterly data for Trump’s tenure. We decided to focus on the controlled items — the ones that are clearly military equipment. For Biden’s tenure, we received data for the second quarter of fiscal year 2021 — January through March, which includes about three weeks of Trump’s presidency.
PolitiFact ruling
Black Lives Matter said, "Biden is currently sending more military equipment to our neighborhoods than Trump did."
We don’t know how Black Lives Matter is comparing Biden’s short tenure to Trump’s presidency. One quarter of a year doesn’t tell us much about how the program has operated under Biden compared with four years of Trump.
But what it does show is that the amount of equipment given to local agencies varies from quarter to quarter but was higher in most Trump quarters than in the time period that includes Biden’s presidency.
We rate this statement False.
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