President Obama will ban local police forces from acquiring some types of military-style equipment from federal agencies.
That's one of several recommendations made by a White House task force that Obama is putting into place using an executive order on Monday.
According to a report issued by the White House, the task force recommended banning the sale of some equipment — such as tracked armored vehicles, weaponized aircraft and high caliber weapons and ammunition — after weighing their utility to local police and the "the potential negative impact on the community if the equipment was used arbitrarily or inappropriately."
Local police departments can still buy this equipment on their own. They just can't buy them from the feds or buy them using federal money.
The Washington Post reports Obama will formally announce his executive order in Camden, New Jersey, today. The paper reports:
"Obama's visit to one of New Jersey's poorest cities comes as he seeks to ramp up federal funding for community policing initiatives in the wake of a series of high-profile incidents that have frayed trust between officers and residents in Ferguson, Mo., New York and Baltimore, among other cities. "Camden has long been among New Jersey's most crime-ridden cities, but reforms over the past two years have led to falling crime statistics and an increased number of officers in the community. The president is scheduled to tour Camden's county police headquarters and tactical operations center, and speak with officers before delivering remarks at a community center. "'What we're witnessing in cities across the country is not only about policing but also about opportunity,' White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett told reporters on a conference call Sunday."
Based on a fact sheet distributed by the White House, here are a few other initiatives Obama will highlight today:
-- Police Data Initiative will help police departments across the country track things like use of force and police stops. Data scientists will help some police departments polish an early warning system, in which data flags problems early.
-- Twenty-one jurisdictions will also release big data sets that will help "communities gain visibility into key information on police/citizen encounters."
-- The White House will release a body-cam tool kit that will help police plan and implement body-cam programs.
-- The Department of Justice "will begin taking applications for grants designed to advance the practice of community policing in law enforcement agencies through hiring, training and technical assistance, the development of innovative community policing strategies, applied research, guidebooks, and best practices that are national in scope."
Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
