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08/15/2014

Shawn Musgrave/MuckRock:

Much of the military equipment we've seen over the past few days in coverage of the Ferguson, Missouri riots was provided to law enforcement by the 1033 program, a Defense Department initiative that transfers excess equipment to state and local law enforcement.

MuckRock FOIA'd the Defense Logistics Agency's Law Enforcement Support Office, which oversees the 1033 program, for a list of all participating agencies as well for its database of all dispensed equipment.

After some negotiation with DLA, in December we obtained the full roster of participating law enforcement agencies, as well as a spreadsheet with two years of equipment transfers down to the state level.

As of December, there were 7,032 state and local law enforcement agencies enrolled in the 1033 program:

Between September 2011 and September 2013, the DLA recorded 105,879 equipment transfers to the above agencies:

MuckRock is continuing to press the Defense Department to release 1033 equipment transfer data down to the agency level. In light of the events in Ferguson, we've submitted an expedited FOIA request for 1033 program data back to 2000 that includes the agency that received each equipment transfer.

Related Link: Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act