TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A suburban Topeka school district is among several nationwide that have taken advantage of free military surplus gear, but officials aren’t saying what they got.
Auburn Washburn superintendent Brenda Dietrich said Wednesday the district learned of the Pentagon’s surplus program from a staff member who had a spouse at the Kansas Bureau of Investigations.
Dietrich would say only that district police received a piece of safety equipment that is part of an emergency operations plan.
District spokesman Martin Weishaar says the equipment is not a grenade launcher or a tank or anti-mine vehicle. But he refused to describe it because the district considers that security-related information.
The equipment is meant to be used in response to a situation in which somebody outside a school would want to do harm.
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TAMI ABDOLLAH, Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — School police departments across the country have taken advantage of free military surplus gear, stocking up on mine resistant vehicles, grenade launchers and scores of M16 rifles.
At least 26 school districts across the country have participated in the Pentagon’s surplus program, which has come under scrutiny after a militarized police response to protests in Ferguson, Missouri. Law enforcement agencies used it to equip themselves during learner budget years, and since the Columbine school shooting in 1999, schools increasingly participated. Federal records show schools in California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, Texas and Utah obtained surplus military gear.
Now, several districts say they’ll return some of the equipment.
The Los Angeles Unified School District — the nation’s second largest school district — said in a statement it would remove three grenade launchers it had acquired.