Education

LA School Police Give Up Grenade Launchers

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Blake Neff Reporter
Font Size:

The Los Angeles School Police Department (LASPD) will relinquish three grenade launchers following a public backlash.

However, the department will continue to possess over 60 M16 assault rifles as well as a mine-resistant armored vehicle, or MRAP, previously used by soldiers in Iraq. (RELATED: LA School Police Wield Grenade Launchers, Assault Rifles)

The rifles, which have been converted into semi-automatics since their acquisition, are “essential life-saving items,” the LASPD said in its announcement. The rifles, the department has said, are used to train police for school shooting emergencies in which heavy weaponry may be necessary.

The MRAP, meanwhile, is regarded as potentially useful in an evacuation scenario during a more widespread city emergency, said LASPD chief Steve Zipperman.

The grenade launchers are more expendable, Zipperman said, because they did not have an possible use when considering the department’s mission of school security. The school police also possess neither grenades nor non-lethal weapons such as tear gas canisters for use with the launchers.

The rifles and grenade launchers had been in the departments possession for over a decade, while the MRAP had been acquired over this past summer. However, their existence only came to public attention last week and it was revealed by the website MuckRock following an information request.

The equipment was acquired under the Pentagon’s 1033 Program. Over $5 billion in surplus military equipment has been distributed to police around the country, including to many specialized school police. Several other cities in California have acquired smaller numbers of assault rifles. San Diego has recently defended its school police’s possession of an MRAP as well.

Several groups argued that the possession of such weapons is dangerous and not worthwhile for school police. For example, the public interest group Texas Appleseed sent a public letter to the Department of Defense requesting and end to the 1033 program, saying that police possession of advanced weaponry encouraged an adversarial view towards students and would lead to abuses.

“Introducing military-grade weapons into environments in which more mundane weapons – like Tasers and pepper spray – are already misused is deeply troubling. These weapons simply have no place in educational settings,” the letter said.

The increased use of military equipment by domestic police forces has come under increased scrutiny in recent months, following the use of such equipment by police containing protests in Ferguson, Missouri following the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown.

Follow Blake on Twitter

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Blake Neff

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel