[Scan-DC] Critics question need for expensive anti-terrorist gear

Sun May 6 21:50:34 EDT 2007

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070506/NEWS/70506008

Federal money burning holes in Delaware pockets
Critics question need for expensive anti-terrorist gear
By MIKE CHALMERS and LEE WILLIAMS, The News Journal

Posted Sunday, May 6, 2007

As terrorist targets go, the small town of Ocean View has neither a
large population nor an industry that’s a potentially catastrophic
target, such as a nuclear plant or chemical factory.

But no other jurisdiction in Delaware has worked the complex federal
Homeland Security system for grants and gear as successfully as Ocean
View. And according to Police Chief Kenneth McLaughlin, no town is
better prepared for what he believes is the inevitable terrorist
attack.

“Our little elementary school is more of a target than the White
House,” says McLaughlin, an animated man who wears a white uniform
shirt equipped with the kind of stars given to military generals. “We
saw it in the Soviet Union. The Chechens took one. We can’t let our
guard down.”

To “eliminate or isolate the threat,” the chief says, Ocean View
pursued $111,632 in tactical gear and other equipment from U.S.
Homeland Security Department defense grants, about $100 per resident
for a quiet town separated from Bethany Beach by the lazy water in
Assawoman Canal.

Most of the gear, most of the time, collects dust.

Since the 9/11 attacks, a stream of federal Homeland Security money
has flowed into Delaware to buy SWAT gear, high-tech gadgets,
expensive vehicles and other equipment, often for small-town police
departments that face more threats from speeders and shoplifters than
terrorists.

Police in the tiny Sussex County town of Milton, less than 2,000
residents, got $25,000 to buy heavy-duty body armor, helmets and an
$8,500 door-lock system that reads entrants’ fingerprints. The
even-smaller town of Ocean View, population 1,100, bought a $2,355
night-vision monocular. Clayton and Harrington got large SUVs for
their chiefs to drive, a likely violation of Homeland Security
guidelines.

Until recently, U.S. forces serving in Iraq and Afghanistan were
typically issued less-protective body armor than the Level IV body
armor and ballistic helmets, capable of stopping high-power rifle
rounds, ordered by virtually violent-crime-free towns such as Ocean
View. With his Homeland Security money, McLaughlin purchased eight
bulletproof vests, with accessories, at $1,210 each, eight SWAT-type
radio microphones, at nearly $600 each, and a 130-kilowatt generator,
which cost taxpayers nationwide nearly $22,000.

“When you’re sitting on a committee overseeing a pot of money, and
Ocean View wants Level IV body armor, and you give it to them, is it
proper?” said state Rep. Peter C. Schwartzkopf, D-Rehoboth, a retired
Delaware State Police captain whose son served in Iraq as a Marine.
“Like a lot of other things, 80 to 90 percent of the items received
from the feds are legit, but I would say 10 percent or so needs to be
double-checked to see whether we’re giving them what they want or what
they need.”

But nobody in Delaware, or on a federal level, examines how police put
these terrorist-fighting gizmos to use. The decision to buy gas masks
and nuclear radiation detectors or a new Ford Expedition outfitted for
patrol is screened by a committee of local police chiefs.

James E. Turner III, director of the Delaware Emergency Management
Agency, defends the state’s purchases over the past five years. DEMA,
he said, has approved only what police and other emergency workers
need, though he would not disclose a list of rejected requests.

“Does everyone get everything they want? No,” Turner said. “We have
turned down requests over the years. If a request is turned down, we
always try to fund it next year, if it’s a legitimate request.”

Police throughout Delaware got chemical-protection suits and gas masks
through the grant program, and the state’s largest departments got
millions of dollars more for equipment.

State police bought a $700,000 mobile command post, plus equipment for
its bomb squad and SWAT team. New Castle County police bought a
$644,000 mobile command post, a $193,000 truck and a $48,000 robot for
the bomb squad, and about $38,000 in vests, helmets and night vision
scopes for their SWAT team. Wilmington police got a $191,000 armored
vehicle and more than $800,000 in portable radios.

David B. Mitchell, secretary of the Delaware Department of Safety and
Homeland Security, which oversees DEMA, said the state has used its
federal grants to prepare for legitimate risks.

“We in Delaware have done a magnificent job in preparing for what we
believe to be our greatest threats,” Mitchell said. “We are an example
for many other states out there.”

But mayors of big cities say the federal program has become an
expensive wish list that siphons money from communities facing more
serious threats. Grants to New York – as well as New Jersey, Virginia,
Maryland and California – amounted to less than $3 per resident last
year, while Delaware got almost $12 per resident, the fourth highest
rate in the nation.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a Senate hearing this year
that grants should be based entirely on risk. “Instead, we have seen
huge sums of Homeland Security money spread across the country like
peanut butter.”

‘Anything ... was eligible’

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security does not review spending by
police departments and other agencies, a spokeswoman said. Audits by
the federal Government Accountability Office have so far only examined
how quickly grant money is spent, not what it has purchased.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, speaking at a Senate
hearing in January, said spending guidelines have evolved and
tightened over the past five years in response to criticism.

“Predictably, we had a rash of stories about communities that spent
money on leather jackets or gym equipment or things of that sort,”
Chertoff said. “The requirements were defined so broadly and so
generally that anything that could be tied to Homeland Security in
theory was eligible.”

Mitchell called it “a hurry-up-and-spend mandate” from the federal
department to states like Delaware.

There have been several high-profile abuses: The Princeton, N.J., Fire
Department spent $22,335 on fitness equipment, including Nautilus and
Bowflex machines, and the Texas town of Madisonville bought a $30,000
custom trailer for its annual mushroom festival.

Last year, the eight-officer Dewey Beach Police Department got $15,900
in Homeland Security money to buy an APD 2000, a handheld device
mainly used to detect chemical-warfare substances such as VX and sarin
nerve agents. DEMA bought about two dozen of the devices for fire
companies, hazardous-materials response teams and public-health
workers throughout the state, records show.

“Our chief is very proactive when it comes to this stuff,” says Dewey
Beach Cpl. Clifford Dempsey, who fielded questions for Chief Sam
Mackert. “He sees our town as a potential target.”

Asked about the device, which is about the size of a brick mounted
atop a short post, Mackert issued a statement saying it was “for the
safety and security of Dewey residents and visitors.”

“This is the story that’s being played out across the country, small
town after small town,” says Steve Ellis, vice president of programs
for Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog group.

“I call it toys for boys,” says James Jay Carafano, a senior fellow at
the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. “If it was
their money, they’d have never spent it. But since it comes from
somewhere else, they have no problem.”

Mitchell said a committee – chaired by him and composed of fellow
Cabinet secretaries, legislators and the U.S. Coast Guard – began
reviewing the state’s grant spending last year. If the committee
decides a purchase was unnecessary, it could limit the buying agency’s
future grants, he said.

“You can argue it meets the state strategy, but the committee can
respectfully disagree,” Mitchell said. “So when you come in here with
your hand out for more money, I’m going to have to take a real hard
look at what you claim you need.”

Ready for anything

Roughly one square mile in size, Ocean View is bisected by Del. 26.
Police average one or two calls for service per shift, and write about
one or two tickets, according to the department’s monthly statistics.

>From 2001 to 2005, Ocean View averaged two violent crimes per year,
compared to more than 1,000 violent crimes annually in Wilmington, 213
in Dover and 158 in Newark.

They’ve never recorded a homicide, armed robbery or a serious assault,
though McLaughlin said someone was “raped a few years ago.”

Seven years ago, the town had only two full-time officers. When
McLaughlin was hired a year later, he began adding officers and until
recently the department had grown to eight sworn officers. Earlier
this year, one officer was charged with two counts of fourth-degree
rape and resigned.

Even with seven officers, the town has a police-officer-to-citizen
ratio much higher than the national average of 2.5 officers per 1,000
residents.

Spending by the police department is a frequent topic of conversation
at the town’s Harbor View Marina.

“They’re getting all these grants and all this stuff,” says Jim
Thomas, the marina’s manager, who has had a home in Ocean View for 21
years. “What are they going to do when the grants run out?”

McLaughlin is “a good guy,” Thomas says, “but I just don’t know if you
can believe everything he says.”

For training, McLaughlin goes to some of the best instructors in the
world – the Blackwater Training Center on 6,000 acres in North
Carolina, which trains and deploys its own security contractors to
Iraq and elsewhere and which was founded by a former Navy SEAL.
McLaughlin sends his officers to two Blackwater courses: Extreme
Officer Survival ($595 per officer) and Counter Terrorist Driver
Training ($1,300 per officer).

“I’m not gonna say we’re ready to do battle with al-Qaida, but we’re
better prepared than we were,” McLaughlin says. “If everyone was as
prepared as the officers from Ocean View, the country would be better
prepared, and much safer.”

Other states get far less

Of the millions of Homeland Security dollars given to each state,
Pennsylvania received one of the lowest per-capita amounts in the
country – $1.92 per resident. Maryland got $2.50 per resident through
the grant program last year.

The only Homeland Security aid that filtered down to police in Upper
Darby, a city of about 100,000 just outside Philadelphia, was money to
buy 126 gas masks and some car radios.

“I’m constantly trying to get more funding,” says Capt. Anthony
Paparo, a 22-year veteran. “We could use more of everything.”

In Pennsylvania, requests and grants are filtered through county
emergency managers, a system Paparo says makes it harder to get
approval than in Delaware, where local chiefs control the requests.

When he took command of the SWAT team five years ago, men were wearing
body armor that was 20 years old. The department uses a refurbished
1980 Ford ambulance to transport the team, which they remodeled
themselves. It’s too small for all 15 members, so some officers are
forced to pile into Paparo’s car.

Paparo wants an armored vehicle, but the department can’t afford one.
He found an armored car firm in Southern California that may donate an
older model, but it’s not designed for SWAT operations. It was used to
transport cash between banks.

“I want an armored car so if one of my guys is under fire, I can pull
up and rescue them,” he says.

Two years ago, Upper Darby hosted a mock terrorist takeover of a high
school. The exercise, which included air and canine units and more
than 1,500 police and fire personnel, was not funded by Homeland
Security.

For big cities, and some medium-size cities, it makes sense to fund
special tactical teams, but for small towns that typically rely on
state or county SWAT officers, the money can be misdirected, say
small-town Delaware police chiefs in Harrington and Laurel.

Several calls a year

The 25-officer Seaford Police Department formed its Special Tactics
and Response Team several years ago, using military surplus gear, to
handle high-risk warrants, searches and hostage situations, Chief Gary
Morris said. The department used about $24,000 in Homeland Security
money to upgrade the team’s body armor, helmets and other equipment.

STAR officers respond to such calls several times a year; the last
hostage crisis in the 7,000-resident town was about four years ago, he
says. “It’s not every week and sometimes it’s not every month, but it’
s many times a year.”

There are potential terrorist targets all through the town, Morris
says, such as chemical manufacturers, railroad tracks, bridges and
schools. “Do I think we’re a high-risk target for al-Qaida? No. But
there’s all sorts of critical infrastructure in and around our area.”

Police chiefs in Harrington, which has about 3,200 residents, and
Laurel, with 3,800 people, say their departments do not have the
training, money or need for a tactical team of their own. Instead,
they rely on the Delaware State Police for high-risk police work.
Their Homeland Security money went to buy backup electrical generators
and upgraded security systems for their headquarters.

“It would take my whole department to even start a team,” says
Harrington Chief Mark Anderson, who oversees 10 officers.

When a 45-year-old armed man barricaded himself in his home barely a
stone’s throw outside Ocean View’s boundaries in February, the
Delaware State Police Special Operations Response and Hostage
Negotiation teams handled the incident. An Ocean View officer helped
with crowd control at the perimeter of the scene. Ocean View’s Level
IV body armor, purchased by Homeland Security, sat dormant.

Thirty-two troopers make up the state police SORT, which is called out
about 100 times a year, says Major Joseph Papili, special operations
officer for the 672-trooper force. The state used Homeland Security
money to upgrade equipment and buy a $191,000 armored response
vehicle, which can carry 10 fully outfitted SORT members. Several
members recently received advanced tactical training.

“It has really taken our capabilities up to a level that rivals any
unit in the country,” Papili says.

The New Castle County Police Department also has 20 to 30 officers
trained in tactical operations, says Lt. Col. Scott McLaren, who
coordinates terrorism-preparedness efforts for the 363-member
department. They train together about twice a month, sometimes wearing
heavy chemical-protection suits and gas masks.

“We want to be one notch above whatever they might be throwing at us,”
McLaren says.

The county bought an oversized van to carry tactical team members but
did not buy its own armored personnel carrier because Wilmington and
state police have them, he says. “It’s crazy for us to ask for a
$200,000 to $300,000 piece of equipment when I can call the agency
down the road.”

‘Better spent elsewhere?’

Wasteful spending by small police departments is a significant
problem, says Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

“It’s not to begrudge Ocean View its body armor and night-vision
goggles, but is that money better spent elsewhere?” he says. “Waste of
these dollars has real consequences when we really need gear and
materials when a terrorist strike occurs.”

Ocean View, like many small towns in Delaware, benefits from the
federal grant system for Homeland Security, which distributes 40
percent of its money to the states on an equal basis, favoring small
states over large.

The current grant formula is based on political risk, rather than
security risk, Ellis says.

The formula concerns former 9/11 Commission member Slade Gorton, who
urged changes at a Senate hearing in January. “Unless and until the
Congress sends a bill to the president allocating Homeland Security
funding on the basis of risk, scarce dollars will be wasted,” Gorton
said.

Delaware’s congressional delegation would support a formula that
distributes about 30 percent evenly among the states so small states
continue getting money to address their needs. Sen. Tom Carper, who
called the debate over the grant formula “a legislative food fight,”
says Delaware should not rely on federal Homeland Security officials
to recognize the risks here.

“Risk is in the eye of the beholder,” Carper says. “We want to make
sure we get at least a modest amount of money through this grant
process.”

Sen. Joe Biden has introduced a bill that would create a $70 billion
Homeland Security trust fund, using money that would otherwise pay for
President Bush’s tax cuts. Added to the Department of Homeland
Security’s existing programs, the fund would boost state grants, port
and border security, law enforcement personnel, counterterrorism
measures and other needs. The bill is stuck in a Senate committee and
has not attracted any co-sponsors.

The fund also would provide $80 million to identify risks to critical
infrastructure nationwide, something Biden says has not happened yet.

Supply closet stocked full

McLaughlin deflects criticism of his spending with assurances that
Ocean View is prepared for the worst.

“I got word that a couple of chiefs of police have been insinuating
that the type of equipment I’ve gotten is improper,” he says. “My
feeling is: Why isn’t everyone doing this? I can’t believe my fellow
police chiefs would have anything critical to say.”

He’s proud of the equipment he’s assembled. The storage room at the
department is stacked from ceiling to floor with gear, including boxes
of equipment obtained from the federal government. The department’s
walls are decorated with certificates of appreciation from Mothers
Against Drunk Driving and the local Cub Scout pack. The bathroom
reading material includes Homeland Defense Journal and the Disaster
Preparedness and Response Catalog, where the latest night-vision
goggles and chemical warfare detectors are for sale.

McLaughlin issues take-home police cars to every officer, complete
with an assault rifle, shotgun and tactical gear. Officers are not
required to live within city limits. The department’s bulletproof
vests have ammo pouches to carry 30-round magazines for assault
rifles, and hardened trauma plates – long sought by troops in Iraq –
capable of stopping high-power rifle rounds, plus neck, groin and arm
protection.

“Obviously, I may be criticized or poked fun at, but if something
happens around here, I know I’ve done the best I can,” he says. “All
of this is an insurance policy. Insurance policies sometimes are
costly.”