SDUSD Has Trouble Getting Rid of Armored Vehicle

San Diego’s largest school district has announced it will return a controversial armored vehicle, but it’s not that simple.

On Wednesday, the San Diego Unified School District will file paperwork to return the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle. The district received the vehicle through the Department of Defense 1033 program, which gives state and local law enforcement agencies surplus military equipment that might have been destroyed otherwise.

With its ability ram through buildings and tear down walls, the district said the MRAP could be used to reach victims during a school shooting or other emergency. However, officials have decided to return the vehicle after public backlash.

“I really do not feel schools have any business having military equipment on hand,” Point Loma resident Ruby Beardsley said.

“The decision to send it back was based around community sentiment and the fact that we want to be sensitive to what our community is thinking and believing as it relates to police,” said SDUSD Chief of Police Rueben Littlejohn.

“The value that this piece of equipment, this defensive tool, would bring does not outweigh the need for community confidence and public trust,” Littlejohn said.

It seems the San Diego Unified School District isn’t alone. According to SDUSD, the Department of Defense has a backlog of requests from other school districts trying to return their equipment obtained through the 1033 program. A report in the Washington Post found at least 120 schools, colleges and universities have received these military hand-me-downs, which include M16 rifles and grenade launchers.

The 1033 program came under the microscope after the tensions in Ferguson, Missouri. Police were seen with armored vehicles and assault weapons at rallies for Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager shot and killed by an officer.

The MRAP will remain in San Diego until the Department of Defense decides where it should go next, SDUSD Chief of Police Rueben Littlejohn told NBC 7 on Sept. 19. Littlejohn said the district will not have to pay the shipping costs to send the vehicle to its next owner.
 

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