Your Local Police Department’s Pentagon Shopping List
Section 1033 of the National Defense Authorization Act (1997) allows the Department of Defense to transfer surplus military equipment to local law enforcement agencies. The program is administered by the Defense Logistics Agency's Law Enforcement Support Office (LESO).
This is the data. 83,499 transfers to agencies across all 50 states and territories, 1990–2015. $2 billion in acquisition value. Rifles, armored vehicles, night vision equipment, and more. Search it. Filter it. See what your local department received.
What do the DEMIL codes mean?
DEMIL (Demilitarization) codes indicate how controlled an item is. Code D is the most common in this dataset — items requiring demilitarization that are themselves significant military equipment. This includes rifles, night vision devices, and armored vehicles.
Code A = no demilitarization required (general items). Code B/C = partial demilitarization. Code D/E/F = total demilitarization required (the serious hardware). Code Q = items requiring special handling.
When a police department receives a Code D item, they're getting something the Pentagon considers significant enough to require destruction if it were to be disposed of rather than transferred.
| Date | State | Agency | Item | Qty | Value | DEMIL |
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