Police Forces Are Not Armies

With more political demonstrations looming in cities around the country, the U.S. Justice Department should be assisting local police departments in drawing up plans to prevent violence, and training officers to carry them out. Instead, it is mistaking their lack of preparation for a lack of equipment. The consequences could be ugly.

President Donald Trump this week signed an executive order restoring a program that supplies surplus military equipment to local law enforcement agencies. Under President Barack Obama, the program had been suspended since 2015, after officers in Ferguson, Missouri, inflamed peaceful protests by parading around in armored vehicles, wearing combat fatigues and gear, and pointing machine guns at crowds -- as if Ferguson were Fallujah.