September 17, 2014

A new distinction for our old friend Sheriff Joe. As more attention is being paid to the military surplus program that added grenade launchers to LAUSD's equipment list, Sheriff Joe finds himself with the dubious distinction of leading the first department terminated from the program.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is preparing to send back hundreds of weapons received under the US Government's controversial 1033 program, which sends military surplus equipment to local agencies.

Arpaio says the MCSO lost or misplaced 9 guns over 20 years, and is now being forced to return all items received.

More than 100 agencies are "suspended" from the program for similar reasons, but Arpaio says to his knowledge, the MCSO is the only agency to be terminated.

"It really doesn't mean anything. Look at the handguns. They probably don't work anyway. We have plenty of our own," Arpaio said Tuesday.

"We'd like to find them. We don't know where they're at. We keep auditing to try to find them, but way back then we didn't have the high tech computer system [to track them]," Arpaio explained.

Roughly 200 weapons have to be returned, along with 158 pairs of night vision goggles, and 2 armored vehicles.

Maybe it's just me, but how the hell do you "lose" 9 guns and shrug it off?

Arpaio is handling the news with bravado, but you know the loss of those armored vehicles is going to hurt, not to mention the helicopter they're going to have to replace.

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