Los Angles School District Police Receive Grenade launchers and a Tank!

Why does the K-12 LAUSD have these military weapons and what does it intend to use them for? They didn't respond to our questions about it, but they did respond to the LA Times (which chose to bury this news on its Opinion page), confirming that the LAUSD's 405-officer police department does indeed have 61 M16 assault rifles and three grenade launchers (given to them in 2001) and one mine-resistant vehicle (received this summer).

Chief Steven Zipperman says the Vietnam War grenade launchers—which can be used with tear gas or rubber bullets in addition to grenades—are only on hand in case another agency needs to use them at some point, but he assured the LAT "that the school police never had any intention of [lobbing] grenades at anyone, ever." Phew! The M16s, meanwhile, have been converted to semiautomatic rifles, if that makes much of a difference, and are used for training the "numerous" officers the force equips with just plain old "civilian" semiautomatic rifles "in case of a Columbine High School-type gunman attack."


[link to la.curbed.com]