To understand American policing in the 21st century, you have to understand the 1033 Program. Created in 1997 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, the 1033 Program serves to transfer out of use (though not always used) military equipment to civilian law enforcement agencies. The effect of 1033 has been to provide police and sheriff’s departments around the US with equipment intended for the battlefield. Much of this gear is noncontroversial. Cold weather gear, sleeping bags and flashlights are among the frequently requested items.
Other gear, though, is a bit bigger. One popular item is the MRAP, or Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle. These vehicles are meant to withstand explosions in wartime, specifically land-mines and IEDs. They are now commonly owned by local police departments, of all sizes, and put to use by SWAT teams in drug raids, riot suppression and other police activities. Another, the BearCat, is an armored personnel carrier meant for search and rescue operations. Other wartime weapons that now reside in our hometowns: grenade launchers, tear gas canisters, bayonets, airplanes, surveillance equipment, cellphone tracking equipment, and guns. Lots and lots of guns. As of September 2014, 79,000 assault rifles had transferred from the military to domestic law enforcement.
When you hear about the militarization of the American police, this is what people are talking about. Civilian cops policing American streets with the arsenal of the military at their fingertips.
Hundreds of cops #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/qJjzZ3D2a7
— Ruth Hopkins (@RuthHHopkins) October 27, 2025
If you look for 1033 Program gear that has made its way to America’s cops, you can see it everywhere. This week, the military-police are showing up in North Dakota, where the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline have led police forces to bring in police in riot gear and at least one MRAP. The kind of vehicle built for deployment in war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan is now being used on US soil, against US citizens. My hometown of St. Paul, MN has accrued over $10 Million in military gear. Minnesota as a state has nine MRAP vehicles, and more than 20 armored vehicles (though Ramsey County, home to St. Paul, has none. We have taken three helicopters). To see what your local law enforcement agencies are packing, click here.
This is the everyday reality of of American policing today: cops, with M-16s, driving BearCats and MRAPs and getting military training. The state of America’s militarized police forces is the subject of the new documentary Do Not Resist. Director Craig Atkinson uses 1033 Program as the backdrop for his documentary investigation of American policing.
The film begins with footage of protests and police action in Fergusson in the wake of Michael Brown’s death, and the failure of a grand jury to indict the man who shot him, Officer Darren Wilson. The SWAT Teams and riot police on the scene in Fergusson are shown arguing with protestors. They are seen driving MRAPs through the streets, firing tear gas grenades protestors into the crowd. They are shown in teams on the ground, weapons drawn, kicking in doors and clearing hostile areas. In short, they are seen conducting military activities.
The footage eventually leads to a training session, where cops listen to a speaker telling them they are at war with an enemy that wants them dead. That they are men and women whose job is to commit acts of violence. That they need stronger, deadlier weapons than the people who want to kill them. And that those who claim that militarized police are a threat to democracy are wrong; that history will justify the warrior cops, not the politically-minded Americans who a civilian law enforcement.
The speaker in this scene returns throughout Do Not Resist. His name is Dave Grossman, and according to Atkinson he is a leading voice in American police training. Grossman is a retired Army Lieutenant, and his vision of America is as dark and violent as any I have encountered. His speeches in Do Not Resist are meant to pump the egos of his listeners. He talks of them as warriors, heroes, fighting against evil. He tells them one of the perks of being on the front line of a violent war, like cops are, is that they have great sex. Grossman feeds violence to his audience, beating his chest (literally) to pump the blood of the room.
Atkinson pairs this kind of rhetoric with ride-alongs and training sessions. He accompanies two SWAT teams in MRAPs as they go on drug busts that look like military operations. They break windows and destroy property and tell the homeowners that the destruction is there responsibility. The police do not find a drug dealing operation. Instead, they arrest a young man who owns a small business and attends the local technical college.
In another scene, Atkinson attends a city council meeting in Concord, New Hampshire. The matter for the community is whether to authorize the police to receive a BearCat under the 1033 Program. Citizen after citizen tells the council that Concord has no need for a armored vehicle. That the presence of such a vehicle serves only to scare the locals. That letting law enforcement patrol in a BearCat is reminiscent of Cold War USSR, not 21st century America.
As Do Not Resist moves along, the portrait of America it paints gets darker, and for me, more hopeless. The later scene of the film shift from weapons on the street to high-tech surveillance operations. To robotic drones, constant police surveillance, sci-fi solutions to problems that seem, as of yet, unreal. And throughout Atkinson’s local visits echoes the descriptions of Dave Grossman’s America, where the streets are a hellscape of violence, and the cop is the superhero that will clean it up. Literally. Grossman tells the men in the audience that every day when they’re shift ends, they should find an overpass, get of their vehicle, look over their city, and “let their capes blow in the wind.”
Meanwhile, back in Concord, is a man with a sign that seems as outdated as the TV show it references.
BostonDave says
Look back to when two men robbed an LA bank with full body armor and automatic weapons. They had the police outgunned and It took hours before they were brought down in a gunfight in the streets. In this day where domestic terrorists and gang members are armed to the teeth, I want law enforcement to be able to meet this threat , equally armed. Do t you?