
 
 A member of the St. Louis County Police Department points his weapon in the direction of a group of protesters in Ferguson, Mo. in August. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson) 
 
 The Pentagon program that sends excess military equipment to police across the country has been under scrutiny since August, when civil unrest in Ferguson, Mo., came to a head and the tactics of police there came under fire by civil rights advocates. But the controversy appears to have prompted change: after years of declining to do so, the Defense Department has released a detailed breakdown of what it has supplied to police departments. 
 
 The results range from the mundane (battery chargers), to the powerful (armored mine-resistant vehicles), to the surprising (trumpets?). It also includes everything from helicopters to robots designed to help bomb squads. 
 
 The Pentagon’s Excess Property Program, sometimes known as the 1033 Program, has supplied police departments across the country with more than $4.3 billion in gear since 1997, including $449 million in 2013, Pentagon officials said. 
 
 The data was quietly posted on a Freedom of Information Act reading room for the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency on Nov. 21, as the Marshall Project noted today. It’s a significant change in policy: The Defense Department has repeatedly rejected FOIA requests for a full accounting of the 1033 program’s recipients. 
 
 The spreadsheets, captured here for Checkpoint, highlight the sheer volume of equipment the Pentagon is giving away — and that many of the departments receiving it are not big-city departments, but small police forces. 
 
 There are hundreds of organizations that have received armored mine-resistant vehicles, for example. Designed to protect combat troops from gunfire, rockets and roadside bombs, they have been sent to police departments who are ostensibly concerned about terrorism. Recipients include: 
 
 The Val Verde Sheriff Office in Del Rio, Texas, which protects a rural county of about 50,000 people near the Mexico border. 
 
 The Washington Police Department in Iowa, which has 10 sworn officers in a town of about 7,000. 
 
 The Rehoboth Police Department in Massachusetts, which serves a town of about 10,000 along the Rhode Island border. 
 
 The Saddleback College Police in California, which work at a community college. 
 
 Perhaps predictably, among the most common items issued were rifles, both in 5.56mm and 7.62mm caliber. They were supplied to departments large and small in a variety of quantities. Police in Long Beach, Calif., for example, have received 200 5.56mm rifles. 
 
 On the unexpected side: the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department in southern California received 500 pairs of snowshoes, the Clayton Township Police Department in Michigan and the North Kingsville Police Department in Ohio each received a French horn, and more than 372 televisions were supplied to police across the country, designated “for personal/home use.” In Cherokee County, Ala., the sheriff’s department also received 15,000 metal fence posts. Total value: more than $127,000. 
 
 Previously on Checkpoint: 
 
 Pentagon defends program supplying military gear to Ferguson police 
 
 Military gear beyond Ferguson: A look at how the Pentagon’s equipment has spread 
 
 Military veterans see deeply flawed police response in Ferguson 
 
 Video: Breaking down the military gear used by Ferguson police 
 
 Steven Rich contributed to this report. ||||| The gear was listed in data recently released by the department detailing the transfer of surplus military equipment to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies across the country. More than $160 million in equipment has gone to agencies in California, with some small towns like Santa Maria receiving grenade launchers, the data show. The vast majority of the equipment was given since 2006.
– Just what Los Angeles County police need: 500 snowshoes and 1,600 parkas. Need aside, that's what they were handed by the Defense Department in March, according to a breakdown of $4.3 billion in surplus military supplies sent to police departments across the country since 1997. Think that's bizarre? Some other strange deliveries, per the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post: 86 M14 rifles to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife; grenade launchers to small California communities; French horns for Ohio's North Kingsville Police Department and Michigan's Clayton Township Police Department; a $4.4 million boat to Alameda County police; and 372 TVs, designated "for personal/home use."