New Jersey police departments received $11.8 million of surplus military equipment since 2018 — including two heavily armored vehicles — under a Pentagon program that is facing renewed scrutiny amid calls for police reform, federal records show.
In Washington Township, Gloucester County, police tapped military hand-me-downs last year to acquire a mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle that was designed more for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq than the streets of a sprawling suburban South Jersey community.
So did the city of Passaic, which also received an MRAP, as the mammoth armored vehicles are typically called.