Critics are alleging that an over-response by the BPD at Mondawmin Mall played a large part in instigating Monday's Baltimore riots. That's bringing back post-Ferguson arguments over whether the police departments assisting in Baltimore are over-armed.
By the time an observer in Baltimore tweeted Monday about "Amor trucks & big ... guns I haven't seen since Ferguson", state legislatures in New Jersey and Montana had already worked to stave off what author Radley Balko calls the "rise of the warrior cop". That is Balko's term for a style of aggressive policing that he says draws too much on military techniques, at the expense of citizens' constitutional rights and the judicial process.
Maryland has no active legislation to ban the federal funds often blamed for an increase in violent, military-style policing; a special legislative session has been called for in order to address other brutality-related concerns.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency updated a quarterly data set describing equipment donations under its 1033 program, which gives police departments access to military equipment.
This sortable list comprises the materials given through the program to Maryland police departments since the August, 2014 shooting of Michael Brown, the reaction to which is widely viewed as having brought federally led police militarization into the national media spotlight for the first time.
This list omits 1033-program grants from before the Ferguson incident, along with other equipment purchases done via funds outside the 1033 program. It should be viewed solely as a snapshot of the recent output of that specific program.
(So, for example the large number of Baltimore city and county equipment additions in 2007 are not shown; assisting agencies like the Maryland State Police have made more recent additions, which are depicted in this list.)