School Cops To Give Up Grenade Launchers

A Los Angeles school district says it will return three grenade launchers it received under a federal programme that hands down surplus military gear to local law enforcement.

LA Unified said in a statement that the 40mm arms were not "essential life-saving items" for the city's school police.

"We ... would not utilize this weapon within a school environment," it conceded.

But the officials said they would be holding on to 61 "essential" rifles as well as a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armoured vehicle, to be used under "extraordinary circumstances".

LA Unified, which is the nation's second largest school district, is among several US education authorities that have pledged to return such equipment.

At least 26 school districts across the country have participated in the Pentagon surplus programme, launched in 1991.

But it came under scrutiny last month following a heavily militarised police response to violent protests in Ferguson, Missouri.

Civil rights advocates called for an end to the programme in a letter to the Department of Defense on Monday.

Deborah Fowler, deputy director of Texas Appleseed, a social justice nonprofit organisation, said such weaponry has no place in school districts.

"We have already seen the way that much more common weapons - like Tasers and pepper spray - can be misused in school settings," she said.

Black students and those with disabilities often suffered the brunt of excessive police force in schools, she said.

Last week another California school district, San Diego Unified, called a news conference to deny that its MRAP was a tank.

The authority's police chief said there would be teddy bears and first aid kits in the armoured vehicle.