DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ‘1033 PROGRAM’

America’s most diverse police department is rewarded with surplus military equipment

Cactusville, Texas, a town with a population of 3,700, is a ranching community located by the Rio Grande River, about half way between El Paso and Brownsville. Cactusville claims to have the most diverse police department in the U.S. The Cactusville Police Department is one-third white, one-third Mexican-American and one-third African-American. And of all its officers, a third are female. It has a Mexican-American police chief, a white police captain and a black female police lieutenant.

The Defense Department’s “1033 Program” is a program that distributes free surplus military equipment to American law enforcement agencies. Paul N. Stockton, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs, works closely with Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to make sure only deserving police agencies receive those surplus military supplies.

Stockton announced Monday that, because it is a border community and America’s most diverse police department, the Department of Defense has delivered the following equipment to the Cactusville Police Department:

2 International MaxxPro armored vehicles

14 M16 rifles

6 grenade launchers

10 night vision sniper scopes

24 tactical ballistic vests

24 helmets

38 bayonets

Stockton said, “With the threat of ISIS terrorists crossing the border from Mexico, we thought that the Cactusville Police Department deserved to receive the military equipment it needed to meet that terrorist threat. Also both Secretary Johnson and Attorney General Holder urged me to reward the Cactusville Police Department for its diversity."

Having made border protection the clarion call of his administration, Governor Rick Perry said, “Finally those folks in Washington got something right.” Texas senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, both of whom have yet to visit that border town, praised the Defense Department for sending the badly needed equipment to Cactusville.

The Unconventional Gazette has just learned that the Cactusville Police Department is a three-officer law enforcement agency - a chief, a captain and a lieutenant. In 2013, the three officers made 17 public intoxication arrests, rounded up 31 stray steers and wrote 4,359 speeding tickets on Farm to Market Road 170.

We contacted Cactusville Police Chief Gilberto Contreras and asked him what he thought about getting all those military supplies. After someone whispered something in the chief’s ear, here is what Contreras said:

Quiero dar las gracias al ejército por enviarnos estos tanques una lanzadores grebade y M16 y bayonetas para que podamos ser más eficaces en la captura de los reductores de Granja a la carretera de mercado 170.

When we asked Police Captain Hank Franklin what Contreras just said, he replied, “Beats me, uh something about bayonets. Shit, he don’t speak English and I don’t speak Spanish.” Asked how they can communicate, Franklin said, “We just keep nodding with shit-eaten grins on our faces and pretend we understand each other.”