U.S. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) took a swipe at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last week for wasting money on local law enforcement projects, including one that involved California zombies.

A dogged fiscal conservative, Coburn had his staff spend a year combing through the department’s grant programs, all of which are supposed to help local and state governments be prepared for terrorist attacks.

The result was a 54-page report, Safety at Any Price: Assessing the Impact of Homeland Security Spending in U.S. Cities, which concluded DHS lacks the necessary metrics to know if the $35 billion spent since 2003 has really made the U.S. safer.

“At a time when our $16 trillion national debt is our greatest national security threat, we must make sure that all programs, especially those meant to prevent terrorism, are achieving their mission,” Coburn said in a prepared statement. “This report shows that too often so-called security spending is making our nation less secure by directing scarce dollars to low-priority projects and low-risk areas.”

Case in point: Zombie apocalypse training.

DHS grant funds were used to pay the $1,000 fee for a week-long conference at Paradise Point Resort and Spa in San Diego, where the tactical training firm HALO Corporation put on a show pretending to gun down 40 actors dressed as zombies.

It was billed as the HALO Counter-Terrorism Summit, but Coburn’s report called it a “spa junket” and questioned why taxpayer dollars were being spent on what amounted to a sales opportunity for security contractors.  

HALO spokesman Sandy Moul said Coburn got it wrong. The zombie exercise was paid for by an outside sponsor and taxpayer money was not used to fund the counter-terrorism summit, he said.  Moul defended the use of zombies to simulate what Coburn’s report appropriately described as “extreme medical situations where people become crazed and violent, creating widespread fear and disorder.”

HALO partnered on the presentation with Strategic Operations Inc., a company known for hyper-realistic combat trauma training under realistic battlefield conditions.  

“It was a great simulation of a biological and chemical-weapon mass-casualty exercise,” Moul said. “And it was great for the first-responder and law enforcement attendees to be able to see some of the techniques used for triage, decontamination and other medical procedures.”

HALO President Brad Barker told the Associated Press, “This is a very real exercise; this is not some type of big costume party.”

–Ken Broder and Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

Zombie Apocalypse’ Training Group Questions GOP Senator’s Criticisms (by Arturo Garcia, Raw Story)

Zombies Attack VIP in California (by Allison Barrie, Fox News)

Dr. Coburn Releases “Safety at Any Price” Report on Questionable Grant Spending at Department of Homeland Security (office of Senator Tom Coburn)

Report Highlights Questionable Purchases Made in the Name of National Security (by G.W. Schulz and Andrew Becker, Center for Investigative Reporting)

Safety at Any Price (office of Senator Tom Coburn) (pdf)

Bipartisan Senate Bill Would Crack Down on Pentagon Contractors (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

U.S. Dumps Excess Equipment on Police Departments that Don’t Need It (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

The Militarization of Your Local Police (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov)