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Nebraska needs a moratorium on the acquisition of military equipment by law enforcement agencies across the state, an ACLU representative said at a forum on police equipment Monday.

Sheriffs and police chiefs at departments across Nebraska have acquired more than 118 military-grade weapons and two mine-resistant armored vehicles through a Pentagon program in the past five years, the Journal Star reported in August.

Luckily, those law enforcement officials have made responsible use of their manufactured-for-the-military tools, Amy Miller of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska said. But the potential exists for that equipment to escalate peaceful situations into violence as critics of police militarization said happened with protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in August.

"The news is pretty good from where we're sitting, but it's a slippery slope," Miller told a crowd of more than 40 active law enforcement officers, civil libertarians and minority community leaders gathered in a fifth-floor conference room at the Lincoln Community Foundation.

At the very least, the public and elected officials need more oversight over the acquisition of these weapons, Miller said.