The banned items are tracked armored vehicles, bayonets, grenade launchers, ammunition of .50-caliber or higher and some types of camouflage uniforms, according to a White House task force report. Other equipment, including tactical vehicles, explosives and riot equipment, will be transferred only if local police provide additional certification and assurances that the gear will be used responsibly, the report said.
"We've seen how militarized gear sometimes gives people a feeling like they are an occupying force as opposed to a part of the community there to protect them," Obama said during remarks in this New Jersey city, where he touted police reforms that have helped reduce crime rates there. "Some equipment made for the battlefield is not appropriate for local police departments."
The announcement drew praise from some lawmakers in Missouri, where the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown nine months ago by police sparked weeks of riots and unrest last summer. And on the campaign trail, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ken., who has a bill in Congress to enact similar restrictions, also commended Obama.
"There is no reason the police force should be the same as the army," Paul said Monday during a stop in Philadelphia.
But the move was denounced by the nation's largest police union, which has argued that Obama and others have politicized the issue and overstated the problem of how police obtain and use the military gear.
"The issue of militarization has been really kind of exaggerated, almost to the point that I don't recognize it at times," said James Pasco, executive director of the national Fraternal Order of Police. "The vast majority of the equipment that civilian law enforcement gets from the military is administrative stuff or defensive in nature."
The ban on items will take effect immediately, White House officials said; the restrictions on other gear will be phased in so that local law enforcement agencies can be briefed about the new requirements.
"The idea is to make sure we strike the right balance of providing equipment that is appropriate and important, while at the same time put standards in place that give a clear reason for the transfer of that equipment, with clear training and safety provisions in place," Cecilia Muñoz, the White House director of domestic policy, told reporters in a conference call Sunday.
The new initiative came as Obama traveled here to highlight his administration's strategy to help reform local police departments, including efforts to increase the number of officers on patrol and the use of body cameras. The White House has said the administration will spend about $75 million over the next three years to buy about 50,000 body cameras to be worn by police.
As he has over the past months, Obama sought Monday to tread a careful line between calling on both police officers and members of the community to do more to improve the relationship between them. He toured Camden's tactical operations center, and he met with youths and police officers to discuss their concerns and the steps Camden has undertaken to try to improve trust.
In remarks to a crowd of nearly 300 at a community center, the president emphasized that pervasive hopelessness in some urban areas such as Camden is driven in large part by a lack of educational and economic opportunities.
He also praised the police. "The overwhelming number of police officers are good, fair, honest and care deeply about their community, putting their lives on the line every day." He said officers, while stewards of public safety, cannot be expected to provide the answers to some of the intractable social issues that have roots in divisive issues of race and class.
The appearance of heavily armored vehicles and police clad in military-grade body armor to quell the unrest in Ferguson led to widespread concerns that the federal program providing that gear, begun with the best intentions, had run amok.
One of the ways police departments have armed themselves in recent years is through the Defense Department's excess property program, known as the 1033 Program. That program has transferred more than $4.3 billion in equipment since its inception in 1997. In 2013 alone, it gave nearly a half-billion dollars' worth of military equipment to local law enforcement agencies, according to the program's website.
Some police chiefs have stressed that much of the equipment that has been made available by the federal program is radio and dispatch gear that provides cash-strapped departments with valuable updates. Others have criticized the influx of military equipment into local departments in which budgets for officers on the ground have been cut.
"I understand what the president is trying to do, and I think he recognizes that law enforcement is a dangerous job," said Richard Beary, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. "I think he's trying to strike a balance ... trying to find that happy balance between being able to provide the equipment that we need and also trying to provide some accountability."
The announcement Monday of a ban on portions of the program was somewhat a surprise. In December, new White House initiatives stopped well short of banning the transfer of hulking military vehicles that were designed to withstand blasts from land mines in Iraq and Afghanistan and that prompted a public outcry when they appeared on the streets of Ferguson.
But the task force report suggested that there was "substantial risk of misusing or overusing these items."
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., called the new restrictions "another step in the direction of needed change to better protect both police officers, and the communities those officers serve." Rep. Lacy Clay, D-Mo., thanked Obama for instituting the new restrictions on which military equipment local police forces could obtain.
"I witnessed first-hand, high-powered sniper rifles with night scopes being pointed at my constituents who were peacefully exercising their constitutional rights," said Clay, whose district includes Ferguson. "That kind of police militarization is harmful, and it deepens the already wide gulf of mistrust."
Anti-police-brutality and law enforcement reform groups were more measured, painting Obama's move as a small step in what they think will be a long process to improve U.S. policing.
"We know that reforming 1033 or putting limits on military equipment is not going to be enough," said Dante Barry, executive director of Million Hoodies Movement for Justice, one of the groups born in response to the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Florida.
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