North Hollywood shootouts rewind

[Thernlund]

Cops , like soldiers, also have to work with what they are given. The LAPD cops of 1997 had handguns and a few shotguns loaded with #4 buckshot. That was it.

That's my point exactly. Maybe every car should have an M1 and a sniper rifle. Then instead of calling in SWAT who's 30 minutes away, properly train EVERYONE in the use of said weapons. Stop buying Cannondale mountain bikes and Segways and spend the cash where it's more needed; training and armament.

It seems to me that the idea of SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) is the same as England having "Firearms Officers", which I think many of us agree is silly. Do away with SWAT, then train and outfit EVERYBODY at that level. Then trained and prepared personnel are as close as the nearest squad car.

Maybe I came off as blaming the cops involved. Not my intention. The NH officers did their best. But they were not adequately equipped or trained. Not their fault, but it's somebodies. And the "99% of the time" argument is nuts to me. In such a line of work, does it not make more sense to be prepared for the worst case? When you build a dam, you don't build it to hold back only 99% of the water.


-T.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

That's my point exactly. Maybe every car should have an M1 and a sniper rifle. Then instead of calling in SWAT who's 30 minutes away, properly train EVERYONE in the use of said weapons. Stop buying Cannondale mountain bikes and Segways and spend the cash where it's more needed; training and armament.

Cool. LAPD has nearly 10K officers. About 2/3 work the streets (I am guessing). So you want to dump money into rifles and training instead of some other venues. Okay. For every officer you pull out to train on the rifle, you lose anywhere from a week to two weeks street time (Dallas PD ran a 2 week course for officers before being allowed to carry AR15s as I recall). Then every officer will have to qualify regularly with the rifle just like the sidearm. Taking the one week estimate of training, you lose 6600 person weeks of patrol or investigation time during training so that everyone who goes out on the street can handle a rifle. Then you lose a half or quarter day of patrol time every year (assuming once a year quals) per person (1650-3300 person days).

You gotta figure on nearly doubling the staff required for doing qualifications and training since you are dealing with nearly double the number of weapons and additional time.

Add to that the additional equipment costs (offset by not buying bikes or segues), armorer costs and additional armorers needed to service the additional weapons, and you have quite the expense.

Who will pay for that? Don't get me wrong. I am all for it, but who will pay for it?

 

[Thernlund]

Who will pay for that? Don't get me wrong. I am all for it, but who will pay for it?

That is a conundrum isn't it.


-T.

 

[Leanwolf]

HARLEY QUINN - "Leanwolf I retired "114" How about you? I still have property in 15 area. B&B is long gone. Was Right down the street from the new location and around the corner of my property."

Nov. 1997. Moved up here to Idaho and haven't looked back.

I knew about B&B. Too bad. It was a great gun store until everything for them went sour.

I started going to the old store on Cumpston St., in 1975. Dropped a lot of money at B&B!

L.W.