Lindsey Collom
The Arizona Republic
November 24, 2008
Phoenix police union officials are proposing that 200 senior officers be allowed to buy their own semiautomatic rifles to use on the job after some said they felt more at risk and asked for additional firepower.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Top police officials are expected to discuss the union’s proposed yearlong pilot program and go over options today.
Sixty patrol officers now carry rifles, significantly less than police departments of equal size. For instance, more than 500 beat officers carry rifles in Dallas, 400 in Las Vegas and more than 300 at the Miami-Dade Police Department.
Police officers say the additional firepower gives them a better match against criminals and is a more accurate tool in high-risk situations.
Law-enforcement agencies across the country began to arm patrol officers with rifles after Los Angeles police were outgunned in a 1997 bank robbery. The first officers to respond to the scene in North Hollywood found themselves ill-prepared for what turned out to be a 40-minute gunbattle with two men in body armor firing AK-47 rifles. The suspects were killed in the shootout, and more than a dozen people, including police officers, were injured.
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