2 years ago
WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) -- City police in DC are about to get a lot more firepower. Thanks to military surplus, the Metropolitan Police Department is converting hundreds of military automatic weapons into semi-automatic rifles and hopes to have many of them deployed on city streets within the next month.
It is a move city police officers applaud. "It allows the officers to put themselves into a position where they have similar or greater firepower than suspects they are going to be facing," said Kristopher Baumann, the Chairman of the Labor Committee of the Fraternal Order of Police. "We've had incidents in the last three years where we've had individuals fire on officers' cars with an AK- 4. We've had individuals robbing banks and using high-powered weapons. We've had incidents at the Capitol where a Metropolitan Police officer responded, and in those incidents we did not immediately have available to us the type of firepower, the type of weapons that we needed," Baumann told 9NEWS NOW.
The Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of the Capital Area is less certain arming city police with that greater firepower is a good idea. "Well, of course the police have a right to protect themselves. They protect citizens so if they can't protect themselves, they can not protect citizens. But, it seems at odds with the current policy of the city to fight to retain gun control before the Supreme Court. It sends the wrong signal. After all, if you're going to proliferate assault rifles on the streets, how can you in the same breath say we want guns off the streets," asked Johnny Barnes of the ACLU.
City Councilman Phil Mendelson is concerned about the visual signal heavily armed police officers send."The idea of police, for police for purposes, carrying long rifles is a little bit unnerving, and I've heard concern from a lot of residents about this. I mean, it's one thing for a p;police officer to be carrying a pistol at their side. It's another thing to be carrying a rifle and these, in particular, like assault weapons. They've been modified but that's still what they look like," he told 9NEWS NOW.
"It's primarily the appearance, the appearance of a police force that has much greater firepower that people are comfortable with," he said.
"If it's not handled carefully, I think it sends a negative message of the police force being more militaristic than people are comfortable with. Now, I do think the Chief is sensitive to that but that still is very much what the issue is here: whether our police force is going to look like a military force, or whether it's going to look like a civilian police force," Mendelson said.
Written by Gary Nurenberg9NEWS NOW
