El Paso Police Will Carry M4 Semi-Automatic Rifles

[Tejas]

http://www.kfoxtv.com/news/22221221/detail.html

"It's going to be used in rare instances, hopefully we won't have to use them at all in El Paso," said El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen.

As KFOX has reported, El Paso is the second safest city in the country, and the violence in Juarez has yet to spill over.

"This is an opportunity to prepare for the possibility of any spillover, forego that in the hope that it doesn't would be negligent on my part to say the least," Allen told KFOX.



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I disagree entirely with the "second safest city in the country" because of an article in a magazine that detailed the job a Deputy Sheriff there is currently assigned to.

He carries an AR and works the entrances/hallways/rooms of a hospital in El Paso dressed in full SWAT regalia. His job is to prevent hitmen from "finishing off" drug cartel shooting victims transported from Mexico for emergency treatment.

ah, here's an article that's very similar to what I read in the magazine.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/171251

By the way, the cost of the 1,145 M4's in the article breaks down to approx $675 each and are paid for through Federal stimulus money. Good to see El Paso catching up to the rest of Texas concerning firearms, especially in the range-time department with the scheduled 40hrs of training they'll get.

[midnight]

1. Wasn't this the line of reasoning for tasers?

[benEzra]

4. It's a safer and easier to use alternative to the traditional 12-gauge shotgun.

Fewer projectiles going downrange, less chance of ricochet, less penetration in building materials (with suitable load choice), far less recoil, and far better sights. And the M4 style stock allows the carbine to be adjusted to fit different size shooters, instead of assuming that all police officers are 5'10", 180lb males.

All in all, a good thing, I think.

The problem with Tasers is that they were marketed as an alternative to lethal force, but are commonly used as an alternative to words or hands, as merely a compliance tool. If Tasers were used only on violent or suicidal suspects instead of on grandmothers protesting their parking tickets, they wouldn't be controversial, I think.

[old mark]

2. Hell, if I could get one for $675, I'd buy one myself. nt

[PavePusher]

5. Maybe we can work a bulk-buy deal... n/t

[eqfan592]

13. You could count me in. ;) (nt)

[proteus_lives]

16. I'm in!

;-)

[keopeli]

3. El Paso is NOT a safe city. My parents live there and I grew up there.

It's dangerous just going to the grocery store. There are car jackings in broad daylight all the time. There is a constant threat of grand theft because of the enormous drug and poverty issue that exists just a couple miles away in Juarez. With such a dense population, a porous border and friendlies on both sides, it's an impossible situation to monitor or control, much less prevent crime.

I have personally been subject to crime in El Paso several times, including muggings, theft, kidnapping, armed robbery and assault, though it's been many years. But, this is the main reason I choose not to return very often. My parents, who are both in their 70s, have been victims of crimes on several occasions, including burglary, auto theft, car jacking and muggings. Their most recent encounter was within the past year. I also have many friends all over El Paso and most have them have been exposed to criminal activity.

I think I can say with certainty that El Paso is NOT the second safest city in the US. Maybe the second LEAST safe...I could believe that.

[Craftsman]

6. I live in Houston

And many PD's in the county the officers are carrying M4's or MP5's. This is becoming SOP.

[DonP]

7. Serious question on the carrying of semi and select fire rifles in Europe?

I've noticed, when traveling in traditionally gun free parts of Western Europe, that the police there seem to often have MP5's or equivalents for street patrol.

For instance, Schipol (sp?) Airport in Amsterdam has always had quite a few security types with body armor and full auto in the terminals when I passed through.

Maybe I have just been there during high risk times that I wasn't aware of, but in countries where it is almost impossible for private citizens to own guns, it seems incongruous. Why do the cops need so much firepower if they have a generally disarmed populace? (On the other hand, I have been in Switzerland during Schuetzenfest. Very cool to see so much serious hardware on display. Sitting in a cafe in Lausanne with two full autos and a bunch of K-31s leaning against the wall at the next table. Safest meal I probably ever had - outside of a 1st Cav. dining facility.)

We're constantly being told how much we need to emulate some of these countries by the gun control people here. I'm really not comfortable with the idea of a lot of US cops that only qualify once a year wandering around with select fire discretion.

Why do they feel they need it over there?

[jeepnstein]

8. Because they can?

Sorry, I just had to say it.

I'm guessing it's mostly because their police are more "militarized" than ours. The tradition in the U.S. is for police work to be done by men and women who are more citizen than soldier. It's a different point of view in Europe. I briefly chatted with an Italian Caribinieri once who saw his role as not that different from being in the army, only with a cooler uniform and working conditions. An American cop generally doesn't see himself as an agent of the state in the same way.

In American police work the gun is not all that important, at least until you need one really bad. There's just not a huge emphasis on armed conflict in training. Most departments are constantly working to keep their guys from actually killing anyone.

As far as patrol officers in the U.S. having AR's? I'm all for it. They are really great weapons. My preference is for semi-auto only based on the way cops shoot and move. It's not like they do a whole bunch of squad tactics and suppressive fire. In police work it's more like a herd of heavily armed cats most of the time. I'm not sure I'd be willing to totally give up my shotgun but having the option of an AR15 would be great.

[era veteran]

9. The police are way more militarized around KY

I hate not being able to tell the difference in a cop and a storm trooper. Cops dressed like commandos flying Hueys all over Kentucky. Police state bullshit. The more military gear strapped to a cop the more we should fear.

[taurus145]

14. I agree

Where in the world did the fascination with black bdu's and such come from?

The original U.S. Cavalry Store is just a few minutes from my house. I do know that they market tactical garb and gear very aggressively to local and state cops in the area. Maybe that has something to do with the clothing and gear.

It seems that the helicopter issue has grown like Topsy. As I recall the (primary) original justification for them was drug interdiction (read as "find pot plots") in rural areas of the state. Now they seem to be using them like patrol cars.

[PavePusher]

15. Because a lot of that "military gear"...

is comfortable and practical and durable when you have to wear it for 8-16 hours a day, getting in and out of vehicles, tousling with criminals... etc. I sure would hate to have to wear a dress shirt and tie for all that crap.

And helicopters are very practical aircraft for a variety of police activities.

[era veteran]

18. I bought a 'tankers' jacket in that store back in the 70's

I dressed like a soldier then. I do not want local PD's militarized. I think a shirt and tie would be fine, my dad wore that in North Africa in WW2. I think cops should be drafted too. I feel most people who want to be a cop shouldn't. Power corrupts so many in their own day to day lives. I don't like the fucking police in web gear. Soldiering is a completely different job. This forum attracts many who feel differently and the formula answers and insults used to amaze me until I was around long enough to see a lot of the same players. I don't have a problem with the police having AR 15 type weapons available to them. I have a problem with citizens having mag fed semi auto high powered weapons though. We, in KY. have some aggressive 'police' type stores. One story is of a large police force getting S&W .357's two years in a row. They traded the dpt. new weapons for the year old ones so they could get around some law and then sold them to a Central American country. These stores just want to make money. Morals be damned. Peace, Richard

[PavePusher]

19. There is a lot of overlap in the Equipment and Tactics...

of police and soldiers. The Strategy and end results however, have some significant differences. It isn't a good idea to oversimplify the seperation.

[era veteran]

20. Explain oversimplify separation

[Euromutt]

21. With web gear, it's a matter of form following function

I admit I raised an eyebrow the first time I noticed a local cop wearing webbing straps over his shoulders, until I noticed the massive amount of kit he had on his belt; handgun, reloads, taser, baton, OC spray, flashlight, cuffs, radio, gloves pouch... I'm surprised he was able to sit down. Point being that the purpose of the webbing was not to look more military, but to support the weight of all the gear on his belt.

I'm fine with more open-necked shirt look on cops myself. Cops have to wear clip-on ties anyway, to avoid the risk of being strangled with them; they might as well dispense with that fiction and be comfortable. Neckties in combat were rapidly shown to be impractical, and Patton's insistence that his troops wear them all the same is part of what contributed to his reputation as a martinet.

I used to work for the UN tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and I worked with a number of cops from a wide range of countries, and went I went back to college I was on the police review board for a year. And in my experience, certainly with cops from western countries, is that most do join at least partly out of a desire "to serve and protect" (in developing countries, many people who become cops do so because it's one of the better-paying jobs, with decent job security, available to them). If that gets corroded after a while on the job, that is more a result of the organizational culture of the police force they're on, and changing the type of person who is placed into the organization isn't going to change that.

I have a problem with citizens having mag fed semi auto high powered weapons though.

Like this one: http://www.browning.com/products/catalog/firearms/detail.asp?value=002B&cat_id=031&type_id=534
Or this one: http://www.remington.com/products/firearms/centerfire/model-750/model-750-woodsmaster.aspx
Or this one: http://www.benelliusa.com/rifles/benelli_r1_rifle.php

Those are all semi-automatic, magazine-fed rifles, and they come in calibers capable of taking down an elk (unlike most AR an AK variants).

[oneshooter]

10. I know of several officers in the Houston area who carry

anything from M1 carbines to AR-15s to M1 Garand rifles in the trunk. Most are County Sheriffs or DPS.

Oneshooter
Livin in Texas

[Euromutt]

12. Well, Carabinieri *are* army, sort of

As I said in my other post, the Carabinieri are a gendarmerie (which derives from "gens d'armes," freely "armed persons"). Gendarmeries trace their histories back to the 17th or 18th centuries (depending on the country), with the emergence of the nation-state as a geopolitical entity in western Europe. Cities generally has their own city watch, but somebody had to police the roads outside the cities, and so the nascent national governments formed paramilitary gendarmeries to carry out that function. Over time, gendarmeries typically took on the role of national police force, border guards and military police. Examples include the Carabinieri, the French Gendarmerie Nationale (obviously), the now-defunct Belgian Rijkswacht, the Dutch Marechaussee, and to a lesser extent the Spanish Guardia Civil and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (neither of whom fulfill the military police role).

[PavePusher]

17. Irish Garda... n/t

[Euromutt]

11. Airports are not streets

Don't forget that Europe has a far more extensive history of terrorism than the US, what with the Baader-Meinhof group, the Provisional IRA, the Italian Red Brigades, Abu Nidal, and various Palestinian groups running around during the 1970s and 1980s. Airports have long been a beloved target of terrorists, especially airports with an El Al desk, so airports are the place you're likely to see the most heavily armed law enforcement types in Europe.

Note that security at Schiphol is not in the hands of the regular police, but rather, of the Marechaussee, which is a gendarmerie; i.e. a paramilitary force that carries out the functions of military police and border guard, but can also be assigned to civil police tasks, particularly when a regular regional police force needs additional support (e.g. riot control personnel, APCs with bulldozer blades, etc.). The Marechaussee also operates the second-tier Dutch anti-terrorist unit, the first being provided by a special detachment of the marine corps.

Italy, apart from having had its share of terrorist activity, has also seen long-running battles with organized crime syndicates (like the Sicilian mafia, the Neapolitan Camorra and the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta) who have frequently tried to derail criminal investigations and prosecutions by assassinating investigators, prosecutors and judges. Hence the presence of heavily armed Carabinieri outside courthouses and public prosecutors' buildings, especially in Rome and in the southern parts of the country. The Carabinieri are also a gendarmerie, functioning as both military and federal police.

Admittedly, for as long as I've been aware, where American police patrol cars would typically carry a shotgun as backup firepower, continental European police forces would carry a sub-machine gun. But part of that has to do with the fact that Europeans for the most part have no history of regarding the shotgun as a combat weapon (some Belgian police forces started using them in the 1980s, and the idea's caught on a bit since then), and an SMG has the advantage of using the same ammunition as the standard-issue pistols.

But yeah, short answer: terrorism.