LAW
ENFORCEMENT NEEDS ADEQUATE
MEANS TO
MEET THE THREATS
TERRORISM
CHANGES THE EQUATION
NYPD ESU
Officers in the Financial District:
A very
familiar “Show of Force” since 9/11
TAGS:
NYPD – ESU, COUNTERTERRORISM, SPECIAL EQUIPMENT
REQUIRED
IN THE TIME OF TERROR, MILITARY SURPLUS,
PUBLIC
MISCONCEPTIONS, POLICE ARE NOT AN
OCCUPYING
FORCE
(Wednesday July 13, 2016
Rodman’s Neck, The Bronx, NYC) The stories and anecdotes of similar instances were
beginning to pile up. More and more MOS
(Members of Service) of the NYPD were experiencing a clear and present danger
on the streets. While the Cops carried
38 caliber six shot “wheel guns” they were encountering armed criminals with
superior fire power: and the criminals were more than well aware of the
advantage they had in this imbalance of weaponry. Reports were becoming more commonplace about
how the 38 caliber rounds would just “skip off” or ricochet off a car’s
tempered safety glass. The 38 was a fine
weapon for close contact but no longer an adequate gun for the streets. After years of increasingly heated debate
finally, in 1994, the NYPD was granted permission to carry 9mm semi-automatic
hand guns. This was at least a modest effort aimed at balancing the equation on
the streets when MOS had to “fight fire with fire”. Some patrol cars with shotgun certified
Officers carried Ithaca 37 shotguns which have been phased out by the Mossberg
590 as the replacement.
NYPD’s elite Emergency Service
Units have always had heavier weapons at their disposal. The most heavily armed officers today are in
the Counterterrorism Bureau. In Units
such as Atlas, Cobra and Hercules, the MOS are often deployed as a massive
“show of force” at various high value targets throughout the City; in our
transportation hubs and airports as well as at mass gathering events such as
parades. It is safe to say today that
NYPD can meet force with equal if not superior force. It is a sad fact of the day that we need such
heavily armed Officers highly visible in public but, we are, after all, in a
“wartime footing”. The zealots
practicing heinous acts of violence and terrorism in many Western countries as
well as throughout the Middle East, the Asian subcontinent and in dozens of
other locales in the name of radical Islamic extremism require our constant
vigilance and displays of force.
NOT MILITARIZED, OPTIMIZED
Ferguson Missouri Police using armored vehicle
supplied by St. Louis County Sheriff Department
August 2014
The term may have been used in
certain circles but quickly entered the public lexicon when riots erupted in Ferguson,
Missouri in the wake of the August 9, 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown,
an unarmed Black man and a White Police Officer Darren Wilson. As images of the ensuing unrest many of the
commentators and members of the gaseous punditry criticized what they saw as
the “militarization” of the Police. They expressed self-righteous alarm because
the Police Officers assigned to crown control and maintain order wore body
armor, carried heavy weapons and deployed “military type” armored vehicles. The particulars of that tense, hot week are
not important here. What is important,
however, is the clear lack of understanding of those of a certain mindset that
our Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA) have dangerously morphed into an “occupying
force”. Perhaps the vocal critics of the
Police, their tactics and strategies need a bit of a reminder of the value of
the equipment modern policing in this age of terror utilizes.
After the April 15, 2013
bombings at the Boston Marathon, one of the assailants eluded capture for until
April 19 as the police narrowed their search to a 20 block area of the Boston
suburb of Watertown. As authorities
cautioned the residents of the area to “shelter in place”, an unprecedented manhunt
was conducted. Law Enforcement, using
armored vehicles were finally able to locate Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger of
the two brothers responsible for the marathon attack, and take him into
custody. More recently there have been
incidents such as the horrific mass shooting of 49 revelers in a club in
Orlando, Florida as well as the ambush of five Dallas Police Officers that
required the employment of “military grade” hardware to bring standoffs to a
resolution without further bloodshed of the innocent public or Police. As one veteran NYPD ESU Detective commented
recently, “God help the jurisdiction that does not have access to what they
call military hardware if a terrible event happens on their turf. Then the public will be crying about why the
Police didn’t have the so called military equipment at their disposal”.
GRANTS AND GIFTS
Our robust military-industrial
complex has been in full operations since 2001.
They have had to produce all manner of the tools of war from the most
basic to the highly sophisticated technology available. As troop levels in
Afghanistan and Iraq have been drawn down over the last few years from the days
of the heights of these conflicts, there has been an enormous surplus of
military equipment returned to the domestic military bases. The mass production of this equipment has
only slowed down more recently. Given
this huge surplus of items ranging from generators, automated sandbag fillers,
water and fuel tankers, construction heavy equipment and materials, to
up-armored vehicles of every type, the federal government has made much of this
surplus
available via grants and gifts to State and Local Law Enforcement, FEMA and
local Emergency Management Departments, the Red Cross, and other disaster preparedness
and response organizations. Yes, many
State and County Police Departments have benefited from this program. If our recent past and the events we see
abroad have taught us nothing, we should at least realize the need to have our
LEA adequately and properly equipped; yes, we are on a constant war footing
when it comes to the war on terror.
Not every Police or Sheriff’s
Department in the country has received this equipment but they, at least, have
access to it through the larger jurisdictional LEA such as State Police and the
closest large urban area. Clearly cities
such as ours, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, to mention the most prominent, have
Officers highly trained on these military surplus weapons and equipment. As so called “lone wolf” attacks become more
frequent (as they surely will), the LEA need to be able to protect the public
and critical infrastructure by all legal means possible.
Copyright The
Brooding Cynyx 2016 © All Rights Reserved
Copyright
Brooding Cynyc 2016 © All Rights Reserved
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