APD - Personally Owned Weapons

[jlw]

We will allow any personally owned gun from a reputable brand, in 9-40-45acp, as long as we have an armorer to support the make & model. That may change soon since the US DOJ has cracked down on neighboring Albuquerque PD, Bernalillo Co Sheriff, and the State Police for allowing "non-standard and personally owned high-power weapons" to be carried on duty.

I'd really like more details on this.

[JDM]

I'd really like more details on this.

This is a good start:

http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl...gs_4-10-14.pdf

[SamuelBLong]

DOJ has been investigating all NM LE agencies for excessive use of force over the last year because of our large number of OIS - 37 at APD since 2010. And a few more since the report was released.

DOJ said in their report that allowing individual officers to use personally owned weapons essentially becoming something of a "status symbol" and "this fondness of powerful weaponry illustrates the aggressive culture.”

Since the report there has been massive public pressure on APD, and to a lesser extent BCSO to massively restrain what officers are able to do. We've had protests that shut down access to one major hospital and access to the downtown area. Some of that is justified as there were a few questionable shoots, but the public largely doesn't realize what is dealt with on a day to day basis in the city and county.

http://krqe.com/2014/03/30/sky-news-...protest-video/

If you've seen breaking bad, yes, it really can be like that... To illustrate my point, and I hate to bring up a sore topic around here, but lets remember that Robin (Tom Jones's wife) was severely injured by a guy who ambushed officers with an AK, stole their squad car, and led multiple agencies on a active shooter chase all around the north end of the city.

As of last Thursday May 8, APD is no longer allowed to carry personally owned firearms for duty per the memo handed out by the chief. How that is going to work when it comes to patrol rifles, since they don't issue them and must be an individual purchase, is a mystery to me.


KRQE News Report on APD Personal Guns : http://krqe.com/2014/05/08/apd-no-lo...sonal-weapons/

Link to KRQE News DOJ Findings:http://krqe.com/2014/04/10/justice-d...ndings-on-apd/

[JDM]

The tangent about APD should be a separate thread. . .

[SamuelBLong]

The tangent about APD should be a separate thread. . .

Agreed. If I could, I would have split it off.

[JDM]

Working on it.

[LSP972]

DOJ said in their report that allowing individual officers to use personally owned weapons essentially becoming something of a "status symbol" and "this fondness of powerful weaponry illustrates the aggressive culture.”

Good grief.

Truly, we ARE doomed.

.

[ST911]

Page 37...

As mentioned above, APD’s training is focused so heavily on weaponry and force
scenarios that officers do not get essential tools to engage in effective de-escalation methods.
The training is an element of the culture of aggression. Once officers complete their training,
they are allowed to carry non-standard issued weapons that are approved by the range master.54
We were informed that many officers purchase expensive, high-powered guns as soon as they
are allowed, using their own money. Officers see the guns as status symbols. APD personnel we
interviewed indicated that this fondness for powerful weaponry illustrates the aggressive culture.

[abu fitna]

Page 37...

I have no personal knowledge regarding this study, but right off the bat this statement strikes me as exactly the kind of finding that you get when an under qualified or unqualified researcher is conducting interviews. The immediate focus on externalities of object, imbued with alleged cultural significance, is the kind of thing one can trot out when the harder questions of tactical choices, adversary intentions, and comparative case outcomes are dauntingly buried in a large pile of use of force reports filed over the years. Instead, a nice lunch with the kinds of staff (probably non-sworn clerical or barely qualifying desk drivers) that would call a personally owned, departmentally approved service pistol "high powered" is much easier on the researcher. And as a bonus these lunches can with only a little prompting probably result in other findings regarding attitude, behavior, and political outlook once office gossip is run through the PC mill and ground ever so fine...

I am always a critic of excessive force. But the way this material reads is not a study about mechanisms to address inappropriate OIS, but rather a way to justify pre-minted conclusions.

I lived through this once in a particular English speaking country out on the Asian rim, where sheer count of OIS incidents led to much handwringing, and eventually to pressure that basically left the descendants of convicts on all sides to fend for themselves (with the law abiding citizens having of course been disarmed through other bouts of handwringing). This was the same period where transition from the revolver (long after most other international police services had gone to the bottom feeder) was hotly debated as an issue of too much "firepower".

But shallow minds blame the thing they focus on first. And the shape, size and colour of the weapon in one's holster is easy to see; whereas the real issues of changing offender demographics, offender behaviors, officer experience, or officer deployments are much harder.

[jlw]

It is a massive stretch to link authorizing personally owned weapons to excessive force.

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I could see a municipality agreeing to go to allowing only issued weapons as part of a consent decree to soften some other blow much like an college football team withdrawing from a bowl game to head off the NCAA, but the feds have no legal authority to simply order a local or state agency to adopt such a policy.