Colt M4.
One year after 80 new assault rifles landed at the police department’s armory, patrol cops are set to begin carrying them in cruisers for “extreme cases” where they are out-gunned by an active shooter.
About 80 patrol cops will take part in a one-week training on Sept. 12 in how to use the Colt M4s, and will start carrying them in patrol cars as soon as Sept. 19, according to Assistant Chief Petisia Adger. This will be the first time that patrol cops have been allowed to use longer guns, which so far have been used only by the SWAT team.
The move was made possible when the police commission Tuesday night unanimously approved a policy outlining the use of rifles by patrol cops.
The new policy ends a long delay surrounding the new rifles, which have been stored in a vault at the Police Training Academy at 710 Sherman Parkway for the past year.
The guns will be used only in “extreme cases,” said Adger. “This is not a situation where you’re going to see officers walk down the street with a rifle in their hand.”
Capt. Joann Peterson, who heads the training academy, said the guns will be used only in “critical, life-threatening situations” such as the mass school shooting in Columbine in 1999. They are meant for cases where a patrol cop faces a suspect who may be holed up, wearing a bullet-proof vest, or actively shooting.
The guns won’t be a replacement for SWAT; a patrol cop would use the rifle to secure a perimeter around a scene until SWAT arrives at the scene. They’ll serve as an “additional tactical resource” to add to cops’ arsenal, Peterson said.
Three Years Later
Former Police Chief James Lewis first called for buying patrol rifles when he took office in August 2008. The rifles were meant to supplement cops’ handguns. He argued the new tools would enable his officers to meet threats from ever-better-armed wrongdoers as well as to protect the public, and the cops themselves, on the unusual occasions in which they’re required to shoot.
Lewis ordered the rifles, then stepped down as chief in February 2010, leaving the task of implementing the new guns to Chief Frank Limon.
The guns arrived in New Haven about one year ago, Adger said.
Limon decided cops shouldn’t use them until the department had a clear policy on how to do so.
“We were not going to issue them without a rule in place and training” on how to use the guns, said Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts.
Smuts stressed that the rifles “will not be used on a day-to-day basis. They will be used very infrequently.” They’re part of a broader effort to make sure cops are “equipped to deal with the full range of emergencies that we face.” In that sense, the rifles will be like the emergency boat that’s headed for a new dock at City Point, Smuts argued.
The rifle delay rankled police officers, who blamed the chief for being too slow to put them in their hands. That complaint was one factor behind a no-confidence vote against Chief Limon in February.
“Any delay in getting the weapons into officers’ hands had to do with a change in administration,” responded Adger, who became the assistant chief in charge of professional standards in April.
Before the guns could be used, she said, the department also had to write a policy governing their use; go out to bid for locking rifle cases; and install equipment sot the guns can be safely stored.
“There’s a lot of work that had to happen before these rifles roll out” — including writing a curriculum for the training that officers will go through, added Capt. Peterson. “It’s not as easy as just getting the weapons and rolling them out.”
Rick Epstein, chairman of the police commission, said the “process got waylaid somewhere between Chief Lewis leaving and Chief Limon coming in.”
“It took a while,” he said, because the new chief didn’t want to hand out guns without a policy in place.
“That’s how it should be,” Epstein said. “It needs to be done in a thoughtful manner.”
Rules Of The Road
The commission on Tuesday put an end to the delay by giving final approval to a general order drafted by the police department. The order concerns department-issued Colt M4s, not “personally owned rifles,” which cops are prohibited from carrying around on the job.
Cops may need the rifles when they are faced with “criminal elements armed with superior firearms or other dangerous weapons,” and their handguns won’t suffice in defending themselves and the public, the order reads. In “certain critical life-threatening situations,” the rifles may save lives or help contain a suspect until the SWAT officers show up.
Only sworn officers may use the rifles. The department will keep them in a locked “rifle rack” inside a cop cruiser until they are needed, the order reads.
Before using the rifles, cops have to pass a training course approved by the Police Officer Standards and Training Council. After that, rifle-holders will have to go through quarterly training and re-qualification with the Department Armorer, who is also tasked with maintaining the arsenal.
The rifles may be used in the following situations: When the suspect is wearing a bullet-proof vest or other “protective body armor.” When an officer can articulate a need beyond the scope of capabilities of the service sidearm” (the need has to be “reasonable” based on the circumstances). When the cop faces a suspect who’s in a “tactically advantageous position,” such as a fortified building or at a long distance away. In that case, a cop may use the rifle if it is “required to neutralize the threat posed by the suspect(s) and minimize the risk of death or serious bodily injury to officers or members of the community.”
Once a cop takes out a rifle, he or she shall have no other duties such as searching or handcuffing a suspect; the rifle-holder shall function solely as a “cover officer” until the rifle is put away.
The rifles are to be used in keeping with the department’s Deadly Force Policy.
Cops won’t get to take the rifles home at night, as they do with their sidearms. They’ll check out the rifles from a patrol vault at the beginning of the shift and turn them back in before the shift’s end. When rifles aren’t being used, they can’t be kept unattended in cop cars, according to the rules. They’ll be kept in a locked safe or in the storage vault at the Training Academy.
If a police officer violates proper procedure, they may have their rifle revoked or face other discipline.
Training On Tap
Cops who want to use the guns have to go through an application and training process.
The department put out a request a couple of weeks ago for officers who would like to carry the weapons, according to Adger. To qualify to do so, they have to meet a number of criteria: They must have a score of 90 or better in firearms training using the sidearm they have, have least three years on the force, be assigned to patrol, have no discipline action in the last year, have good attendance, and get a recommendation from their supervisor.
Cops have another week to apply. The department aims to have 80 officers go through a one-week training, which is set to start on Sept. 12. Only cops who pass the training will be allowed to carry the guns. On a given day, only 24 rifles will be in use on patrol, said Adger. Another 20 have been distributed to the SWAT team; the rest will be kept in storage as backups or used for training.
Peterson said she hopes the new rifles protect New Haven from another mass killing such as Columbine, the 1998 shooting at the Connecticut Lottery Corporation offices, or the sniper deaths in Washington, D.C., should such an incident ever develop here.
“We’ve seen this happen across the nation,” Peterson said. “We hope that it doesn’t [happen here], but we want to be ready if it does.”
One lesson from those incidents, she said, is that patrol cops shouldn’t have to wait to secure the premises until the SWAT team arrives. With a rifle in the car, they’ll no longer have to wait to do so.
“We can no longer sit by and watch innocent victims die with an active shooter,” Peterson said.