SAN FERNANDO : Police Purchase ‘Less Lethal’ Weapon

The gun is in the mail.

Make that the “multi-role projectile launcher” is in the mail.

At a cost of about $2,000, the San Fernando Police Department has bought a “less lethal” semiautomatic weapon and an array of accessories from a weapons manufacturer in Pontiac, Mich.

Less lethal weapons--so called because they are much less likely to kill than conventional firearms--are already used by the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and other regional law enforcement agencies.

The gun ordered by San Fernando’s police force can fire three-inch rubber batons (cylindrical-shaped projectiles), pepper or tear-gas canisters, and “barrier-penetrating” cartridges--capable of smashing through a wooden door--from its 37-millimeter muzzle.

The department for some time had been seeking an alternative to using deadly force in subduing suspects, officials said.

Though San Fernando’s 35 full-time police officers patrol an area of only 2.4 square miles and rarely encounter riots, officials said the less lethal gun will come in handy during attempts to disarm or incapacitate armed and dangerous individuals.

“If you’re taking on a suspect with (a knife),” said San Fernando Detective Mark Jacobs, “instead of approaching him to use lethal force, you can approach him from a safe distance and knock him down, with the advantage of being able to pin him into an area.”

John Klein, president of Sage Control Ordnance, the company that sold the department its new weapon--called the SL-6--said such less lethal weaponry gives law enforcement officers an important alternative to handguns or hand-to-hand physical force.

But, he noted, there is always the risk that the weapon could cause a fatal injury. “It’s somewhere between a nightstick and a 9-millimeter (gun),” Klein said.

Criminals who think police are getting soft on them, firing plastic instead of lead, should think again. Getting pelted by one of the “blunt trauma” batons is like “being hit with a fastball traveling 100 m.p.h.,” Klein said.

To disperse crowds, the rifle, which has sights, breaks open for loading like a shotgun and is capable of firing six rounds in succession.

San Fernando’s Police Department received a $2,000 donation from the local police advisory council to purchase the weapon and assorted ammunition. The purchase was approved by the City Council earlier this month.

The weapons have a proven record among police forces in the region, law enforcement officials said. In September, Ventura police officers used a less lethal weapon loaded with tiny sandbags to subdue a man wielding a six-inch steak knife.

In May, LAPD officers used the weapons to fire rubber projectiles toward an unruly crowd at the L. A. Fiesta Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles.

The SL-6 will be deployed initially with the department’s special response team, Jacobs said, with every member of the force eventually receiving training to use the weapon.