LAPD Has Yet to Deploy Requested Assault Rifles

Nearly a year after the Los Angeles Police Department clamored for assault rifles to even its officers’ odds against heavily armed criminals, the powerful weapons remain locked in a department storage vault.

LAPD officials, who requested the rifles after last year’s notorious North Hollywood shootout, said they are grappling with training issues as well as trying to figure out who should have the rifles in the field.

Furthermore, the department has reduced the number of officers who will be trained to handle the weapons because of a lack of funding. Instead of training 550 officers to use the rifles, police now plan to train about 200 over the next two years, officials said.

Meanwhile, about 400 M-16 rifles donated amid much fanfare last summer by Gov. Pete Wilson are being kept in storage at the Police Academy. An additional 200 donated rifles are being used to restock the arsenal of the department’s elite Metro Division, which has long had permission to use such weapons, police said.

The delay in training has frustrated some officers who complain that they are severely outgunned on the streets, as highlighted by the shootout in North Hollywood in February with two heavily armed bank robbers.

“This is not a minor issue, it’s a critical one,” said Dave Hepburn, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League. “The department needs to get its act together. This is not good.”

Cmdr. Dave Kalish, the department’s spokesman, said officials are trying to move forward on the matter but want to make sure they have all the right safeguards and training in place.

Lt. Paul Mock, a training officer at the academy, said the department wants “to put together a well-thought-out program, not just throw something together for expediency purposes. We want the best thing for the police officers and the community.”

One issue that LAPD officials are still struggling with is whether the firearms should be kept in the trunk of a supervisor’s patrol car, or carried in the cars of specially trained officers.

“There’s professional disagreement on the weapons,” said Capt. Dan Koenig, who has been reviewing the issue for the department’s policymakers. “Do you put them with the supervisors and let them physically control the use, or do you give them to the officers so they have more immediate access.”

Even if the rifles are kept in the officers’ cars, he said, they would first need to get a supervisor’s approval to use them.

“There are good arguments on both sides of the issue,” Koenig said.

The Los Angeles Police Commission approved the use of the high-powered rifles in March after the North Hollywood incident convinced commissioners that there was a need for them. At one point during the battle, overwhelmed police ran into a nearby gun store and borrowed high-powered rifles to defend themselves.

Under the new policy on the “urban police rifles,” the firearms can only be used if police encounter a heavily armed suspect, a suspect with body armor or a suspect who is barricaded in an “advantageous position” over the police.

In addition to approving the use of the rifles, the Police Commission gave the department more powerful ammunition and let officers trade in their 9-millimeter handguns for .45-caliber firearms, which police experts say have more “stopping power.”

Since the commission’s actions, 1,200 officers have received training to use the .45-caliber handguns--fewer than the 4,500 officers the department anticipated. Mock said the number might be lower than expected because officers are required to pay for the weapons.

According to the LAPD, training on the donated M-16 rifles may begin as soon as next month. Training officers, however, said they are having problems finding training ranges that can accommodate the department’s needs.