By Rich Lord
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PITTSBURGH — Outgunned in Stanton Heights, where three officers were killed earlier this month, the Pittsburgh Police Bureau will begin equipping patrol officers with tactical rifles in June.
With the purchase of 46 Smith Wesson MP15 rifles, the bureau hopes to give the officers who arrive first on the scene of an incident a weapon with enough range and accuracy to deal with the kind of firepower seen April 4, when a shooter was armed with an AK-47 assault-style weapon.
The rifle is the civilian version of the M-16 rifle used by the U.S. military.
“It will enable us to engage the assailant from a longer distance,” said Deputy Chief Paul Donaldson. With training, an officer could hit a target up to 300 yards away, he said.
They are the same rifles employed by the city’s SWAT unit.
The police hope the rifles rarely will be removed from locking racks in the patrol cars, except to turn them in at the end of a shift.
“These weapons are more like a scalpel that surgeons use,” said Dan O’Hara, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 1, which represents the city’s officers. “They are going to be very limited in what their purpose is.”
Police now carry handguns and each of the six zones has a number of Remington Model 870 shotguns that trained officers can sign out at the beginning of the shift and turn in at the end.
Chief Donaldson said the rifle “is more accurate. It’s more controlled. ... And a shotgun is pretty ineffective beyond 50 yards.”
The bureau has been reviewing its firepower needs for some time, but the killings of officers Eric G. Kelly, Paul J. Sciullo II and Stephen J. Mayhle added urgency. “The events that we’ve experienced have showed us that perhaps they do need more capability,” said Public Safety Director Michael Huss.
The city settled on the semiautomatic, 35-inch-long, seven-pound MP15, with a 30-round capacity, in part because it could be delivered more quickly than the similar Colt rifle. Mr. Huss said the city will pay more than $800 each for the rifles, which list for $1,400, under a state contract.
Chief Donaldson said the locking racks will cost $280 each, for a total of $30,000. The bureau also will buy ammunition, the cost of which was not available yesterday.
Mr. Huss said the city has identified a federal grant that it expects to receive that may cover the costs. If not, the city will find another funding source.
Each of the six zone stations will get six rifles, which can be checked out at the beginning of a shift by any officer who has had the appropriate training, and then returned at the end. The training academy will get the other 10 rifles, which can be taken to the scene of a crisis.
Mr. Huss said incorporating the rifles means “new procedures. It takes an extensive amount of training.”
Chief Donaldson said the bureau will offer a three-day training course, probably to 10 officers at a time. The bureau already has three or four instructors certified by Smith Wesson to train others in the use of the MP15, and plans to develop more instructors, he said.
“This is all going to cost money, but it’s worth every dime,” said Elizabeth Pittinger, executive director of the Citizen Police Review Board. She said there should be protocols in place that generally reserve the rifle “to combat and stop an immediate, lethal threat of such a magnitude that without using high firepower, there’s going to be a disaster.”
The city’s SWAT team has had rifles for some time, but it can take 30 minutes to an hour for the whole unit to assemble, said Ms. Pittinger. In the meantime, patrol officers need to have the appropriate equipment to do more then just secure a perimeter and wait for SWAT.
Suburban chiefs -- some of whom have long equipped their patrol officers with similar firepower -- said yesterday the rifles are a good investment even if they are never used, because of the message they send to criminals, and to the officers themselves.
“We’ve had patrol rifles in the cars since the late ‘70s,” said Penn Hills Police Chief Howard Burton. “Fortunately, we have not used them, but we’ve taken them out on numerous occasions” in situations when shots were fired.
“When an officer goes out on duty, he has a responsibility to bring a patrol rifle with him,” said Mt. Lebanon Deputy Chief Gene Roach. “We’ve not had to use it in the field for an actual situation.”
Mr. O’Hara said the bureau may eventually allow officers to take their own rifles on the job, as long as they match the bureau’s specifications and the officer has the needed training. The union may ask the city to pay half the cost of an officer’s private rifle, provided the officer pays part of it back if he or she leaves the bureau within a certain number of years.
Copyright 2009 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette