What evil (destruction of the economy, starvation) do the elite rulers have planned for you that the cops would need to be packing such weaponry?
"Police getting more firepower; 200 to be armed with assault rifles" by Donovan Slack and Maria Cramer, Globe Staff | May 29, 2009
Yeah, THEY CAN HAVE 'EM; you can't!
The Boston Police Department is preparing a plan to arm as many as 200 patrol officers with semiautomatic assault rifles, a significant boost in firepower that department leaders believe is necessary to counter terrorist threats, according to law enforcement officials briefed on the plan.
PATROL OFFICERS? Because of that DAMN LIE?
Related: AmeriKan MSM Pinning Mumbai on Pakistan Patsies
Amerikan MSM Fingers Israel for Mumbai Attacks
The initiative calls for equipping specialized units, such as the bomb squad and harbor patrol, with the high-powered long-range M16 rifles first, the officials said. The department would then distribute the weapons to patrol officers in neighborhood precincts over the next several months, according to the two law enforcement officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not have permission to speak publicly.
The officials did not know exactly when the department planned to start handing out the rifles but said police officials already have acquired the guns....
The M16 rifle is a standard, military-issue weapon distributed to US armed forces. It can be used in the field by soldiers with a fully automatic function, operating as a machine-gun, but the Boston proposal is to arm them the weapons for semiautomatic operation.
Which -- if the gun-control propaganda is correct -- can easily be made an automatic weapon.
The law enforcement officials who discussed the proposal said department leaders have described the need for more potent weaponry to confront terrorists like the ones who attacked hotels and other sites in Mumbai, India, last November, killing 166 people and wounding 234 others.
It's time to wake up, Bahstonians!!!
But the plan has sparked a debate within the Police Department about the safety of routinely deploying military-grade weapons on Boston's streets. Currently, the department keeps its stock of high-powered rifles locked in special gun cars that can be driven to crime scenes when they are needed by SWAT teams.
Some police union officials, who are scheduled to discuss the firepower upgrade with department management today, are concerned that the weapons are too powerful for city streets and that they could fall into the wrong hands and be used against police officers and citizens, the officials said. But other union leaders are not as concerned.
So the tyranny-supporting Globe isn't worried about gun control here, 'eh?
Yeah, I have had it with the Globe, I really have.
And I used to think they were one of the best newspapers around.
Detective Miller Thomas, president of the Boston Police Detectives Benevolent Society said the plan is to equip patrol officers, detectives, and supervisors with the rifles.
Why do all of them need one? Supervisors and detectives, too?
Boston would not be the first city to arm patrol officers with assault rifles. Many other large police departments - including those in Chicago, Miami, Las Vegas, Cincinnati, and Phoenix - are using such rifles already or are planning to.
The slow encroachment of tyranny, Amurka!
In Denver, patrol officers have been armed with assault rifles for at least a decade, Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson said. The rifles are widely distributed, Jackson said, but he declined to say how widely distributed, citing safety reasons. Officers keep them inside hard cases secured in the trunks of police cruisers, in accordance with department policy, which also dictates that the chamber be empty and no magazine loaded in the weapon, he said.
That's not the same as a PATROLMAN WALKING the BEAT with ONE -- or a detective called to investigate a crime!
Jackson said the department began using the rifles when Denver police officials saw that officers in other cities were being outgunned by suspects packing high-powered weapons.
"What we were seeing is that the suspects, they're using heavy artillery, they're using assault rifles," Jackson said. "And the officers were only using handguns, and they were at a deficit."
Then DECRIMINALIZE DRUGS, assholes!!!!!!!!!!!!
In Boston, the law enforcement officials said the idea of arming patrol officers with assault rifles was first floated about a year ago by Deputy Superintendent Darrin Greeley. But the plan did not gain support from his superiors until after the Mumbai attacks.
And THERE YOU GO, Bostonians!! Can it BE ANY CLEARER?!!
The department already has received 200 fully automatic rifles from the federal government and plans to modify them to perform like semiautomatic weapons, shooting only one bullet at a time instead of rapidly spraying bullets at targets, the law enforcement officials said.
Thomas said the need for such weapons is clear. He pointed to recent fatal attacks on officers, including the April 4 fatal shooting of three Pittsburgh police officers who were killed by a man lying in wait and armed with an assault rifle.
Oh, ANOTHER SUSPICIOUS SHOOTING here in AmeriKa that JUSTIFIES MORE TYRANNY!
Please see: AmeriKan Shooting Gallery
"If you look around, policemen get pinned down by someone who is firing on them, by virtue that they are being fired at from a greater distance," Thomas said.
Right now, he said, most Boston officers are equipped only with 40-caliber pistols that shoot targets at a maximum of 25 yards away.
"Certainly having our guys with the proper equipment on the street is a benefit to everybody," Thomas said.
Yup, it is ALL FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!!
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"Police were still investigating the crash yesterday afternoon and had not determined whether any of the drivers will be cited"
Yeah, the Boston cops got time to cruise the strip, bust brothels, hang out in bars, buy drugs, and worry about cellphones while ROBBERIES, RAPES, and MURDERS go UNSOLVED!!!
Related: The Heart of Cambridge
"Earlier this month, police wrapped up a 30-day sting involving plainclothes officers mimicking tourists and other pedestrians. Once they were panhandled, they essentially became victims guaranteed to show up for a trial"
And now they need bigger guns for the 'terrorists!"
Update:
Facing sharp criticism, Mayor Thomas M. Menino said yesterday that he will not approve a Boston Police Department plan to arm neighborhood officers with semiautomatic rifles, although he expressed some support for their use by specialized units.
The police have obtained 200 M-16s free of charge from the US military and made plans to train dozens of officers and arm them with the rifles.... While special units and patrol officers in other cities such as Chicago, Miami, and Denver use semiautomatic weapons, Boston's plans ignited a backlash.
Community leaders decried the lack of public notice and questioned the reasoning behind arming district officers with M-16s when the city's SWAT team - which responds to standoffs, hostage situations, and other major situations with the potential for violence - already has such weapons....
"It seems like people wanted to get their free toys, and now they have to make up rhyme and reason for what to do with them," said Jorge Martinez, executive director of Project RIGHT, which runs violence prevention programs in Roxbury. "They come up with these ridiculous ideas. What's wrong with this commissioner? This guy is supposed to be a national leader in community policing."
Davis cited the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, where first-responders waited for specialized teams to arrive even as two teen shooters killed their schoolmates inside.
Yup, foist the the COLUMBINE LIE upon us, agenda-pushers!!!!!
Police administrators had been citing the terrorist attacks last year in Mumbai, India, as justification for the new guns....
Yup, IF ONE LIE doesn't work, use another!
Department administrators told union leaders they planned to provide up to 40 hours of training to officers selected to carry the weapons, including having each fire some 2,000 practice rounds, according to the law enforcement officials quoted yesterday by the Globe. Other officers would take a less-intensive class on the weapons so they would know how to handle one in an emergency.
And HOW MUCH is that going to COST YOU, taxpayers, and HOW COME the Globe DOESN'T SEEM TO CARE?!! They CARE when it is some cop allegedly padding his pocket.
The point I'm making, people -- and I know from reading the Globe -- is that the Globe is SELECTIVE about where it decides to focus its lens of outrage and probity.
See: Boston Globe Bashes Cops Again
The plans seemed to contradict the recommendations of a police review panel, which suggested in 2005 that the department intensively train all officers who could be required to use a special weapon such as a pepper-pellet gun in an emergency.
The panel formed in 2004 after officers fatally shot Emerson College student Victoria Snelgrove and wounded two other Red Sox fans with pepper-pellet guns during a pennant celebration outside Fenway Park.
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