I remember what happened in North Hollywood, where the two bank robbers had high powered weapons, body armor and were probably high on something during their shootout with law enforcement. The cops had to go into sporting goods stores to get weapons to match the firepower of the two robbers – and some changes were made after the shootout.
Someone brought up the idea of a “Flying Squad” to do some of the dirty work that SWAT is doing in some cities (busting into drug houses, etc…) and it seems like a good idea. Most SWAT teams are trained to deal with hostage type situations/barricaded suspects, which can be long in duration and require their special skills to “get the bad guys”.
About giving CPD M4′s – maybe not every officer needs one, but how about one per patrol car/team? The team can be responsible for routine cleaning and maintaining qualification on the weapon. They need access to weapons that the bad guys have to not only protect themselves, but the public. Without access to semi-auto weapons, they are literally walking into a “gunfight with a knife”.
