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Originally Posted by fng13
I just hope this doesn't spark a new attack on Assault Rifles.  |
In light of this the W. Memphis police announced today this:
WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. - A brand new gun policy is in place in West Memphis where officers will be trained and allowed to carry high powered semi-automatic weapons. One captain said the changes have been a long time coming, but more important now in light of the Wal-Mart shoot out on May 20th.
"That situation at Wal-Mart could have gotten out of hand really, really quick in a busy parking lot," said Assistant Chief Mike Allen while addressing the West Memphis Police Commission, and city council members who dropped in on the meeting.
"May 20th at Wal-Mart was a wake up call for us, how serious things can get very, very quickly now," said Captain Donald Oakes. He and other high ranking officers at the West Memphis Police Department are serious about changing their gun policy.
"We just want to be prepared. This had, we had been discussing this for a very long time. It's not new. This is just a time we could move forward," said Oakes.
Oakes has done extensive research on adding more high powered rifles to their arsenal of weapons.
"We would like to have a few out, all the time the policy changes were presented to city council Thursday and passed in a vote of 7-4," said Oakes.
The policy is similar to that of the Little Rock Police Department's policies and procedures. It will require all officers who want the patrol rifles undergo extensive training.
"Handguns are sometimes inadequate for some situations because of the limitations, the limited affected range, and limited accuracy," said Allen.
Both Allen and Oakes felt the need to move forward with the measure before the school bell rings in the fall.
"we don't want to be able to say, we're sorry because we didn't have adequate firepower to protect your child," said Allen.
"We've seen it Jonesboro, we've seen it in Columbine, we've seen it at Virginia Tech, you can go down the list where this occurred," said Oakes.
Oakes said we've seen it too many times before on school campuses. He wants this department to be safe rather than sorry.
City council Member Taz Tyrone agreed saying why wait?
"God forbid something else happen like we've already had happen, and we're still not ready for it. I think we need to get this approved as quickly as possible," said Tyrone.
The new policy was passed Thursday afternoon.
Captain Oakes said the officers would be trained by the lieutenant who is also a commander of the swat team. They would also receive assistance from the Shelby County and Memphis police swat teams.
http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news...n-west-memphis
West Memphis is getting to be a scary place, between car bombings and serious shootouts, they're making Memphis look sane... Funny, I haven't seen the leftwingers out in droves about it yet, but then again, they all live in Mid-Town and I suppose they don't think anything over the bridge has anything to do with them... I was honestly surprised that they didn't already have a policy such as this.