Why didn't the police supvervisors have the right weapons during the North Hollywood Shoot Out?

Question

In 1995 to 96 somewhere there was a bank robbery in Van Nuys/North Hollywood. The bank robbers were covered in Kevlar and using automatic weapons. The police had to "borrow" some restricted automatic weapons from a local gun store. Why didn't the police supervisors have weapons that could match the bank robbers weapons? What exactly happened there?

Answer 1

Rent the movie "44 Minutes - The North Hollywood Shootout" It is really good. Those robbers had weapons that were no match to police issued weapons. That is the sad thing, our officers don't have the caliber weapons that are available to dirtbags on the streets. I am all for "The right to bear arms" but I believe some of these weapons that people feel are thier right to have are unbelievable.

Answer 2

It's called "Times are changing"

As with every job, when the times and technology changes, so does the job. It's no different with policing. The officers before the North Hollywood Shoot out were equipped with he standard police weapons of the times they were living in. It took a tragedy like the North Hollywood Shootout to have them reevaluate the weapons they carry. This has changed policing around the United States.

Look at the Columbine High School shootings. It use to be standard police practice for initial patrol police to set up a perimeter and call in SWAT. During Columbine they did just this and lots of kids lost their lives. Now police are being trained different. Now if it is an active shooter, meaning the bad guy is shooting and killing people as we speak, then the patrol officers are going to storm the building themselves.

As times change so do the tactics we employ.

Answer 3

It goes back to traditional police weapons and tactics mentality. Traditonally patrol officers at that time were issued handguns and a shotgun. Rifles and automatic long arms were reserved for tactical teams.
Police adminstrators do not want their agencies to seem facist by arming regular patrol officers with machine guns etc. This incident was the turning point for police adminstrators who were starting to recognize that their officers did not have access to the firepower they needed to efficiently do their job.
In our agency a patrol man has the choice between carrying a shotgun or carrying a patrol rifle (a semi-auto AR-15). This bank robbery was not the only incident leading to these changes. But it grabbed enough national news coverage that made the transition to these types of weapons easier to explain to the citizen population.

Answer 4

It's all about money. It's very expensive to outfit all your officers with AR15 type weapons. Even just issuing AR15's to the supervisors would be a huge expense for a department the size of the LAPD. In most departments the officers are issued one firearm and then are allowed to buy other weapons on their own. If you are familiar with what most police officers get paid, then you can understand why most don't have these type of weapons.

Answer 5

Read the case of Tennessee Vs. Garner, not Gardner as I first posted. That is a case setting the legal standards for deadly force against fleeing suspects. States and department policy can be more restrictive than this law. Google it and you wil find your answer there. TV is a poor resource.

Answer 6

office politics, often the people who provide the money for operations have no idea what is required to get the job done properly until an embarrassing situation comes around and bites them in the butt, its money plain and simple. whether it a cop in calif or the army in iraq, our people in the field are commonly ill equiped to do the job at hand.

Answer 7

LA police with rifles and sub-machine guns as standard equipment? Can you imagine what the anti-gun crowd would have to say about that?

Answer 8

Why dont american soldiers have the right equipment to fight IED's in Iraq? Now you know the answer!