NEW YORK—At a time when the New York Police Department is encouraging beat cops to be more approachable to law-abiding citizens, it’s also equipping them to do combat with rampaging shooters.
The mass shootings in Orlando, Dallas and elsewhere have prompted the nation’s largest police department to accelerate a $7.5 million program to distribute heavy-duty body armor to uniformed patrol officers who might have to respond.
Some 20,000 helmets are set to be distributed by the end of the year. And the department’s 3,000 patrol cars will begin carrying pairs of heavy-duty vests that officers will put on if dispatched to a report of an active shooter.
Simultaneously, the city’s new police commissioner is championing a neighborhood policing program aimed at bridging the divide between police and minorities.
Here’s a closer look at the arming of NYPD officers and some of its implications:
The Hardware
Currently, NYPD patrol officers wear bulletproof vests thin enough to fit under their dark blue uniforms. The vests are capable of stopping a handgun round but not automatic rifle fire. The new vests provide that extra protection, with ballistic panels on the front and back that fit over the uniform.
The tougher helmets are comparable to one depicted in a photo distributed by Orlando police following the massacre at a gay nightclub in June. There was a large pockmark on it caused by the killer’s gunfire — evidence, the department said, that the helmet probably saved a SWAT officer’s life.
NYPD patrol officers are armed with 9 mm semi-automatic handguns with 15-round clips. Some have Tasers stored in their cars, but there are no long guns in the mix.
By comparison, the NYPD’s counterterrorism officers and others with the Emergency Service Unit — the NYPD’s equivalent of SWAT officers — have semi-automatic assault weapons, typically M4 rifles, to go along with their sidearms.
