MAY 15, 2018

Around the Water Cooler, May 2018

LEOKA

“ . . . The veteran corporal, who had more than 9 years of law enforcement experience, was dispatched to a convenience store where two people had been shot by an unknown person. When the corporal arrived at the scene, a man approached the officer and, posing as a concerned citizen, led him into the convenience store. A clerk was holding a firearm and standing in the doorway. The corporal ordered the clerk to put the gun down. The man who led the officer to the store took the firearm from the clerk, racked a round into the chamber, then turned and fired two shots from the 9 mm semiautomatic handgun at the corporal. The subject fled on foot and fired at another officer arriving at the scene.” (Source: FBI UCR.)

 
FBI image.

It’s that time of the year to receive the finished statistics of officers killed from the previous year. FBI sent out the release, entitled “Law Enforcement Officers Killed and AssaultedFBI Releases Police Line-of-Duty Death Statistics for 2017.” It’s a somber read.

Taking a look at the graphic summarizes the findings. Reading the summary narratives brings it all home and has the additional benefit of illustrating some lessons on why we lose.

Forty-six officers were feloniously killed. The average age of the officer killed was 38 years with average length of service of 11 years. Three of those officers killed were women, 42 of them killed by people using firearms. Three were killed via felonious use of a vehicle (vehicle used as a weapon) and one was killed by a felon using a knife.

Forty-seven officers were accidentally killed in 2017.

Olfactory Unpleasantness

 
ScentLok photo.

Or, better expressed, how to prevent same: ScentLok Technologies offers law enforcement types a complete line of OZ Active Odor-Destroying Products. According to the company’s release, their “ . . . products utilize the very latest technology, emitting a powerful stream of ozone molecules that seek out and destroy virtually all types of odors and bacteria in their path. When ozone comes in contact with these contaminants, their chemical structure is changed to a compound that is no longer recognizable as an offensive odor. As ozone continues to attack these compounds, the odor is destroyed through oxidation.”

They have vehicle deodorizer units and gear bags that deal with odor from sweaty body armor, shoes and other duty gear. I wish we’d had something like this “back in my day.”

Peerless Handcuff Company

Image from Peerless Handcuff Co.

 

How long have we had handcuffs from Peerless? Since they were invented in 1914. We received a release from Peerless that described the story.

“In 1914, James Milton Gill, a businessman and the police commissioner for the City of Springfield, Massachusetts met with Boston-based inventor, George Carney. Carney had patented a “swing cuff design” for handcuffs which revolutionized the prevalent design of hand restraints being used by law enforcement. The simple design uses a single and double strand so the cuff cannot lock without having something to stop it from coming back around the other side. It allowed police to quickly and easily cuff perps with only one hand. Although it gave officers greater security, it was found to constrict the perps’ wrists too tightly. Gill’s new company, Peerless Handcuff Company, took the original swing cuff design and built upon it creating the “double lock cuffs” which gave the offers the same one-handed cuffing operation but did not constrict the wrists (too) tightly, while making it even more difficult to escape the cuffs.”

The attached image is from early Peerless Handcuff Company marketing literature.

Replacement Barrels for Gen5 Glocks

Brownell's photo.

 

One of the improvements Glock made to the Gen5 line was their “Marksman” barrel. I’ve seen the improvement over previous Glock 9mm pistols and others have reported on it. Now Brownells has released Brownells Edition Glock Gen 5 Barrels from Victory First. Made from 416R stainless steel, the new barrels feature a black-nitride finish, an 11-degree crown and are available with threaded muzzles for potential use of suppressors.

Training Ammo

Inceptor Ammunition, owned by Quantum Ammunition, LLC, announced that the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia and Dayton Police Department in Ohio will now be using Inceptor Sport Utility Ammo for training. The release indicated that the Inceptor Round Nose Precision 9mm Luger +P and Short-Range Rifle 300 AAC Blackout ammunition will be used in training at close ranges.

- - Rich Grassi