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Public Affairs coverage from our award-winning staff |
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Chicago Police Using Military Style Rifles
Produced by Rob Wildeboer on Wednesday, March 25, 2009
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After some training, Chicago police officers can carry M4 rifles. (AP/Richard Lardner)
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The Chicago Police Department continues to move forward with a plan to equip rank-and-file officers with rifles that were originally designed for military use. Chicago, like other big cities and some smaller towns, has made such weapons available to tactical officers. Now they'd go to cops on the beat. Superintendent Jody Weis says around 500 officers have gone through the training that allows them to use the semi-automatic gun on duty. One group of young people has continually opposed giving Chicago cops the increased firepower, but they've not had much luck changing Weis' mind. WBEZ's Robert Wildeboer reports on the stalemate and the powerful weapon that's behind it.
Since the end of last year a group of kids has been going to monthly meetings held at Chicago Police Headquarters. They showed up again last week, about 30 kids in all.
CARNEY: I'm gonna call the meeting to order, Good evening I'm Demetrius Carney, president of the police board. We have a number of students here from the Southwest community youth collaborative. I'll call each one of them first. Christopher Hightower.
The young people put their questions about the semi-automatic M-4 rifle to Superintendent Weis. The department has purchased 375 of the guns but Weis is also allowing all rank and file officers to buy and carry the weapon while on duty, provided they pass a 40 hour training session.
The students think that's a bad idea and they try to grill Weis on it but they're are not terribly articulate and they struggle with the two minute time limit on public comments, and the board, which sits through unintelligible tirades every month rigorously enforces the time limit.
ambi: That is beyond what... Time is up.
The discussion over the guns never really gets anywhere. It devolves into the students ranting against the police department while board members sits passively watching the clock. It's another month in an ongoing stalemate. As the meeting ends I catch up with the Superintendent.
WEIS: Almost everyday we're taking an assault weapon off the street.
Weis defends making the M-4 rifle available to all officers because he says they need weapons that can compete with the increased firepower of gang members. He says an officer armed with a handgun doesn't stand a chance against someone with an assault rifle.
WEIS: If the offender has an assault rifle, you know, he can just sit there and pick officers off left and right. And you can say, well how often does that happen? The fact that were taking almost an assault rifle a day off the streets of Chicago, I think the propensity for that happening to our officers could happen on any given day of the week, any hour of the day.
Weis has been making that argument to the kids but they're not buying it, and they're not the only ones. Police watchdog groups worry the widespread use of the M-4 rifle is one more symbol of the department looking like an occupying military force rather than a partner in community safety.
And there are more measurable concerns. Opponents are worried that these guns are just plain dangerous, no matter who's got them, especially in crowded urban neighborhoods. They're worried that the bullets from M-4s can travel up to two miles, and penetrate walls and even cars. To get some answers about exactly what this gun is and isn't, I turned to someone who knows a whole lot about guns, John Nixon.
NIXON: I went to the Royal Military College of Science in England and studied weaponry there, weaponry design, the science of ballistics etcetera.
Nixon, an engineer and scientist, used to do reverse engineering for the British Military. That means he'd take foreign weapons and study them and figure out how they were made and what their weaknesses are and how they could be beaten. Now he often works on shooting cases and offers expert testimony. We talk in a garage behind his house in rural Indiana. Sitting between us on '60s era metal desks are two M-4 rifles that he shows off.
NIXON: So we have this 30-round magazine here and that fits into the magazine well.
It's an intimidating looking rifle, something you'd see in an episode of 24, or a Bruce Willis action movie. And you can attach lots of stuff to the barrel like a bi-pod to steady it, and a flashlight, and a scope.
NIXON: You just flip the lens covers down and when you look through here you see a red dot. You put the red dot on what you want to hit and just pull the trigger.
That scope, the longer barrel, the fact that you hold the M-4 rifle with two hands, Nixon says all of that leads to one thing: greatly increased accuracy.
NIXON: Despite what you see in the movies, shooting with a handgun it's extremely difficult to hit anything and I've worked on cases where people have shot at each other across the hood of a car and they've emptied a pistol magazine and not hit each other.
To prove the point Nixon grabs a handgun and an M-4 and leads me outside. We set up a target and he hands me a SIG 226, a 9 mm handgun. He tells me to fire 10 shots at a piece of regular office paper about 20 feet away.
ambi: Shots fired
NIXON: You can see there that out of your ten shots, you managed to get seven on the paper which is pretty good for a novice. They're spread all over the paper and the other three shots are off the paper. And this is only seven yards with a stationery target, stationery shooter and good daylight so if you're in a house where it's dark in there, or a back alley that's dark, the perpetrator's moving and you're moving, there's a lot happening, you're in distress, they're shooting back at you, your chances of hitting that paper drop quite dramatically.
We then do the same exercise with the M-4 rifle.
ambi: Shots fired
With the handgun, the bullet holes were all over the sheet. With the rifle they're all within a couple inches of each other. Nixon says the increased accuracy will mean fewer stray bullets to hit unintended targets. That's weapons-speak for innocent bystanders. But if there is a stray bullet?
NIXON: This particular military round of ammunition was designed to go through both sides of a military helmet at 600 meters, but in reality the bullet may well go a couple of miles.
With the potential to travel that kind of distance it's very likely, in the city of Chicago, the bullet would hit something. And Nixon says the ammunition from and M-4 has the added danger of being designed to penetrate walls, and even cars. But the real danger, and this may seem obvious, the real danger is for those who are in shoot outs with police armed with M-4 rifles.
NIXON: With a handgun you're...lethal area.
Every year, 40 to 50 people are shot by police. Typically about one third of them die from their wounds. But if John Nixon's predictions are correct, that number will go up as more and more cops use the accurate and powerful M-4 rifle.
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E. Kant, West Englewood // Wednesday, March 25, 2009 @ 8:02 PM
So are they getting M4s or are they getting AR15s? Most police departments in America already equip their officers with AR15 rifles in the squad cars. The military versions (such as the M4, the M4A1 and the M4A2) are select-fire rifles capable of 3 round bursts and full auto. Any select-fire rifle is classified as a machine gun and subject to the very strict laws that have been in place controlling machine guns since the 1930s.
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Dave, NotChiTown // Thursday, March 26, 2009 @ 12:12 AM
Some of the facts stated are not correct.
The 5.56/.223 fired from the rifle shown will penetrate FEWER walls than many handgun bullets.
The bullet will only travel a couple miles IF AIMED UPWARD AT A 30 TO 35 DEGREE ANGLE. Of course a handgun bullet can go about a mile as well.
//signed//
Ret. military, current police officer, certified instructor & armor
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Robert Wildeboer, WBEZ // Friday, March 27, 2009 @ 11:30 AM
In response to Dave,
You are correct that the bullet will travel a couple miles, if and only if, it's pointed up at a 35 degree angle.
One fact that we pulled from the story because it was just too confusing (ahhh the limits of radio) is that a bullet wouldn't travel 2 miles in the city because it would hit something within the first mile. In that sense it's no more dangerous than a bullet from a handgun because that also travels a mile and will hit the same object though it will have less energy.
As to your first point, it sounds like you know a bit about this, but the expert I spoke with said the 5.56/.223 will always penetrate more than the 9 mm. He bases that conclusion on the following calculations.
Looking at energy density
9mm has 350 foot pounds of kinetic energy (420 (571 Joules) for the hottest loads)
5.56 has 1300+ foot pounds of kinetic energy. (1768 Joules)
Energy density is the energy per unit of cross sectional area of the bullet. 5.56 = 24 sq mm, 9mm = 64 sq mm
Energy density for 9mm = 9 Joules per sq mm
Energy density for 5.56 = 73 Joules per sq mm
When you consider that 9mm is much less aerodynamic than 5.56, the downrage difference between the two will be greater.
These figures indicate that 5.56 has much more penetration potential than 9mm.
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Robert Wildeboer, WBEZ // Friday, March 27, 2009 @ 11:37 AM
In response to the comment from E. Kant:
The police department is getting M4 knock-offs, also called M-forgeries. The AR-15/M-4 type weapons that officers will be allowed to use are versions made by Colt, Smith & Wesson, Rock River and Armalite among others.
Chicago police will not be able to use the selective fire, fully automatic versions. They can only purchase the semi-automatic versions for use on duty.
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Dave, NotChiTown // Friday, March 27, 2009 @ 4:00 PM
"As to your first point, it sounds like you know a bit about this, but the expert I spoke with said the 5.56/.223 will always penetrate more than the 9 mm."
The .223/5.56 bullet tends to yaw and upset quickly after encountering denser media such as layers of drywall, plywood, etc.. After that, subsequent objects tends to be hit with the bullet sideways (we call it a keyhole) and this often causes the bullet to fragment. This sheds a lot of energy and reduces the kinetic energy of the individual fragments considerably.
A 9mm tends to stay in one piece and not yaw. FMJs punch right through things and have considerable penetration. Hollowpoints tend to plug up and act like FMJs.
Considerable testing has been done regarding the ability of a .223/5.56 vs handgun bullets to punch through drywall, plywood, etc. and amazingly enough, the .223 often ends up penetrating fewer layers than the handgun bullets do. Granted, both will go through considerable numbers of layers.
Relying in kinetic energy figures is a common mistake. KE is the POTENTIAL to do work (work being defined as generating heat, causing damage, moving things, etc. all combined). How that work is done is more a function of the bullet.
Think of it this way: You have a Pinto and a Camero. The Camero's V8 engine can generate a lot more power than the Pinto's I4, but the Camero has really bad tires. The Pinto has good tires. The Camero can't get any traction when it tries to accelerate because the tires are so bad and therefore the Pinto out accelerates it.
In this anology, tires are bullet design and engine power is kinetic energy.
You may find the following series of pages interesting:
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot12.htm
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot12_2.htm
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot12_3.htm
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot12_4.htm
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Joe, Thank God Not Chicago // Friday, April 03, 2009 @ 12:45 AM
The editorial process allows slanting the story any way the writer wants. I saw a drywall test on the Outdoor Ohannel and the 5.56 bullets penetrated less than 9mm. Hollowpoint 5.56 would penetrate less than military rounds and is what police should use. Why not take guns away from the C.P.D. like British Bobbies?
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