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Cop guns may go high tech
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Cop guns may go high tech
By Shelly Whitehead, Post staff reporter
The Newport Police Department hopes to be the country's first to use a new technology that keeps a microchip record of the time, date and number of rounds fired from each officer's weapon.
Police Chief Tom Fromme said he will recommend the city buy the device, known as the Accu-Counter, for all departmental firearms when he meets with City Manager Phil Ciafardini and city commissioners in the next week.
Fromme believes the device, invented and patented by a Crestview Hills man, promises to become standard law enforcement equipment because it objectively documents when and how often an officer fires a weapon.
''When it comes down to a situation where an officer has to use his firearm in the line of duty . . . this documents how many rounds are fired and what time-frame they're fired in,'' Fromme said.
''I think it will be a useful tool in cases where people try to say that police are not telling the whole story. . . . I think most of the time . . . it will substantiate what the officers do and say.''
Accu-Counter inventor Kenneth Brinkley met with Fromme, about 20 Newport police SWAT team members and Lt. Col. Robert McCray on Thursday to give officers hands-on experience with the device. Accu-Counter was patented in 1995, but is used only by the U.S. military.
Brinkley showed officers how the quarter-size microchip device slips into the grip of the department's Glock 9mm sidearms without changing the gun's physical configuration. Brinkley said the Accu-Counter operates like the black box in a commercial jet, keeping an indestructible, tamper-proof record of the gun's activity, including the date and time of each firing to within 1/1000th of a second.
The information is downloaded after use by sweeping a scanner across a screw-head-sized window on the gun's grip. The downloaded data appears on the computer monitor as four columns of information detailing up to 500 firings at a time.
''This gives you unbiased information,'' said Brinkley. ''This gives you the whole history of that weapon.''
Fromme said the benefits include everything from more precise firearms maintenance and documentation of practice rounds fired for weapons certification, to more concise and objective use of force documentation for departmental and legal use.
''How about testimony in court?'' McCray asked Brinkley. ''In other words, as far as evidentiary - is there enough data compiled with this that we can pull data for evidence . . . in court?''
Brinkley said that capability is one of the device's strongest selling points, but he prompted officers to take a test run with an Accu-Counter-equipped gun. SWAT members obliged by running the sample ''techno-weapon'' through the paces on the department's firing range.
''Fire as fast as you can,'' SWAT Commander Capt. Cy Sykes directed his team members. ''Don't even worry about hitting the target. Just fire as fast as you can shoot it. . . . Is anybody counting the rounds?''
Somebody was, and when the team scanned the gun's in terior Accu-Counter, it downloaded information with computer-perfect precision. At least one benefit was immediately clear to Sykes, who is also the department's range officer, in charge of firearms records.
Fromme said his department's standard-issue sidearm, the Glock 9mm, has proven a virtually indestructible workhorse which does not demand a schedule of strict or frequent maintenance. But for other police firearms, including shotguns and especially the more sophisticated weapons used by SWAT members, the Accu-Counter's precision firing tallies would ensure the critical timely maintenance demanded.
Fromme said he hopes to obtain approval to buy Accu- Counters for more than 100 weapons.
Fromme expected the cost per weapon to be about $100. He doesn't view cost as the most important factor in the decision. http://www.kypost.com/2002/jun/21/guns062102.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Shelly Whitehead, Post staff reporter
The Newport Police Department hopes to be the country's first to use a new technology that keeps a microchip record of the time, date and number of rounds fired from each officer's weapon.
Police Chief Tom Fromme said he will recommend the city buy the device, known as the Accu-Counter, for all departmental firearms when he meets with City Manager Phil Ciafardini and city commissioners in the next week.
Fromme believes the device, invented and patented by a Crestview Hills man, promises to become standard law enforcement equipment because it objectively documents when and how often an officer fires a weapon.
''When it comes down to a situation where an officer has to use his firearm in the line of duty . . . this documents how many rounds are fired and what time-frame they're fired in,'' Fromme said.
''I think it will be a useful tool in cases where people try to say that police are not telling the whole story. . . . I think most of the time . . . it will substantiate what the officers do and say.''
Accu-Counter inventor Kenneth Brinkley met with Fromme, about 20 Newport police SWAT team members and Lt. Col. Robert McCray on Thursday to give officers hands-on experience with the device. Accu-Counter was patented in 1995, but is used only by the U.S. military.
Brinkley showed officers how the quarter-size microchip device slips into the grip of the department's Glock 9mm sidearms without changing the gun's physical configuration. Brinkley said the Accu-Counter operates like the black box in a commercial jet, keeping an indestructible, tamper-proof record of the gun's activity, including the date and time of each firing to within 1/1000th of a second.
The information is downloaded after use by sweeping a scanner across a screw-head-sized window on the gun's grip. The downloaded data appears on the computer monitor as four columns of information detailing up to 500 firings at a time.
''This gives you unbiased information,'' said Brinkley. ''This gives you the whole history of that weapon.''
Fromme said the benefits include everything from more precise firearms maintenance and documentation of practice rounds fired for weapons certification, to more concise and objective use of force documentation for departmental and legal use.
''How about testimony in court?'' McCray asked Brinkley. ''In other words, as far as evidentiary - is there enough data compiled with this that we can pull data for evidence . . . in court?''
Brinkley said that capability is one of the device's strongest selling points, but he prompted officers to take a test run with an Accu-Counter-equipped gun. SWAT members obliged by running the sample ''techno-weapon'' through the paces on the department's firing range.
''Fire as fast as you can,'' SWAT Commander Capt. Cy Sykes directed his team members. ''Don't even worry about hitting the target. Just fire as fast as you can shoot it. . . . Is anybody counting the rounds?''
Somebody was, and when the team scanned the gun's in terior Accu-Counter, it downloaded information with computer-perfect precision. At least one benefit was immediately clear to Sykes, who is also the department's range officer, in charge of firearms records.
Fromme said his department's standard-issue sidearm, the Glock 9mm, has proven a virtually indestructible workhorse which does not demand a schedule of strict or frequent maintenance. But for other police firearms, including shotguns and especially the more sophisticated weapons used by SWAT members, the Accu-Counter's precision firing tallies would ensure the critical timely maintenance demanded.
Fromme said he hopes to obtain approval to buy Accu- Counters for more than 100 weapons.
Fromme expected the cost per weapon to be about $100. He doesn't view cost as the most important factor in the decision. http://www.kypost.com/2002/jun/21/guns062102.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
Don't worry about the bullet with your name on it, worry about the fragmentation grenade addressed 'To Occupant'.