After narrowing down the field for gun #1 last week, today I moved on to the second shooting of 2017. Trevon Johnson, a 17 year old boy was killed when officers were called to a domestic dispute, in what the Gun Violence Archive calls a “Officer Involved Incident.” It’s pretty grim.
That sent me into a wormhole of the guns that Chicago Police are allowed to carry, which has all sorts of rules and caveats about date of hire of the officer, age and caliber of the gun, and so on. This could go forever, but given that the officer was a “DuPage County sheriff’s deputy” (Chicago Tribune) and a department veteran (Daily Tribune) I would assume that he acquired his gun before 2015 (but if he does have a new one, then he will have to have purchased something that fires a 9mm Luger [Parabellum] for which several prescribed pistols are also listed). Thanks to departmental streamlining, finding out the weapon of a newer recruit would be easier, given that the ammunition and weapons permitted drastically reduces the options.
For the Chicago Police Department (CPD) the transition from operating with a force with many guns to one using only 9mm rounds (the previous ruling allowed .40 caliber S&W, and .45 ACP caliber weapons), had begun well before this shooting (see that last Chicago Sun-Times article for the reasons behind the switch.) For that reason, I eventually decided that I would draw a pistol in line with their currently prescribed weapons. Part of my research includes an article that I don’t want to link to (yup, another top 10, this time about weapons used by US law enforcement) which proclaims in the CPD “New recruits must purchase a Glock 17 or Glock 19, which they may keep or switch after their probation.” I’m out of time (and more importantly, will) to prove that – and given it is an article from 2014 we know that policy has since changed – however, the gun at the top of the current list for the CPD is a Glock 17. Given the Glock’s reputation in law enforcement, it’s position on my old standby List of Most Produced Firearms as second highest produced pistol (there’s up to 10 million in circulation) and the weight of (perhaps slightly questionable) evidence, it does seem to be the weapon I’m looking for.
The other options? A Glock 19 (same as the 17 but more compact), a “Springfield Armory in 9mm, Smith & Wesson in 9mm or a Sig Sauer in 9mm.”
I’m pretty sure they’ll get their day…