ISSUES MISSED

Can anyone here give me some clear answers on several issues?

1) What is going with the "back-up gun" policy? I've hear that it was in the works and all of the sudden it stops.

2) Why are we not allowed to carry our own caliber weapon (40 Cal ect.)
It should be up to the officer as long as he can qualify.

3) Police Radios...enough said.

4) HEALTH INSURANCE

These are key issues that were mentioned earlier this year and someone or somehow made it disappear.

Bro, no offense but you just need to work your zone and be a good roll model to other young officers.

The City has made tremendous strides in recent years and I for one am very proud of all we have accomplished. Under the Sandy Freedman days, she put our department 10 years behind the times. It's taken a long time to fix all those mistakes.

Your comments are good ones but they need to play out. This is Government my friend it the wheels turn backwards sometimes.

Lets get through this PBA election and the up coming changes in Staff before we launch 4 missile's.

I know for a fact the radios are being replaced but there have been setbacks. There are two vendors that we have been working with. TPD could do a bunch of things to save money on the radio project. Believe it or not the City is looking to do this one right. Making the radios work in all parts of our 145 square mile patrol area is a huge undertaking and a cost of $ 15 million dollars.

The gun policy has to be a contract issue. Lets get the new blood in there and work out the policy.

Health care is being addressed by the Fire Department.

40 cal would be nice but it's not gonna happen in a Metropolitan city like Tampa. Remember the shootout at MacDill? I can't image what would of happened down there if they were using 40 cal's.

I am not slamming your post by any means. I feel your pain too. Just have some patience.

Be safe!

40 cal would be nice but it's not gonna happen in a Metropolitan city like Tampa. Remember the shootout at MacDill? I can't image what would of happened down there if they were using 40 cal's.

While I agree with the rest of your post, this is something that a person would think who has no knowledge of ballistics. if a round misses, a round misses. A stray 9mm round is just as dangerous as a stray .40 or .45. There is no handgun round that penetrates well through barriers such as glass, drywall, or plywood. An improperly placed 9mm round has just as much chance of causing damage to an innocent civilian as a .40 or .45. The benefit that a .40 or .45 would have is that the round's terminal ballistics is better than that of the 9mm. If you disagree with this, the FBI has conducted hundreds of ballistics tests and you can see for yourself.

There are plenty of urban police departments that have abandonded the 9mm for better performing rounds. To think otherwise is simply incorrect. If you really think that citizens would be put in greater danger if we switched to a more effective handgun round, you need to find someone knowledgeable about firearms and ballistics and get yourself educated. Did you know that the issued 9mm handgun rounds have a greater chance of penetrating through some barrier than the rounds the department issues for our .223 carbines??

Unfortunately, things will happen at TPD much like they have happened at some other departments. We won't switch to a more powerful handgun round until we have a shooting where the 9mm doesn't do its job. The sad thing is that this will probably result in the death or serious injury of an officer. This is usually the kind of thing that forces hesitant departments to switch.

While I agree with the rest of your post...
Well, I don't. They are working on the radios, its true, and the two vendors have been suing each other, which held up the process, but it's not like we're re-inventing the wheel here. You can call it a "huge undertaking" but somehow HCSO managed to create a system that works over a 1048 square mile county. It is disgraceful that a city of this size has a radio system with 50 year old technology, especially since we are surrounded by all these other departments that we can't talk to. Agency interoperability is one the key recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission.

The backup gun issue could be solved with an order from the chief. If he won't do that we could negotiate for it, but somehow I don't think the PBA is too interested. Have they even raised the issue? I think not. They are too busy making nice nice with the city and worrying about offending them.

The .40 cal issue was well handled by another poster, so I won't rehash it.

I know the original poster wasn't trying to be negative, but the worst part of his post was the opening line:


Bro, no offense but you just need to work your zone and be a good roll model to other young officers.
Nice recipe for nothing ever changing or getting better, and discouraging someone who apparently gives a s**t. I'd hazard a guess you're either management or a PBA muckity-muck.

We won't switch to a more powerful handgun round until we have a shooting where the 9mm doesn't do its job.

This has happened plenty of times here.

We won't switch to a more powerful handgun round until we have a shooting where the 9mm doesn't do its job.

This has happened plenty of times here.

No it hasn't. We haven't had one of those shootings where an offender suffered 15-20 good hits and just kept fighting. We've had plenty of shootings when the officer doesn't get good hits.