![]() The LAPD also authorized officers to carry high-caliber handguns that exceed the stopping power of the standard-issue sidearms. ![]() Street cops were trained to use those weapons so they wouldn’t have to wait for SWAT officers at a quickly unfolding scene. Like the LAPD, agencies began upgrading weapons for their patrol officers, giving them high-powered rifles that are now common in police cars. of Chiefs of Police and a police chief in Florida. De Lucca, the president of the International Assn. “There’s so many things that took place that kind of shook the conscience,” said Donald W. It also inspired Los Angeles and other cities to enact their own gun control measures when the state failed to do so. The assault on police shocked law enforcement across the country, prompting a widespread trend to beef up police armament. Twenty years ago today, the bravery and boldness of LAPD officers gave a badly needed shine to the image of a department that had been sullied by the beating of Rodney King, the loss of control in the Los Angeles riots and the investigative missteps that became fodder for O.J. The North Hollywood shootout ended with the two perpetrators - Larry Eugene Phillips Jr., 26, and Emil Dechebal Matasareanu, 30 - dead in the street. Eleven officers were wounded, but none killed. ![]() Gradually their shots probed openings in their adversaries’ armor as a SWAT team arrived from afar to equalize the firepower. Within minutes, the parking lot outside the Bank of America on Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood was on television screens across the country, as disbelieving viewers watched the battle unfold on live feeds from network helicopters circling overhead.įor 44 minutes, out-gunned officers engaged the bank robbers, dodging barrages of high-powered bullets, rescuing their wounded and peppering their targets with hundreds of shots that bounced off harmlessly. Two armor-clad figures standing calmly outside a bank were spewing machine gun fire at a swarm of police officers shooting back with pistols from behind car doors and trees. Then, shortly after 9 a.m., a spectral scene of combat popped onto TV screens across the city.
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