Police departments upgrade weaponry

Motorcycle officers in Costa Mesa will carry shotguns, and rifles will be added to Newport patrol cars.The Newport Beach and Costa Mesa police departments are beefing up their firearms.

The Costa Mesa City Council recently approved the allocation of $8,000 in state funds toward purchasing shotguns and shotgun mounts for police motorcycles.

Newport Beach Police patrol cars will soon be equipped with AR-15 automatic rifles, after the City Council accepted more than $17,000 in donations from the police employees and management associations.

Officials from both departments said these weapons will increase officer safety and improve their ability to respond to incidents.

“Now that criminals are better armed, then obviously we as the police have probably got to step up to the plate and be at least equally armed,” said Newport Beach Police Sgt. Bill Hartford.

Newport police officers now carry .40-caliber semiautomatic pistols in their holsters and shotguns in their patrol cars, Hartford said.

Equipping patrol cars with rifles prepares the officers for encounters with suspects carrying more advanced automatic weapons, Hartford said.

The 1997 North Hollywood shootout -- when two gunmen in full body armor shot at police and civilians with automatic weapons after a botched bank robbery -- and the 2001 armed robbery of Traditional Jewelers in Newport Beach are examples of situations in which police would have benefited from carrying automatic weapons, Hartford said.

The advantage of a rifle is that it can shoot a solid projectile over a longer distance, Hartford said. Newport patrol officers already carry shotguns in their cars.

Shotguns can be more useful than a rifle in an urban environment, said Costa Mesa Traffic Motor Sgt. Rob Sharpnack. In a heavily populated area, a rifle can be too powerful. A shotgun fires multiple projectiles that don’t travel as far, and they make it easier to hit the target, Sharpnack said.

For Costa Mesa motorcycle officers, being equipped with a shotgun improves safety because they are often the first police units at a scene, Sharpnack said.

Motorcycle officers have very little cover, whereas a police officer in a patrol car can use the car as protection, said Costa Mesa Police Sgt. Bob Durham.

The Costa Mesa motorcycles aren’t yet equipped with the shotguns; the department is still deciding on some of the details.

The shotguns will be mounted on the backs of the bikes and locked on with a factory-installed device, similar to the locking mechanism in patrol cars, Sharpnack said.

Motor officers will receive full training on the guns before they go into service, including how to get the gun out the mount safely. “Before we put anything into service, we have to be trained and qualified with it,” Sharpnack said.

Likewise, Newport Beach officers have been training with the automatic rifles for more than four years, Hartford said.