Monthly Archives: January 2019

This week, a vendor came to my police department to trade out our Heckler & Koch MP5’s. We had fielded 12 of these little subguns for 29 years. Our then-City Commission approved the purchase of the “advanced” guns following an active shooter in Palm Bay, Florida where four civilians were killed, fourteen wounded, and two outgunned police officers murdered in April of 1987. Having the MP5’s available to our TAC members meant the guns were on the street protecting citizens and officers on every shift, instead of the old school SWAT mentality of having weapons locked up at the station, only to be retrieved in an emergency.