Battlefield Power Galore

The ABQ Free Press investigated the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) and found an arsenal that might have been called "Guns and Ammo R Us." The full reference for the article is: Peter St. Cyr and Dan Vukelich, "APD Weapons Boast Battlefield Firepower," ABQ Free Press, June 3, 2015.

The investigation found that APD possesses the following weapons:

* More than 3,300 weapons of all types.
* Three armored vehicles.
* One .50-caliber rifle capable of firing exploding anti-armor rounds.
* More than 387,000 rounds of ammunition of all types.
* More than 2,500 less-than-lethal rounds of projectiles for crowd control, including teargas, rubber and sponge bullets, smoke grenades and barricade-defeating projectiles fired from .37 mm or .40 mm launchers.
* More than 1,300 Tasers.
* Five H and K MPS rifles, described y the manufacturer as fully automatic weapons capable of firing 800 rounds a minute.
* Twenty-five silencers  fitted to .223 caliber or 5.56-caliber assault rifles.
* More than 350 Noise and Flash Diversionary Devices, commonly called "flash-bang" grenades used in drug raids, hostage standoffs and other SWAT situations.
* A variety of weapons, including M16s and AR-15 assault rifles, door-breaching shotguns with special non-ricochet disintegrating ammo, an AK-47 assault rifle, Walther PPKs, and a bolt-action rifle modeled on the 7-8 mm Mausers used by the German infantry in World War II.

Bernalillo County District Judge Alan Malott ruled in May 2015 that the city wrongfully withheld the inventory of its military-style weapons and equipment and issued an order forcing it to produce the documents.

APD's inventory of ammunition for the Barrett .50-caliber rifle contains 62 ordinary or "ball" rounds, 51 tracer rounds, 365 incendiary rounds, 75 so-called "black tip" rounds and 51 so-called "Raufoss" rounds. Raufoss rounds have a dense metal core surrounded by explosives. On contact with a hard object, the explosives blast a hole, allowing the heavy metal penetrator to continue onward.

During the U.S. army's battler with Somali insurgents in the 1993 "Blackhawk Down" incident in Mogadishu, .50 caliber rounds tore through walls of buildings several blocks away from the battle zone. The International Red Cross has expressed concern that the use of a Raufoss round could constitute a  war crime.

When the ABQ Free Press asked APD spokeswoman Celina Espinoza why the department has a need for such destructive ammunition as the Raufoss, she answered that there was a need to "overcome heavily fortified obstacles and to disable heavy equipment." Also, she pointed to a 2004 rampage in Granby, Colorado, by a heavily armed man in an armored bulldozer which couldn't be stopped by lighter ammunition.

The ABQ Free Press has raised a legitimate concern about the militarization of local police departments.