
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 30, 1991                   TAG: 9104010172
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-13   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

POLICE NEED MORE STOPPING POWER

CONCERNING the shooting of an armed man by Roanoke police officers in which nine rounds of ammo apparently were required to stop the suspect: Maybe now Chief Hooper will take a look at the reams of evidence that show the .38 police special totally inadequate in "man-stopping power."

Nine rounds may seem excessive to some, but documented cases of police shootings tell of suspects who had to be shot as many as 40 times with the .38 special before they fell.

If you want to know why police need auto-loading pistols in an adequate caliber, just sit in your car on any warm evening on Hunt Avenue, and you'll hear frequent 10- to 20-shot strings of gunfire, obviously from one firearm. (I use Hunt Avenue only as an example, because I provided security for a housing project there for more than a year.)

At the very least, city officers should be carrying speed-loaders, an accepted item of police issue used nationally for many years. ED WHITE JR. ROANOKE

by CNB