East Hartford police union president says some department-issued pistols don’t shoot straight, a defect that could lead to ‘a needless tragedy’
The president of East Hartford’s police union says some department-issued pistols do not shoot straight, a dangerous defect that exposes cops and the department to “a needless tragedy.”
“My members have guns with sights cocked to the side and are being told to aim to the right of what they want to hit,” Officer Frank Iacono wrote in a recent blog post. “This is completely unsafe and unacceptable and should’ve never been allowed to happen.”
Deputy Police Chief Christopher Davis and department spokesman Lt. Josh Litwin countered that police have been working with the gunmaker to correct any issues. They stressed that all officers qualified to state standards with the 9 mm handguns in the fall and police recruits just recently qualified with the same guns.
“Nevertheless, anytime there is room for improvement, we strive for it,” Litwin said.
Officers have carried the Gen 4 Glock 17 for about three years, Iacono said in an interview Monday. The flaw is that bullets tend to go a bit to the left, he said, and the problem gets worse with more use.
“Our firearms staff has run this issue up their chain of command and has been in touch with representatives at Glock,” Iacono wrote in his “Just the Facts” blog, “and the only solutions (Glock representatives) have offered is to tell them to instruct our members to compensate by aiming to the right of the target, and moving the sights on some of the guns so far to one side that they’re hanging off the slide.
“They (Glock representatives) also suggested that our officers just don’t know how to shoot Glocks and were simply holding the guns wrong.”
A company representative could not be reached Monday. Based in Austria with U.S. headquarters in Smyrna, Georgia, Glock, Inc. is a popular brand with law enforcement agencies throughout the world. The company website says more than 65% of U.S. local, state and federal agencies have issued Glock pistols.
In a Dec. 11 email, Officer Jeffery Otis of the department’s firearms training division wrote that some pistols were shooting high and to the left during fall qualifications. A Glock representative came to the department, verified the problem and pistols were sent back to the company to replace the sights, Otis wrote.
“The sight adjustment made at the range has corrected the issue until the new part replaces the old one.”
Asked by an administrator for an update in February, Otis wrote he had been working with Glock and pistols were being sent back in small batches for sight repairs. Davis said Monday that the department continues to work with the company to rectify the issue.
Iacono on Monday pointed to online forums — including Glock Talk, Glock Pro, Modern Service Weapons and HandGunForum.net — in which people complained about similar sighting problems.
“As of right now,” Iacono wrote in his blog to union members, “these guns are still on the street being carried by our officers. If one of our members were to be involved in a shooting tonight where something or someone gets hit that wasn’t supposed to and the Department was aware that the guns weren’t shooting straight and did nothing about it, who’s going to take the fall?”
Most officers, he continued, “will never have to fire our weapons outside of training throughout our entire careers. But when we do, it’s because we’re in a high stress situation and lives are on the line.
“Shooting in these circumstances is instinctual, it needs to be point and shoot. We can’t be worrying about trying to aim to the right or any other [expletive] ‘fixes’ to compensate for defective equipment.
“It isn’t just our safety on the line here, but also that of the citizens we’re sworn to protect,” he wrote. “Let’s avoid a needless tragedy and get this problem fixed NOW.”
Jesse Leavenworth can be reached at jleavenworth@courant.com
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