Boston Mayor Menino says no to police patrols with M-16s

Boston Mayor Tom Menino has announced he will not approve a police department plan to arm neighborhood officers with semiautomatic rifles.

Menino said Friday he didn’t want M-16s, given to the city free of charge from the US military, in the hands of regular patrol officers.

But Menino said he’d be open to giving the rifles to "specialized units."

The police recently obtained 200 M-16s from the US military and had made plans to train dozens of officers and arm them with the rifles.

However, some community leaders decried the lack of public notice and questioned the reasoning behind arming district officers with M-16s when the city’s SWAT team already has such weapons.

Boston Herald via Pimpin Turtle