BUFFALO, NY (WKBW) — The Buffalo Police Department is looking to overhaul the equipment its officers carry and wear. The city’s police commissioner made an official request to the Buffalo Common Council to buy new handguns.
s and holsters.
7 News Senior Reporter Eileen Buckley met with the police commissioner Friday who tells us this upgrade could save the city money in the long run.
“We are looking to make a change from the current .40 caliber that we carry now -- the Glock .40 Caliber to the Glock 9mm,” noted Joseph Gramaglia, commissioner, Buffalo Police Department.
Commissioner Gramaglia tells me the department is ready to trade in its current sidearms for new ones. Now that police wear body cameras, they need weapons that are more compatible and must change their holsters.
“Part of that upgrade is getting something called signal sidearm. It puts a sensor in the holster so that one officer can draw their weapons they will Bluetooth, activate the body cameras part of the technology upgrade that that comes with Axon,” Gramaglia explained. “Why do we have to do that because some of the changes in 'use of force' reporting mandated by the state so this will help to automate the process we want to do as much to automate the process. So, the holsters that we have cannot accommodate that. We need to do that upgrade.”
The police commissioner tells me these weapons would mean less recoil when fired provide more accuracy and the ammunition would be cheaper.
"Ammunition has gone up significantly. New York, during their training protocols, will be requiring officers to change how we train our officers in shooting and the number of rounds that we will have to fire. You can get a significant number more rounds for the same budget cost in a 9 millimeter that you can have a .40 caliber,” described Gramaglia.
The commissioner submitted this request to the Buffalo Common Council asking to approve the changes, but you may be wondering how the city will pay for the changes.
“So, I think the Common Council is going to refer probably to the finance committee so we can discuss this with the police commissioner,” remarked Mitch Nowakowski, Fillmore District Common Council Member.
Nowakowski says he's very interested to learn more.
“If the accuracy is better, and it keeps that only citizens safer but keeps police officers safer. I think it's an important request of the Common Council to digest, to make sure that the police department is appropriately equipped, which is you know, a large part of municipal government is police and fire,” Nowakowski replied. “These are the services that residents demand that they need for their quality of life and for their safety.”
The commissioner says the department has $40,000 in its budget to begin paying for the weapon changeover, but it also plans to use $215,000 from asset forfeiture funds to help cover about 85 percent of the total cost.
“We also are going to be adding a flashlight underneath the barrel of the handguns and the new holster will accommodate that flashlight and why are we doing that? Some of the changes in technique that's coming in 2024 with range training is to have a two-hand hold on a gun and not one hand on hand is holding the flashlight and the other hand is holding the gun. So, there's going to be a change in that technique. Where there's a lot of departments that already have flashlights on their guns. we want to do that as well,” noted Gramaglia. “We're going to trade and all the weapons that we have. There's some other weapons that we have there. we really don't use it anymore. We're going to trade in as much as we can and really clear out everything that we have.”
Commissioner Gramaglia said a new class of officers begins in January for training and he is hoping to have the new sidearms in place for them.
“We want to train those officers immediately on the new holsters the new guns, the flashlights. We don't want to have them go through the academy and have to bring them back and retrain,” Gramaglia commented.
