Fontana School Police Get Colt Assault Rifles
If L.A. has its own white Detroit -- you know, redneck and working class (think Kid Rock and Eminem) -- it's Fontana, birthplace of Hells Angels, home of the old the Kaiser Steel Mill.
Colt
Tattoos, thick arms and decorative testicles dangling from four-wheel-drive trucks are at home here. So, apparently, are school police officers who carry semiautomatic assault rifles. Prospective school shooters be warned -- Fontana will destroy you:
The Fontana Unified School District police force is not only freshly armed with Colt 6040 rifles, but it has already been trained with them despite a recent, December delivery, Chief Billy Green tells the Weekly.
Fourteen of the $1,000 weapons -- one for each officer -- were ordered in October, he says, long before the tragedy at Newtown.
But school shootings were on his mind, Green says:
The point is to be able to equip the officers to respond with the proper tools to an active shooter situation at one of the schools.
Officers who will take possession of the rifles underwent 40 hours of training with them during the holiday break, he tells us.
They had to pass two tests in order to use the rifles, he said.
The guns will be stored under lock-and-key at school headquarters, where there's 24-hour security, the chief said.
Cops will be able to check them out daily.
Reaction, Green says, has been "mixed:"
There are definitely people who support the program and see need for it. There are definitely some critics.
[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
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