OH yes, the S.I.S. Kimbers. Well that's a whole story in itself. When our new Chief took over LAPD he brought in several of his cronies from NY. Mainly John Miller supposed terrorist expert (that term gets applied very easily these days). Some of those cronies wanted access to SIS records of all investigations , probably so they could write a book or go on TV. When the old school SIS Detectives refused because the records had been sealed by court orders and such. Well, do it the NY way, just replace the personnel with people that will do whatever you want. So, the first shooting incident after the refusal, people were "moved" for the betterment of the dept" yada, yada. It's good to be the King/Chief. I am sure there are some events wrapped up in this that I am not aware of, but this is some of the events leading to the S.I.S. Kimber.
The new Detectives that were moved in and were put in charge were a couple real show boaters and stab you in the back types. They were real "gun guys" because they had been to Gunsite or Front Sight. First, they wanted one gun then another then they got the deal with Kimber. Kimber was easy because SWAT already had them. Heck, they got their photos in magazines and everything. When they were registering them at the armory some had bought 6-7 of them, in different models. I remember one guy saying "I am going to send my kids to college with these". They apparently did not Kimber was making the pistol available to the public. Granted the SIS detectives guns had a unique serial number, but the guns were made basically the same way. Maybe a sight difference. All were private purchase that I knew of at that time, even though SIS did have a weapons budget that had been used to buy S/W 45s in the past.
I used to have one I bought cheap, but I gave to an old police friend's son I was baby-sitter for, on his 45th birthday. Of course, the public soon got wind of the gun and only saw the SS on the slide and went nuts.
An interesting sidenote about cronyism. One of the few times I was ever part of an internal affairs investigation was during all these events.
When Miller was brought in as a terrorist expert, he was given a civilian rank equal to a Commander. They even had a special badge made up for him and referred to him as Chief, because he was Chief of his Bureau, "an east coast thing".
His office sent a SGT. to the armory to get him some weapons. I refused because he was a civilian, as such it was illegal for the Dept to issue him weapons, he was not California Police Officer certified.
The SGT then called my supervisor another SGT. who per the captain's orders, ordered me to issue him weapons. He had not been around very long. I advised him that when Willie Williams was hired as Chief, we could not issue him a weapon, because he was not CA POST certified. The gun detail took him through the procedure; he was given a concealed weapon permit and had to purchase his own weapon.
Well, that did not matter, issue him some weapons. So, I did but I made the SGT from his office sign for them.
Fast forward a few years. Miller is stopped boarding a plane at LAX. He has a 2" revolver in his luggage or computer case. An investigation is started, even though I don't think charges were filed. Holy Cow, this weapon is registered to LAPD. Miller is a civilian, it's a felony to issue him a weapon. During the investigation the Captain of Training Div. and the Sgt who ordered me to issue the guns, denied any knowledge of the incident. The Sgt who signed for the guns denied that I told him it was a felony to give Miller (a civilian) city weapons. I believe it came out that Miller had a CCW, but still no city weapons could be issued to him under CA and Federal laws. He also had to surrender his city owned SUV with lights and siren.
There was another armorer present when all this happened and he and I told the exact same story to investigators. Even though they grabbed me when I signed in for work at 1200 and had no chance to speak to him and get our stories straight. The whole thing went away as soon as the media died down and the next BIG incident occurred in Los Angeles, about 2-3 days. Too many high-ranking individuals involved for it to go anywhere. Thats how things work most places where things are political.
Hope this hasn't been too boring, it is raining here and thought some might enjoy the story. Hey found a photo of my Kimber from years ago.
