22nd of July, 2006
D.A. Richard A. Brown
District Attorney
Queens County
125-01 Queens Boulevard
Kew Gardens, New York 11415-1568
In response to your press release of Thursday 20th of July 2006 titled “D.A. Brown: Two Far Rockway Brothers and Friend Charged with Illegal Possession of ‘Cop Killer’ Gun and Cocaine”
The press release states:
The District Attorney said that the Fabrique Nationale (FN) 5.7 handgun is often referred to as a “cop killer” because it has a high-capacity 20-round magazine, the ability to shoot 50 to 100 yards with great accuracy and its 5.7 x 28 bullet can perforate 48 layers of Kevlar. Of the 616 police officers killed in the line of duty nationwide between 1994 and 2003, 425 were killed with this handgun.
Without debating the questionable terminology and tone of the quoted material; the simple technical statement that the 5.7x28mm cartridge ‘can’ penetrate 48 layers of Kevlar, while true, is very misleading. Only one type of this ammunition ‘can’ penetrate to that degree, the SS190 cartridge. SS190 is classified by the BATFE as ‘armor piercing’. Consequently it can only be sold to law enforcement and military agencies. The ammunition is only released and shipped from U.S. Customs controlled bonded warehouses upon BATFE and U.S. Customs approval.
The more widely available types of 5.7x28mm (SS195LF, SS916, SS197) fare only as well as normal sporting ammunition against body armor.
The last sentence quoted cannot be as easily overlooked as a technical oversight though.
Of the 616 police officers killed in the line of duty nationwide between 1994 and 2003, 425 were killed with this handgun.
According to the FBI while 616 officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty between 1994 and 2003, 425 of them were killed with a handgun of any type. Your statement that 425 have been killed by the Five-seveN model handgun in that time period not only improbable but contradictory to published evidence that 129 of those 425 officers were killed by 9mm handguns. Aside from the statistics the Five-seveN did not even exist until 1998, and was not available widely in the U.S. until 2001, which makes the claims in the press release even less credible.
While we fully support the efforts of the D.A. to prosecute criminals but spreading this or any type of misinformation through human error or design is contrary to the established principles of the office. The press release has already been printed in any number of NY dailies such as the Times Ledger, Newsday, Staten Island Advance and picked up by the AP. We recognize that a complete retraction is impossible but respectfully request the office to check facts in further public announcements.
Sincerely,
A New Yorker
----
1
http://www.queensda.org/Press Releases/2006 Press Releases/07-July/07-20-2006.pdf
2 Two other rounds are classified as armor piercing but while being even more rare are specialty. The SS191 tracer and SS193 subsonic cartridges. See
http://www.fnhusa.com/contents/tw_57x28mm.htm
3 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(17)(b)
4 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(8)
5
http://www.fnhusa.com/contents/tw_57x28mm.htm
6 Federal Bureau of Investigation,
Law Enforcement Officer’s Killed and Assaulted 2003 23, table 24 (2004),
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/killed/leoka03.pdf
7 Your statement can also be read to say they were killed by the specific gun you recovered.
8
Id. 28, table 30
