In response to an outcry from the public over the videotaped beating of a suspect with a department-issued flashlight, Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton says he will prohibit officers from carrying large metal flashlights that could be used as weapons.
Bratton says he plans to replace the metal flashlights now carried by LAPD officers with smaller models made of rubber that could not be used as weapons.
“There is a stigma attached to these flashlights that won’t go away,” Bratton told the Los Angeles Police Commission of his decision to prohibit the large metal models.
Major metropolitan police departments in Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami, and Detroit have passed similar policy changes in response to complaints about police wielding large flashlights as weapons.
