State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

More rifles for police? Boston can learn from NYC

Boston Globe: NEW YORK — On a sweltering summer night, in midtown Manhattan, a group of New York police officers stood at the stairway of a subway station as commuters streamed in and out and pedestrians strolled by. Some of the cops had rifles slung over their shoulders, the barrels pointed down. They wore heavy vests, and the sweat poured off them.

New Yorkers don’t give it a second thought. Since 9/11, cops with rifles on city sidewalks have been a small but persistent part of the urban tapestry.

Their number has slowly climbed, in response not just to the threat of terrorism, but the targeting of police officers here and elsewhere. The 2014 assassination of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu as they sat in their patrol car in Brooklyn still resonates here.

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