feet of the driver's door, Vultee

pivoted inside the truck and started firing the AR-15 out of the rear sliding window which had been removed prior to the stop. I was able to take cover behind my cruiser door with A Signal 99 (officer in trouble) vas

part of my body inside the car.

dropped by me, requesting

immediate

emergency assistance. I waited for

the_shota to stop. but THEY NEVER DID. In fact Vultee fired several rounds from the AR-15 rifle, then from a .22 caliber revolver and again from the AR-15 rifle. I was able to peek around the door and sav Officer Whalen falling to the ground near his cruiser. All this time Vultee continued firing from his AR-15. I stood up from behind concealment and fired three rounds at the

suspect.

Vultee then fired at me with the

bullets hitting the ground just in front of my location. The bullets fragmented on the ground causing me to sustain eleven (11) pinpoint fragments in the right leg and three (3) in the left leg.

Vultee then fled in his truck with additional officers, who had
The vehicle chase covered approximately

arrived to assist, in pursuit.

seven miles on interstate highway with speeds in excess of 100MPH. During

the chase Vultee vas still able to fire shots from his AR-15 out of the

rear vindov at the pursuing cruisers.

He

Beavercreek, Ohio after 8 rear tire blew out.

vas finally apprehended in

At that time he was still

armed with the AR-15, both a 20 round magazine and 30 round magazine for that weapon and the .22 caliber revolver.

Officer

I vas lucky for my injuries were not serious.

Unfortunately,

William Steve Whalen died at Miami Valley Hospital a short time

later from bullet wounds he received in the head and arm.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify before the Committee.

Submitted by,

Lt. Randy W. Beane

Dayton Police Department
335 W. Third Street
Dayton, Ohio 45402

Mr. SCHUMER. Officer Carr.

STATEMENT OF NEIL CARR, POLICE OFFICER, PHILADELPHIA POLICE DEPARTMENT

Mr. CARR. Good morning. My name is Neil Carr. I'm an active duty police officer, and have been one for 22 years. I'm with the Philadelphia Police Department, assigned to the highway patrol unit.

On Tuesday, May 22, 1990, myself and my partner, Officer Jose Rodriguez, were on patrol and we responded to a radio broadcast by police radio of males with guns. Upon pulling up at the location, I saw another police unit approaching three males. The two officers were in the front seat of the vehicle. I observed, along with my partner, the two officers being fired upon with what appeared to be Uzi-type weapons from only a few feet distance.

The officers drove away in their vehicle from this assault. Both had fallen down in the front seat of their patrol vehicle. My impression was that they were shot. Thank God, they weren't.

The males began to run. The one male that ran in our direction carried a Tec 9. He was firing at us. We returned fire, striking the male in the leg. The Tec 9 that this male had was loaded with a 30round clip of 9-mm bullets. The male had the gun strapped to his chest by a homemade sling. We returned fire and shot the male in the leg, disabling him.

We went over to this male, who had fallen between two parked cars. He still had a 30-round clip in his pocket and more rounds in the clip he had in the weapon. I had run out of ammunition-I was using a six-shooter. We ducked for cover and the other two males continued to fire upon us. With that, my partner gave me his Glock, which was a 9-mm. He took the weapon off the wounded perpetrator and, with that, the other males exited the scene.

There was 60 rounds of semiautomatic and full automatic casings at the scene, a fact later verified by our crime lab. There was a MAC-10, MAC-11, Uzi, Tec 9, and a .380 semiautomatic pistol.

The one male who had been shot by us was taken into custody at the scene. The two other males were arrested by police and the FBI at a later date.

I have been a police officer, as I have stated, for 22 years. I know there is an amount of risk in police work. But weaponry we're facing out there every day from criminals on the street is something that is used by an army in battle. There is no question that we're out-gunned. I believe that my brother officers and I were lucky to have lived through this incident.

I am asking the committee here to hear the cry of law enforcement. We need your help. We look to you, as our lawmakers, for this help. I think the President's proposal of a 10-year minimum sentence for this type of a weapon is a step in the right direction. Mr. SCHUMER. Than you, Officer Carr.

Officer, Rodriguez, do you have anything to add? You were Officer Carr's partner.

STATEMENT OF J.J. RODRIGUEZ, POLICE OFFICER,

PHILADELPHIA POLICE DEPARTMENT

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Yes, sir, if I may add to that.

Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the committee, I am also referring to this same incident. I am a member of the Philadelphia Police Department, assigned to the Philadelphia Highway Patrol. I've been on the job 15 years, still on active duty, along with my partner, Neil Carr.

If I may add, we have been involved in several shootings. We've been shot at with different types of weapons, assault weapons, regular revolvers, semiautomatic weapons. I carry a semiautomatic and my partner now carries a semiautomatic. At the time of this incident, he was carrying a six-shooter.

As he stated, on that afternoon we encountered these three individuals who we believed shot one of our brother officers who had been directly in front of us in another vehicle. A male started running toward us. We exited our vehicle. We were being fired upon by all three males. We returned gunfire and, as my partner stated, we did shoot one of the perpetrators, who was unable at that time to fire back because his weapon had jammed.

At this time I had continued firing toward the other males who were still firing toward us. My partner was out of ammo at that time, struggling with the male we had shot on the ground, in order to retrieve the Tec 9, which he had still in his hands, even though he was shot. I helped my partner retrieve the Tec 9, which is a semiautomatic weapon, somewhat similar to the Uzi-type. At that time I put a fresh clip in my semiautomatic and gave it to my partner and I took the Tec 9 off the guy we had shot, cleared it, and returned gunfire. Meanwhile, while we were trapped in between two parked cars, we were still being fired upon from the south side, while another male came up behind us on the corner, shooting at us also with a .380 semiautomatic pistol.

We were lucky we were not hurt on that day, as my partner stated, and we were able to come up without a scratch. I chased the other two males, who had an Uzi and a MAC-10, into a lot, exchanging gunfire, while my partner placed the other male under arrest, in cuffs I should say, because he was defenseless then.

Nothing is more devastating than coming across gunfire and being shot at by these weapons like AK-47's and Uzis. We've been involved in several of these shootings. In the past year we've had two. You can't imagine the bodies riddled with bullets from these types of weapons. It is up to you people here, the lawmakers, to try to pass a bill where these weapons could be banned from the people that we're coming across every day.

The drive-by shootings are not all drug related. They are not all done by blacks or Hispanics, or whites or whoever. Everybody is using them out there, and they're using them against us. We need these weapons off the streets.

I also concur with my partner's opinion on the President's 10year sentence. This would be great and it would sure help us some. Thank you.

Mr. SCHUMER. Thank you, Officer Rodriguez.

I want to thank all the panel. Again, your testimony is very ef fective. I think it importunes us, at least from this member's point of view, to do something.

I just have a couple of questions. First, particularly to the panelists involved in law enforcement, these weapons that you're talking about, are they becoming more prevalent, do you see more of them than before? I mean, some people have said this is really not the problem, that there are so many other weapons out there. That's the first part of the question.

The second is, given that you are familiar with guns-I don't know how many of you are hunters or know people who are do these weapons have any legitimate purpose? In other words, would you use them to hunt, would you use them for target practice, et cetera?

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. If I can answer that, in my opinion no, they do not. We have encountered many of these weapons on the street, not what I might refer to as the old six-shooter revolver. At one time that was the weapon of the street. Now it's not. The six-shooter is extinct. Everybody now is carrying an automatic, preferably an Uzi, a Tec 9, AK-47, or at least that's what we're coming up against in Philadelphia, my partner and I. We have recovered several of them in shootings we've been involved in and in other shootings that we have come across.

Mr. SCHUMER. Far more prevalent than they used to be?
Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Yes.

Mr. SCHUMER. Do you agree with that, Lieutenant Beane? Mr. BEANE. I was former head of the homicide squad in Dayton, and I noticed at the time I was there we were getting an increasing amount of shootings involving these type weapons. In Dayton, we run into Tec 9's quite a bit. The AK-47, we ran into one last week. Just 3 weeks ago we had a paddywagon shot at with an AR-15. Just last week I was on the scene of a shooting where a young man was shot twice. He's very lucky since, when he was laying on the ground, he was shot at 13 other times with this type of weapon. This type of violence is becoming more prevalent in our city, as well as in other cities around the country. A lot of our violence is related to drug trafficking, drug deals. I think that's a pretty good assumption nationwide. The drug problem is closely related to this problem.

Mr. SCHUMER. Agent Guthrie.

Mr. GUTHRIE. Yes, Mr. Chairman. In Detroit, I would say most of the time when we come in contact with these types of semiautomatic assault rifles, it is involving armed narcotics traffickers. Since our involvement with our narcotics traffickers has increased, the number of investigations we're involved in, we're seeing that a lot more.

About 1 year ago, in an investigation I was involved in, six individuals were meeting us in a parking lot to purchase 15 kilos of cocaine for $337,000. These six individuals did show up in the Burger King parking lot, with a bag containing $337,000. They came in three cars, and weapons were in each one of the vehicles. In one vehicle they had two AR-15's converted to fire fully automatic, and in another vehicle they had a Benelli semiautomatic

shotgun and a semiautomatic pistol, Smith & Wesson, and in the third vehicle they had a Mossberg pump action shotgun.

The individuals, the youngest one was 17 years of age, and the average age was in the early 20's. They came up with that amount of money in a matter of hours, never having met any of the undercover agents at all. I would say in that type of investigation, where you're dealing with large sums of money or large sums of narcotics, we are seeing it much more prevalent for these armed narcotics traffickers to come prepared, armed, to protect the proceeds or to protect the narcotics.

Mr. SCHUMER. Thank you.

One other question for you, Agent Guthrie. You showed us the kind of weapon your assailant used. How fast did the gun fire?

Mr. GUTHRIE. The perpetrator in my incident, Emmett Nabors, fired 3 rounds. All the agents that were interviewed at that shooting indicated they only thought 2 rounds were fired-1 round from his gun and one blast from my shotgun. He fired 3 rounds so quick that all of the agents present on the scene, when they were interviewed right after the shooting, only thought he fired the gun once. That's how quick he fired.

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Schiff.

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll be brief. I know we have plenty of other things to do.

I just want to say very briefly, in all the years I spent as a prosecutor, I was acutely aware that I rarely went to the field compared with how many times law enforcement officers did, and I have the utmost respect. Any question I ask may seem a little mundane compared to what you've all been through, but it helps us decide upon legislation. That's the reason I ask.

Mrs. Varner, the individual who shot your husband you described as a career criminal. That would make it, of course, illegal for him-in addition to the question of why he was on the street in the first place-it would make it illegal for him to possess any firearm. Do you happen to know from where he got the weapon that was used in that case? Have the law enforcement people ever found that out?

Mrs. VARNER. The particular weapon, I don't know. I believe the investigation did reveal that. But two of the weapons in their possession were purchased in Las Vegas, NV, had a legal registration from Las Vegas Metro Police. He had lied.

Mr. SCHIFF. He lied on the form?

Mrs. VARNER. Yes.

Mr. SCHIFF. Agent Guthrie, you mentioned that Mr. Nabors was a three-time convicted felon, which means, of course, it was illegal for him to possess any firearm. Do you know where he got the weapon that you referred to?

Mr. GUTHRIE. I know where the weapons came from, because they were fully traced by our Bureau following the shooting. But how he actually came in possession of them, he did not make any statements as to who he received them from. I know who, as far as the trace went back, who received them.

Mr. SCHIFF. You mentioned in one transaction you met with some people who had a semiautomatic weapon converted to possibly fully automatic firing, is that right?