NEW YORK CITY — The NYPD has bought $7.5 million in military-level protective gear for patrol officers after a Times Square bomb scare and police shootings in Baton Rouge and Dallas.
“You name it, we are buying it," Commissioner Bill Bratton said at a press conference Monday morning.
“There’s not a police department in America that’s spending as much money, as much thought and interest on this issue of officer safety.”
The NYPD will receive 20,000 new helmets, 6,000 new bulletproof vests, as well as ballistic car doors and trauma kits to better protect patrol officers against military-level weaponry, Bratton said.
Special units will also receive updated equipment, such as automatic long guns, more powerful pepper spray and Tasers, Bratton said.
“We are committed to protecting the safety of the public in this city to ensuring the safety of our officers to the best of our ability," the police commissioner added.
The new gear is expected to reach patrol officers by September and officers will receive additional training on its usage.
The announcement comes weeks after the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association filed a complaint with the state Labor Department claiming that the lack of protective gear created dangerous work conditions for police officers, said a spokesman for the union.
"The little vests we wear during the day are not adequate to take on a guy with military gear," Patrolmen's Benevolent Association spokesman Anthony O’Leary told DNAinfo New York. "It's not a fair fight.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio said the decision to release the equipment had been hastened by the incident in Times Square when a man threw what appeared to be a bomb into an NYPD van.
"It’s so important to recognize the threats our officers face and to act on them immediately," the mayor said.
"We will not be the police department that brings a knife to the gunfight."
