LOS ANGELES -- Police organizations around the country, and their allies in Congress and at least two state legislatures, are quietly trying to outlaw the apple green bullets they call 'cop-killers.'
The bullets, available in all pistol calibers, easily punch through 'bullet-proof' vests worn mainly by police officers and politicians.
The new Kevlar fabric vests, lightweight and flexible and much easier to wear than old-fashioned types made of shingled plates, have proved a boon to police officers and are becoming increasingly common.
Strong enough to halt almost all pistol bullets, they are a popular Christmas present for law enforcement officers from their wives, husbands or other concerned family members.
New York City Mayor Edward Koch, speaking to the graduating class of police academy cadets in December, urged them to 'wear your vest.' Wearing the vest is usually an individual decision by the officers, who often supply their own.
But UPI has learned that the California Highway Patrol will soon make vests mandatory for officers, following a shooting in which an officer without a vest was killed, while another, wearing a vest, was wounded but survived.
'What the hell good is it going to do us to wear the vests if the ---- can buy bullets that shoot right through them?' reacted one highway patrolman, learning that the bullets were available.
Like many other officers, and the general public, he had not heard of the Kevlar-puncturing bullets.
'These frightening bullets eliminate all protection for police officers and public officials who must fear assassination,' said California Assemblyman Tom Banes, who plans to introduce a bill when the state legislature reconvenes in January, outlawing the manufacture, possession or sale of the bullets in California.
'The problem is, there is no other use for these bullets' other than shooting police officers and assassinating politicians, said Rep. Mario Biaggi, D-N.Y.
Biaggi, who was wounded by gunfire five times during his 23 years as a New York City police officer, has been trying to outlaw the bullets on the federal level.
Between 1975 and 1978, the latest year for which statistics are available but before the vests became as common as they are now, the vests saved the lives of 250 of the 255 police officers wearing them who were shot in gunbattles, Biaggi said. The other five were hit in the head or other unprotected areas.
He has a bill pending before the House Judiciary Committee to commission a study 'to identify all such bullets so that ultimately we can enact laws to ban their manufacture and sale,' said his spokesman, Bob Blancato.
In New York, State Sen. John Calandra has introduced a bill to outlaw possession or manufacture of the bullets and says he feels certain it will pass easily.
'There will be Democratic and Republican co-sponsors and I could probably get the whole Senate as co-sponsors -- that's the way sentiment is running,' said Calandra, a Republican and the majority whip. 'The New York City Patrolmen's Benevolent Association and the New York Police Conference, representing officers all over the state, have both asked for this legislation.'
'We see absolutely no need for the manufacture of these bullets in any way, shape or form,' said Bob Gordon, secretary of the International Union of Police Associations, AFL-CIO.
'There are going to be Congressional hearings into this and we're going to pursue it with all the clout at our disposal. Kevlar vests are our best protection and these things render them useless.'
'If I were an officer on the street, I'd be very fearful of these things,' said the union's west coast representative, San Francisco officer Gerald Crowley, who witnessed tests on the bullets.
'A vest was folded so that it presented four times the normal thickness of Kevlar. A .357 magnum from a distance of 20 feet went through all four layers of the vest and five big city telephone directories behind it. These bullets just ignore Kevlar.'
'We've heard of these things, and the staff has recommended to the chief that we support legislation banning them,' said a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, which issues Kevlar vests to all uniformed officers.
'We'll probably co-sponsor the legislation in California,' said Chris Voight, a spokesman for the Association of Highway Patrolmen.
To date, no police officer or other Kevlar-protected person has been shot with the special bullets, said local and federal law enforcement authorities.
They stressed that they hope to get the ammunition off the market before there is such a shooting.
'Unfortunately it may take a tragedy to get the Congress to act,' said Craig Floyd, an aide to Biaggi, whose bill has been stalled in the judiciary committee for two years. 'There may be no movement until some prominent victim is killed by one of these. The kind of law we want would be preventive medicine.'
'I don't know whether President Reagan wears such a vest, but he should as a matter of course because of terrorist threats,' Biaggi said. 'Many public officials should, and these bullets are just putting more sophisticated tools in the hands of the assassins and terrorists.'
Biaggi said he first heard about the armor-piercing bullets 'about two years ago from the New York City Patrolmens Benevolent Association, which said New York was becoming a dumping ground for 'cop killer bullets'.'
Investigators say there are several bullets with similar characteristics, but the best known, the standard by which others are judged, is the KTW.
It was developed by a doctor and -- ironically, in view of the current protests -- two peace officers in Lorain, Ohio, a shipbuilding town on the shore of Lake Erie.
The bronze bullet, semi-pointed in shape, is coated with Teflon. Its hardness and shape give it better penetration and the Teflon 'slides' it through otherwise impenetrable surfaces.
KTW is named for Dr. J.P. Kopsch, Dan Turcus and Don Ward. Kopsch, the former coroner, now runs the company.
Ward, a former sheriff's deputy, worked as an investigator for the coroner. Turcus, a former Lorain police lieutenant now retired to St. James City, Fla., recalled the origin of the bullet:
'We had a shootout in Lorain and thepolice bullets were just bouncing off the guy's car while he was shooting back at us.
'Dr. Kopsch said he had seen too many shooting cases as a coroner in which the police were at a disadvantage. We got to talking about it and decided policemen should have a bullet that gave them an edge, something they could fire from the pistols they already had and that would shoot right through a car.
'We experimented for years and came up with a material that was twice as dense as lead. The Teflon coating added about 20 percent more penetration -- they just slide right through.
'We didn't want to manufacture it, really. We tried to sell it to the U.S. military but they weren't interested.
'Most of our production, when I was with the company, was sold to foreign governments for their police forces, I seem to recall. I heard the East Germans were trying to copy it.
'We were very strict about selling the ammunition only to law enforcement agencies. We never sold to anyone else.'
The bullet's critics disagree. At least one civilian, who asked not to be identified, told UPI he was able to obtain a large number of the bullets by mail from a California dealer, with no identification required. The dealer denied it, but the source has a collection of KTW bullets.
'You're supposed to be a law enforcement officer to buy these things, the KTW people say, but there simply is no effective enforcement of that restriction,' said Floyd.
'They send you a form in the mail, and you're supposed to give your identification as a peace officer. Well, anyone can make up any identification they want, fill in the form and send it in. They simply mail you the bullets if you mail them the money.
'The KTW people say they're for use by law enforcement officers against cars,' Floyd said.
'But we've contacted law enforcement departments all over the country and they say they have no use for them because they're so dangerous. They go right through darn near anything -- people, cars, walls -- and hit other things, like a bystander some distance away. Police won't use them because you can't tell where they'll wind up.
'They don't want them and they don't want anyone else to have them either, so they would just as soon make it illegal to manufacture them at all.'
The ammunition is still so unusual that many police officers would not recognize it if they found it in a suspect's gun. 'I don't know whether we've ever found these bullets on a suspect because I don't believe all our officers could recognize it,' said a spokesman for the Los Angeles Department.
'I'm not sure I could spot it.'
A difficulty in drawing up federal legislation, Floyd said, 'is that we have heard there are other bullets, besides the KTW, which could also penetrate a Kevlar vest. That restricts our ability to ban the KTW alone, which is why we want a federal study to identify all such bullets.'
(Biaggi said he is also joining with Sen. Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., to restrict the sale of the vests themselves to law enforcement officers, public officials and others who could secure a federal permit for one.)
'One of the Brinks robbers was hit by police fire and was spared by a bulletproof vest,' Floyd said. 'He was able to continue his activities until he was killed by a second bullet, which just by chance happened to hit the vest in the same place as the previous shot, which had weakened it.'
The bill would forbid possession of the vests by anyone with a criminal record.
In mid-1980, KTW licensed North American Ordnance Corp. of Pontiac, Mich., to make and sell the KTW armor-piercing bullet.
'Our sales system is policed very well,' insisted John Klein, president of North American.
'We sell only to federally licensed dealers and directly to law enforcement agencies. On the rare, very special occasions that I sell to an individual, I require him to present himself to me in person with proof of his identity.'
By the company's rules, the dealers who buy the bullets from North American are supposed to follow the same procedures, though there is no law requiring them to do so.
Dealers sign a written promise to sell the KTW bullets only to law enforcement officers and any dealer who sold the ammunition without positively identifying the buyer 'would be in trouble with us,' Klein said.
Klein and Mary Kopsch, wife of the president of KTW, both said that a number of other firms have begun making similar ammunition and do not restrict the sale.
'There's tons of others involved in making metal-piercing ammunition,' Klein said. 'There's lots of Czechoslovakian ammunition imported to this country that's roughly comparable to ours.'
There have also been large scale thefts of the bullets, said Mrs. Kopsch.
'One very large shipment sent to Florida was waylaid before it got there,' she said. 'We reported it to the FBI but they didn't seem to care. We can't help it if people steal our product.'
Klein and Mrs. Kopsch said their companies would probably resist the legal efforts to put them out of business. (The KTW bullet is the only asset of the KTW corporation, and accounts for most of North American's business.)
'Why should we cut our own throats?' asked Mrs. Kopsch. 'There's been an awful lot of money spent on research and development. The police need this bullet because the hoods can get ammunition just like it from other companies.'
'We will make every effort to educate the law enforcement community,' said Klein, who would not discuss how much his firm had invested in the bullets, or how much it profits from them.
'They need this ammunition. Otherwise, what can you do with a terrorist in a bulletproof vest?'
Turcus, the former police lieutenant and bullet developer, had second thoughts.
If he were back on patrol and wearing a Kevlar vest like modern officers, he said, 'I'd have some qualms about it, thinking somebody might be shooting those things at me.
'I'd be happy if the government bought the patent, gave me my cut, and took them out of the wrong hands.'
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