In the decade prior to the urban conflagrations of 1967, police strikes were anathema, and police unions were virtually nonexistent. Politicians all but ignored the interests of police, especially at the federal level. But the new mobilization was not only about officer protection. After the Civil Rights movement advanced racial equality, Blue Power asserted a new civic hierarchy. Its core principles were that police should not genuflect to elected officials or heed civilian oversight, that rank-and-file officers should be handsomely compensated for their work, and that cops should be treated as experts on crime and public safety.
The most straightforward response to violence directed at police was to make cops bulletproof. Through a range of funding streams, many big-city police departments were able to obtain some form of soft body armor for their officers beginning in the mid-1970s. Taking officer safety seriously was a crucial political win, but it was not enough for Blue Power.
Police union leaders soon concocted a new worry, and Mario Biaggi followed their lead. Certain bullets, designed to penetrate vehicle doors or windshields, were now available on the retail market. These bullets could pose a danger to officers even if they were protected by Kevlar.
These specialized bullets gained the national spotlight in January 1982, when NBC ran a television news segment focusing on a brass bullet that was coated in Teflon. No clear data existed to prove that this rare projectile had yet been involved in the killing of an officer at the time that NBC drew attention to it. But Biaggi seized the opportunity. He introduced the Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act in February 1982 to ban the bullets.
Biaggi anticipated that the National Rifle Association and police organizations would collaborate. He was wrong. The rifle association was critical of the documentary, arguing that it revealed information to the general public that only specialists needed to know. Associate Attorney General Rudolph Giuliani claimed that even debating a ban “will encourage assassins and other criminals to search out these particularly dangerous classes of ammunition.” Meanwhile, the National Rifle Association’s lobbying arm suggested the bill would “deprive firearm owners of the use of their weapons.”
In response, bill supporters started to use a phrase that was soon on the lips of newscasters everywhere: “cop-killer bullets.”