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The NYPD is working to retrofit all vehicles with bullet-resistant windows and door panels following the cowardly murder of officer Miosotis Familia in a police van, officials said Thursday.
“We’re in the process of retrofitting all of our…police cars…we started the vehicles that are on patrol right now,” Police Commissioner James O’Neill said Thursday – one day after Familia was fatally shot as she sat in an NYPD mobile command center in The Bronx.
The original plan called for the retrofitting of the department’s more than 3,800 patrol vehicles and not the command vehicles like the one Familia was in when she was shot by cop-hating ex-con Alexander Bonds.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office announced via Twitter Thursday that the administration is funding the bullet-proofing all 72 of the NYPD’s command vehicles.
“Done by the end of the year. $1.3m well-spent,” de Blasio’s press secretary Eric Phillips tweeted in reference to the bullet-proofing.
De Blasio spokeswoman, Jaclyn Rothenberg, also said in a tweet “Mayor is bullet-proofing all 72 NYPD command vehicles. Retrofits will start right away.”
The deputy commissioner of the NYPD’s Support Services Bureau, Robert Martinez, said Thursday, “We’re looking at our options going forward to expanding [the program] to other vehicles which would include [mobile command centers] and buses.”
Martinez said that currently about 2,200 NYPD car door panels have been made bullet-resistant as well as over 100 glass windows.
“Over the next 10 days we’re hoping to get another 500 done,” Martinez said, adding “we’re looking at expanding that program to go outside of the realm of the original 3,800 vehicles.”
Earlier this year, the de Blasio administration vowed to spend more than $10 million to outfit only NYPD patrol cars with bullet-resistant inserts.