Most of the roughly 1,450 Chicago police officers who carried Sig Sauer P320 handguns have replaced them following safety concerns raised this year about the weapon, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara wrote to police Supt. Larry Snelling in April and urged him to ban the model, claiming the gun can accidentally fire without a trigger pull, which could lead to an officer or member of the public being wounded or killed.
“Current recruits at the Chicago Police Academy already have been advised that the Sig Sauer P320 is no longer a prescribed weapon for them to purchase or utilize,” Catanzara wrote.
On Monday, department spokesperson Maggie Huyhn said officers using the P320 were given a July 14 deadline to submit proof of buying a new approved weapon. The Chicago Police Department has about 11,600 sworn officers.
“More than 1,350 affected officers are now in compliance with the phase-out process, with about 100 members not in compliance,” said Huyhn, who declined to address the safety concerns about the P320.
The department’s firearms training section had scheduled 20 days for those officers who owned P320s to meet with vendors to buy other department-approved guns and equipment, Huyhn said.
“Additionally, CPD worked with Acme Sports, a regional Sig Sauer distributor, to secure a ‘trade-in’ option that allowed affected members to pay $95 to trade in their Sig Sauer P320 for another department-approved Sig Sauer model,” she said in a statement.
Other police departments, including those in Milwaukee and Denver, have barred officers from using the Sig Sauer P320 over safety concerns.
The Milwaukee Police Department equips its officers with handguns. They’re now using Glocks.
The Chicago Police Department, like the Denver Police Department, requires its officers to buy their own weapons from an approved list. The Denver Police Department has said the Sig Sauer failed to “meet internal safety standards.”
In May, the FOP asked a federal judge to ban Chicago police officers from carrying the P320. The union referred to news reports that more than 100 people across the country had reported unintentional discharges of the P320 handgun, and 80 people were wounded as a result.
The FOP sought to have U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer issue the order under a federal consent decree between the Chicago Police Department and the Illinois attorney general’s office. The decree requires a long list of police reforms to protect citizens and cops alike.
Despite the Chicago Police Department’s phase-out of the P320, the union’s request for a court-ordered ban of the model is still pending.
On Friday, New Hampshire-based Sig Sauer Inc. asked the court to throw out the FOP’s request, saying tests by military and law enforcement agencies around the world have shown the gun can’t discharge without a trigger pull. The company has sold millions of units of the P320 since its release about a decade ago.
In 2017, the company says, the Chicago Police Department tested the weapon before adding the model to the approved weapons list. Sig Sauer Inc. says lawsuits claiming the P320 is capable of firing without a trigger pull have been dismissed in a dozen separate federal district courts.
The gun manufacturer says Pallmeyer shouldn’t let the FOP intervene in the consent decree because it’s the wrong legal venue to deal with the issue. U.S. District Judge Robert Dow approved the consent decree in 2019 after a U.S. Justice Department investigation found the Chicago Police Department routinely violated the rights of Black and Hispanic citizens.
In a text message, Catanzara said he’s “still trying to get our officers paid” — reimbursed — for the P320s they can’t use anymore. He said there’s no resolution to that issue yet, but “we shall see what the consent decree court does, if anything.”