When Corporal Matthew Seymour’s phone rings at 2:00 a.m., it’s usually the Canine Unit’s fault. “I hate to say it because they have the hardest jobs in the agency, but they’re our biggest problem.” Seymour, who works in the Training Unit, is also an armorer for the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO). As such he is responsible for the functionality of every firearm our deputies carry. Our K-9s will happily follow suspects through creeks, swamps, and lakes, and where the dogs go, the handlers follow – along with all of their equipment. “They’ll come in here completely drenched, covered head to toe in muck.” There’s water and mud in every crevice, including in their firearm. “When a call starts with K3 went into the water I know it’s going to take at least an hour or two to clean them up.”
There’s an armorer on call 24 hours a day for situations like that. A deputy always needs a functioning service weapon so if anything gets damaged, even in the middle of the night, an armorer has to respond to either fix the problem or issue a new firearm.
When K-9 deputies aren’t running through swamps, the armorers have plenty to keep them busy. Every year, each deputy has to qualify in every firearm they carry. Before they do this, they have to turn in each one for inspection. That amounts to a lot of weapons to check. Patrol deputies are issued a Glock 21, a rifle, and Taser, and might also have a shotgun. Some deputies have a lot more than that though. They could be authorized to carry an approved personally owned alternative firearm as their primary or backup weapon, or have weapons specific to their position.
“The ones who have multiple are usually in a specialized unit, not your standard patrol deputy,” Corporal Seymour said. “It might be your Narcotics guys, or the Tactical Investigations Unit. SWAT may have their duty Glock 21, their SWAT gun which is usually a 9 mm with an optic, and then they have an off duty gun as well.” A detective who usually wears a suit instead of a uniform with a sturdy duty belt might carry a smaller gun more suitable to their clothes. All of these guns have to be inspected each year.
“We check and verify the serial numbers, and then we do preventative maintenance and inspection,” he said. “We check all of the moving parts – springs, levers, buttons – to make sure everything is lubricated properly and no parts have to be replaced or repaired. If there are electronics, like in optics, we make sure the batteries are good. Then the member collects their weapons and goes to the range to qualify.”
One thing they don’t do during the annual inspections is thoroughly clean the gun. They’ll clean the parts that a deputy isn’t allowed to access, but as for the rest, that falls on the deputy. Corporal Seymour said that recruits are all taught how to disassemble, clean, and maintain their weapons, and are expected to take care of them. They are allowed to disassemble their handgun into the four basic parts, but only an armorer can break it down any farther. “We will make sure that all the crevices deep inside are clean, because that’s something they can’t get to.”
Some units face unique challenges in keeping their gear clean. No matter how well they clean their firearm, the saltwater that our Marine and Environmental Lands Unit deputies encounter can damage their gun. They’re given special cleaning supplies and encouraged to clean their firearms more often. If the gun is ever completely submerged in salt water, though, the armorer would have to take it completely apart.
Other equipment like handcuffs is checked during line inspections by the deputy’s sergeant, not by the armorer. The armorers focus on firearms, but they will also look at the less lethal weapons such as Tasers, beanbag shotguns, and pepper ball launchers. Corporal Seymour doesn’t enjoy working with the pepper ball launchers, which use compressed gas to fire an irritating projectile. “I fix things that explode, but these are all O-rings and air.”
It's very rare for a deputy to fire their weapon in the line of duty, but Corporal Seymour says deputies have the opportunity to do plenty of training at the range. “I’d say we train more than most other agencies in the state,” he said. “The sheriff offers more open range time and more firearm training time than anybody else. Some agencies require members to buy their own ammunition to practice, but the sheriff says no, come to open range day and shoot.” PCSO deputies keep their skills sharp and their weapons ready to keep the community safe.
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