New York state lawmakers plan to introduce legislation in January that would require law-enforcement vehicles statewide to be equipped with bulletproof glass, a measure intended to help protect police from ambushes like the one that resulted in the death of two New York City officers over the weekend.
“High-profile people like the governor have this, and police officers deserve it, too,” said state Sen. Phil Boyle, who, along with Sen. Marty Golden, Assemblyman Jim Tedisco and Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, intends to sponsor the bill.
“I think the tragedy in Brooklyn demonstrated that police officers may be most vulnerable when they’re sitting in their vehicles. We want to give them protection and give them a fighting chance,” Mr. Boyle added, referring to the point-blank assassination on Saturday of two New York City police officers who were sitting in their patrol car.
The lawmakers plan to craft the legislation to apply to every level of law enforcement across the state, said Mr. Boyle, who represents portions of Long Island’s Suffolk County, with the first phase of the program directed at the New York Police Department.
He said the lawmakers didn’t yet have a cost estimate for the proposed program but that they intended to produce one soon.
“I don’t think we can put a price on it,” Mr. Boyle added. “We need to protect our law-enforcement officials throughout the state.” The bill’s sponsors suggested that the state use part of a $5 billion windfall from bank settlements to pay for the retrofitting of vehicles.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo , a Democrat, noted in a radio interview on Monday that he had been asked over the weekend about the possibility of installing bulletproof glass in law-enforcement vehicles, but he didn’t indicate whether he might support such a measure.
While all of the bill’s sponsors are Republicans, Mr. Boyle said he “would hope and assume that this would have bipartisan support,” but that he hadn’t yet contacted the governor’s office to solicit his backing.