Skowhegan Police Chief David Bucknam will seek bids to replace his department’s nearly 60-year-old rifles with new AR-15s, the Morning Sentinel reported.
The force’s Vietnam-era rifles are also AR-15s, albeit much older, on loan from the federal government, the newspaper reported. Bucknam told the Sentinel that by sticking with the same style rifle when purchasing new ones, police would be able to make a “quick and efficient” transition.
The town will buy 15 of the new rifles — one for each local police officer. Local voters in 2018 approved using surplus funds for the purchase, and the police department also has $18,000 in its reserve account for firearms, the Sentinel reported.