Panama doubles down on Glock
The Central American country of Panama, home to a large American expatriate community, is purchasing another 5,000 Glock 17s for their national police force.
The background of the PNP
Back in 1903, with a little help from President Teddy Roosevelt, Panama obtained independence from Colombia and the U.S. took over a failing French canal project to join the Atlantic Ocean (via the Caribbean Sea) to the Pacific. With the help of the U.S. military, the new country helped reform its inherited army units into the Policía Nacional de Panamá. This small force, numbering as low as 200 men under arms in the 1920s, kept the peace in the country (along with a significant American military presence), even engaging in a small-scale border war with Costa Rica.
When the Panamanian National Guard (Guardia Nacional de Panamá) was established in 1952, the PNP took a back seat to the larger military force until Manuel Noriega merged the two in the Fuerzas de Defensa de Panamá (Panama Defense Forces) in the 1980s. Backed by the U.S., the PDF received a lot of surplus Vietnam-era gear from the Pentagon.
Then came Operation Just Cause.
U.S. Army M-113 near the destroyed Panamanian Defense Force headquarters Operation Just Cause, 21 December 1989
In 1990, with Noriega arrested on drug charges and the PDF dismantled after a brief but sharp invasion by 27,000 U.S. troops, the PNP was restructured and largely disarmed. Most of the military-grade weapons were impounded and the police force issued with a number of Smith and Wesson Model 10 .38s shipped in from U.S. military storage– mostly former USAF guns. These guns were augmented by additional Taurus-made K-frames in the mid-1990s and a few semi-autos (PT-99s).
Today the 22,000 officers of the PNP serve as the police, border control, and defense forces for the country of 3.8 million, which includes an estimated 25,000 Americans who live in the former U.S. Canal Zone.
Enter Glock
In 2011, the PNP looked to replace half of their armory with new guns and moved to do so by purchasing 13,000 Glock 17 9mms. The cost of these guns was $7.6 million, or about $580 a pop. Of course, it included two mags and a cleaning kit for each gun and marking each extensively with a national crest and PNP motto plus training, support and spare parts.
Now, the PNP is looking to bring more Glocks on board as cops are in many cases underarmed.
