My attention thoroughly captured, I read on. “…(N)ews that a weapon is being marketed with an ‘SIS’ serration — a clear reference to the LAPD — was met with criticism from city and civil rights leaders. ‘It is very disturbing,’ said Councilman Jack Weiss. ‘If any member of the public is shot with one of these guns or, heaven forbid, a cop is shot with one of these guns, what would be the explanation?’ … ‘There is something fundamentally wrong with the commercial sales of these highly specialized weapons to the public,’ said civil rights attorney Carol Sobel.”

I looked over at the counter where three of these pistols, Kimber SIS .45 autos, sat. I don’t usually talk to inanimate objects, but I couldn’t resist saying, “Fellas, I like you more than ever now.”
You see, the guns weren’t just named after SIS, LAPD’s Special Investigation Section, they were designed by SIS members. Staffed by crème de la crème street-proven detectives with extra-intense training in armed police combat, the SIS unit has collectively shot a bunch of bad guys in circumstances that desperately called for it, killing some 37 of them.

Established in 1965, the unit became famous for shadowing known bad guys and stepping in when they committed violent crimes. It was crème de la crème versus scum de la scum, and predictably, the crème de la crème overwhelmingly won. During that same period, only one SIS member was killed in a gunfight (Detective Curtis Hagele while intervening in a 1980 bank robbery, RIP), and only two wounded. Several years ago, the then-head of LAPD firearms training told me SIS led the department in hit ratio on the street, with more than 90 percent of their shots fired in gunfights striking the bad guys.

Perhaps due to the strong Hollywood influence, there has long been a strain of “la-la land thinking” among many Angelenos, which has convinced them violent criminals are somehow a protected species, and any use of necessary force against them by law enforcement must somehow automatically be “police brutality.”
It seems the pleasure of owning a pistol that ticks these people off is reason enough to buy one. Fortunately, the Kimber SIS also turns out to be one heckuva 1911 .45 auto.

What’s unique about the SIS pistol is it was people in the unit, not in the gun company, who came up with the idea of the very specific handgun they wanted. They approached Kimber, whom they found very receptive, and a couple of years later the SIS pistol series was a reality.

To understand the features SIS spec’d, we have to go back through the history of firearms available to the Special Investigation Section over its 30-plus years of history. In the very beginning, these detectives were limited to Colt and Smith & Wesson revolvers chambered for the .38 Special cartridge, just like every other cop on LAPD. Many LA cops carried the 6" S&W K-38 by choice, and the blue steel 4" version, the Model 15 Combat Masterpiece, was standard issue. Some detectives carried 2" snubs, and those were pretty much standard for off-duty and backup throughout the department.

When LAPD’s pioneering SWAT team was developed in the late 1960s, the department modeled off the military and armed them with Remington Model 700 .308 precision rifles, M16s, and 1911 .45 automatics. (Shotguns and HK MP5 submachine guns would also find their way into the mix) Since both special units were highly likely to be involved in shootings, there was inevitable cross-training.

Working plainclothes for surveillance purposes, SIS realized early on its people would be relying on concealable handguns far more often than long guns in comparison to SWAT, and received permission to use the same handguns as the Special Weapons and Tactics Team. These 1911s came from the same source: pistols, mostly if not entirely Colts, taken out of the property room after confiscation on the street and subsequently worked over expertly by department armorers.

Restricted Use?

However, their use of these guns was restricted. During those years, LAPD SWAT cops were allowed to carry their .45s only on callouts, and not on other assignments and not off duty. Similarly, SIS detectives required permission to strap on a .45 instead of a .38 during this period, and permission was only granted if the detectives in question were heading out on a particularly high-risk operation.

In the mid-1980s, the SIS section was issued .45 autos for constant carry, the newly introduced Smith & Wesson Model 645. These big, double-action first-shot pistols worked out well, and were followed by updated third-generation Model 4506 and Model 4566 S&W .45s. Many detectives also bought their own compact 4516s.

These weren’t special purpose guns. The S&W was official issue and daily carry for SIS. The unit’s adoption of the Smith .45 was a harbinger of things to come. After the North Hollywood Bank Robbery and the hellacious shootout between LAPD street cops and the machinegun-armed punks Phillips and Matasereanu, public support swung back to the cops enough the Department conceded to long-standing demand from the union, the LA Police Protective League, and authorized privately-owned double-action .45 autos for the rank and file. The S&W was the overwhelming choice, and was soon almost the unofficial standard pistol of the elite Metro unit in lieu of the Beretta 9mm standard issue in the late ’80s for LAPD.

Circa 2001, the SIS decided if nine .45 ACP rounds were good, 14 might be better, and the Glock 21 was adopted. They became the first LAPD cops to carry Glocks, more than a year before new chief William Bratton, a Glock fan himself, authorized Glocks department-wide. The Glock 21 remains the official standard issue pistol for the Special Investigation Section at this time.

Meanwhile, modern SIS detectives now had three decades of operational experience. Their purview included kidnapping cases, and interruption of armed robberies in progress. They had learned they would often have to direct their shots precisely through narrow corridors of fire between innocents in “bystander-rich environments.”

Surgical accuracy under life-threatening pressure was one of their mission parameters. Training constantly, they knew why LAPD SWAT was so happy with their 1911s, and why FBI’s SWAT teams and elite Hostage Rescue Team had gone in the same direction with single action .45s: the short, consistent trigger pull, coupled with ergonomic grip shape and grip-to-barrel angle, was optimum for precision shots delivered rapidly when there was no room for error. SIS began to look again at the 1911 .45.

Circa 2002, LAPD SWAT abandoned their motley collection of recovered and refurbished Colt pistols and adopted Kimbers developed to their specifications. Each SWAT cop had been issued two, one with and one without attached white light module. SIS historically trained heavily with SWAT, and by the 21st Century was also working with them more than ever. Stung by false assertions of “Death Squad” mentality arising from media misinterpretation of the unit’s high number of gunfights, LAPD had encouraged a more frequent involvement of the SWAT team in predictable heavy arrest situations arising out of SIS investigations.

Since SWAT was delighted with the performance of their Kimbers, a couple of the Section’s people were tasked with approaching Kimber for a specific model suited to their needs. I’ve spoken with both. One is still working SIS and can’t be named here. The other is Marc Fleischmann, who is now retired from LAPD and SIS. The SIS people reached out specifically to two master 1911 ’smiths who also have extensive field operation experience, Larry Vickers (military special forces) and Hilton Yam (police SWAT), whose advice they say contributed greatly to the overall outcome.

The gun was purpose designed. The SIS record over the years may have been 37-to-1 in fatal shootings, but one dead and two wounded team members were a constant, scar-tissue reminder bullets go in both directions in a gunfight. It was critical to the team members the guns be instantly functional with either hand, and operable in every way one-hand-only by a wounded officer.

Thus, the parameters of the design mandated an ambidextrous thumb safety, a rear sight with a high enough profile it could be deliberately hooked against belt or holster to “jack” the slide one-handed and a standard John M. Browning short recoil spring guide so the bottom edge of the slide could be rammed against a heel or a steering wheel to cycle the slide. A standard 18-pound recoil spring was specified. The trigger was to be solid, not skeletal. Big, bright night sights from Kimber affiliate MeproLight would be part of the fixed front post and big rear sight unit.

Law Interferes

An internal firing pin lock was not initially part of the spec sheet, either, until bureaucracy got in the way. Los Angeles is, of course, part and parcel of a place often called by its own residents the PRK, or People’s Republic of Kalifornia. Part of the state’s Draconian collection of gun laws now requires passive firing pin locks on semiauto pistols acquired privately as opposed to governmental purchase.

The Los Angeles city government wasn’t buying these guns for SIS, though the Department had OK’d them as privately owned, department-approved guns for duty use by Section members. The operative term here was “privately owned.” This meant the guns would need Kimber’s Series II treatment, a resurrection of the Swartz-type firing pin safety of the 1930s working off the grip safety. Guns sold to the public in the SIS series will have the original sight developed for the Section, and will come without the passive firing pin safety.
Each pistol comes with a Pro-Tac magazine, partly made by the company and partly by a vendor Kimber is cagey about naming. The magazine well is slightly relieved for speed-loading. The laminate grips are a style I haven’t seen before. They’re stippled instead of checkered and they’re stippled in the right places. Perhaps as a “style thing,” Kimber took it upon itself to make the slide’s grasping grooves in the shape of billboard-like letters reading “SIS.”

A conventional recoil spring guide is used along with an
18-pound recoil spring. It, too, was chosen so the slide can be
racked one-handed by pressing the lower section of the slide
against ahard surface. The SIS Government 1911 can be
ordered with or without a light rail.

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