SHELBY COUNTY, Tenn. —
Despite the announcement on Wednesday that a Memphis Police officer was mabye killed by friendly fire, police do still believe 18-year-old Jaylen Lobley was armed with a Glock switch during the incident as well as his earlier arrest in March.
A Glock switch is a device that can quickly turn a handgun into a semi-automatic machine gun. Possession of one is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
“You can see there’s a little panel on there, and with that they put the switch on top of that after they do some modifications,” said Howie Williams, director of Caliber Firearms Training.
Williams said the Glock switch is an extremely simple device that when attached, dramatically boosts the firing potential of simple handguns.
“Once they do that, they can put a long magazine on, 30, 40 rounds whatever," he said. "Once they press the trigger, all they have to do is hold it, and it cycles it through like a full automatic weapon.”
Experts say the power coming out of the modified device makes it incredibly difficult for someone to hit only the person they are aiming for.
“They'll sit there and press it down or do like that or whatever, while all the ammo is going down range, praying and spraying that it hits their target,” Williams said.
“If you’re gonna have any type of weapon like that, it should be in a box that says 'break glass in case of emergency,'" firearms expert Johnathan Cross said. "We don’t bring that out unless the fecal matter has hit the oscillating propeller.”
Cross said in recent years, it has become easy to manufacture the device on your own,, and the streets have become flooded with them.
“The Glock switch is basically another piece of crack that's just available in the black market,” he said.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said the number of Glock switches seized by law enforcement has risen over 570% since 2017, and that number has continued to rise due to their ease of manufacture.