IAPE Evidence Blog

The Com­mer­cial Appeal (Mem­phis, TN) Final Edi­tion
BYLINE: Cindy Wolff / wolff@commercialappeal.com

Shelby County, TN

Sher­iff packs up con­fis­cated firearms for recy­cling by sale or trade

The weapons ranged from pis­tols no big­ger than a child’s hand to weighty AK-47s, which looked much more threatening.

They were all tagged, piled into bar­rels and boxes and hauled away from the Crim­i­nal Court Clerk’s prop­erty room Mon­day morning.

The guns had been used as evi­dence in tri­als. The clerk kept them until all appeals were exhausted on charges involv­ing the weapons. That’s when they’re handed over to the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office.

Since 2006, the sher­iff has destroyed all guns it receives from the state courts, but a state law that went into effect this month says that the sher­iff will have to sell or trade all weapons that are iden­ti­fi­able by ser­ial num­ber, are safe and are in work­ing condition.

That means weapons such as the 40-caliber Hi-Point hand­gun used by Leon Wil­son to kill Mar­quett Crump in Jan­u­ary 2006 can be sold to a licensed gun dealer. The gun was in Monday’s batch. Wil­son entered a guilty plea for second-degree mur­der and was sen­tenced to 15 years.

A national report last month traced two weapons used in a shoot­ing at the Pen­ta­gon and another in a Las Vegas court­room back to Mem­phis, where they were sold by the city and the Sheriff’s Office per a court order.

Before this month, local law enforce­ment offi­cials decided whether to keep, destroy, trade or sell weapons that came under their juris­dic­tion. The new law removes the choice.

The bill, which passed in the leg­is­la­ture with lit­tle debate, had been sought by the National Rifle Asso­ci­a­tion, accord­ing to its House and Sen­ate sponsors.

Some agen­cies, includ­ing the Mem­phis Police Depart­ment, have sold or traded weapons back to the man­u­fac­tur­ers for years.

Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Bill Gib­bons said he has prob­lems with putting guns that were con­fis­cated in a crime back on the street.

Before the law went into effect, any weapon con­fis­cated through the Ten­nessee Drug Task Force was destroyed, Gib­bons said. For now, he’s going to stock­pile the weapons to see if he can per­suade leg­is­la­tors to leave the deci­sion to each agency.

Sher­iff Mark Lut­trell also said he plans to talk to state leg­is­la­tors to see if the new law can be reversed.

It took nearly three hours Mon­day to inven­tory the 273 hand­guns and 73 long guns. Four peo­ple wear­ing rub­ber gloves popped out clips, looked inside cham­bers and read off ser­ial num­bers to make sure all were accounted for.

Rugers, mixed with Glocks, mixed with Tec-9 auto­mat­ics were piled in eight boxes that weighed 50 to 60 pounds.

There were tiny guns, includ­ing a pretty one with a pink, pearl handle.

The rifles, the sawed-off shot­guns with their duct-taped han­dles, were stuffed into two plas­tic bar­rels. The arse­nal was wheeled out of the prop­erty room by mem­bers of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Firearms Train­ing Unit.

The unit will check each gun to see if it’s in work­ing order and safe. Some will be traded to man­u­fac­tur­ers for credit toward weapons for the depart­ment, the sher­iff said.

The rest will be sold to deal­ers licensed by the fed­eral Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explo­sives, Lut­trell said.

Pro­ceeds will be used to buy safety equip­ment for the deputies, he said.

Mem­phis Mayor A C Whar­ton has spo­ken out against the new law.

He said he plans to look at MPD’s pol­icy of sell­ing the weapons to see if they could be destroyed instead.

- Cindy Wolff: 529‑2378

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

The Lima News (Ohio)
BYLINE: Bob Blake, The Lima News, Ohio

Put­nam County, OH

For­mer police chief must pay $2K restitution

Mar. 27 – OTTAWA — A for­mer Put­nam County police chief was sen­tenced to spend the next year in jail. The for­mer top cop won’t start serv­ing that sen­tence just yet.

A jury in Jan­u­ary con­victed For­est Gor­don, the for­mer police chief in Kalida and Ottawa, on two counts of theft in office. Vis­it­ing Judge David Webb, of Pauld­ing County, ordered Gor­don to serve a year in jail, pay nearly $2,000 in resti­tu­tion and barred him from ever hold­ing a pub­lic office again.

Gor­don had lit­tle to say.

“I would like to apol­o­gize for this mess,” Gor­don said. “I really don’t know what to say. I’m try­ing to get my life back together.”

Asked if he had any­thing else to add before the judge announced his sen­tence, Gor­don said, “I’ll leave it in your hands.”

Webb ordered Gor­don to report to the Sheriff’s Office on April 12 to begin serv­ing the sen­tence. How­ever, Webb granted an appel­late bond allow­ing Gor­don to remain free while he pur­sues an appeal of his con­vic­tion. Gor­don has been free on an own recog­ni­zance bond through­out the case.

Gordon’s attor­ney, Stephen Cham­ber­lain, argued that Gordon’s lack of a crim­i­nal record and years of ser­vice in the com­mu­nity meant he shouldn’t be sent to jail.

“When I took this case on I was kind of amazed at how far this has gone and how much time, energy was expended on this case — how much time and energy Mr. Gordon’s had to expend defend­ing him­self,” Cham­ber­lain said.

“Obvi­ously, it didn’t come out the way we antic­i­pated it. Frankly, it’s some­thing I didn’t believe was correct.”

The charges against Gor­don, 44, stemmed from the ille­gal sale of firearms from the prop­erty room of the Ottawa Police Depart­ment as well as the theft of equip­ment belong­ing to the Kalida Police Depart­ment that Gor­don kept when he left for the Ottawa job.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

The Wash­ing­ton Post, The Crime Scene, washingtonpost.com
BYLINE: Matt Zapo­to­sky
Link to Article

Prince George County, MD

Mary­land State Police inves­ti­ga­tors on Tues­day took from Prince George’s County police more than 100 guns that had been seized by a state-run firearms task force as part of an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion into a task force detec­tive sus­pected of steal­ing guns and sell­ing them on the street, accord­ing to sources famil­iar with the investigation.

The move was to ensure that all of the rest of the guns seized by the Prince George’s Firearms Inter­dic­tion Task Force were in the police prop­erty room as they should be, and at least pre­lim­i­nar­ily, it seems they all were, accord­ing to the sources, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymity because the inves­ti­ga­tion is ongoing.

Inves­ti­ga­tors are still prob­ing what hap­pened to 23 guns that had been seized by a task force detec­tive and are now miss­ing, sources said. Those guns appar­ently never made it to the Prince George’s County police prop­erty room as they should have.

Detec­tive Juan Carter was sus­pended late last year. Sources famil­iar with the inves­ti­ga­tion said inves­ti­ga­tors are look­ing into whether he stole guns he had seized and sold them back on the street. One of the guns, sources said, appears to have been used in the shoot­ing of off-duty Prince George’s County police offi­cer Eric Horne in September.

Maj. Andrew Ellis, a Prince George’s County police spokesman, con­firmed that Mary­land State Police inves­ti­ga­tors had taken from the Prince George’s County Police Department’s prop­erty room all the guns seized by the task force, though he said he thought the mat­ter was some­what routine.

For months, Ellis said, Prince George’s County has not had an offi­cer work­ing on the task force, and it only made sense for the state police to have cus­tody of guns seized by their investigators.

Greg Ship­ley, a spokesman for the Mary­land State Police, said he could not con­firm or deny whether the state police had reclaimed guns seized by the task force. He said the task force still oper­ates in Prince George’s County under the umbrella of the Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explo­sives, though it includes no mem­bers from the Prince George’s County Police Department.

– Matt Zapotosky

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org