IAPE Evidence Blog

LIN Tele­vi­sion Cor­po­ra­tion, KRQE, krqe.com
Reporter: Dean Sta­ley
Pro­ducer: Jason Aus­lan­der
Link to Arti­cle
One Video

Truth or Con­se­quences, NM

Unneeded shot­guns, assault rifles sold to public

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES (KRQE) — In the sum­mer of 2010, the Truth or Con­se­quences Police Depart­ment was hurt­ing for funds.

So Chief Patrick Gal­lagher had one of his lieu­tenants round up all the guns in the department’s evi­dence room that had been used in sui­cides, dropped off over the years for safe­keep­ing or were no longer needed for crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions, and sold them to the pub­lic at an auc­tion in Las Cruces.

And that would have been per­fectly legal had Gal­lagher fol­lowed state law. But he didn’t.

In fact, the chief and his depart­ment com­pletely ignored all three things they were sup­posed to do under New Mex­ico law before sell­ing the weapons.

Gal­lagher said that if he made mis­takes with the auc­tion, he will make sure to toe the legal line if the depart­ment decides to sell off guns again.

“This auc­tion was not con­ducted with any mali­cious or nefar­i­ous intent in mind,” Gal­lagher said in a news release. “If we become aware of any errors or mis­takes made in the process they will be rectified.”

Sources told News 13 that Attor­ney Gen­eral Gary King’s office has launched an inves­ti­ga­tion into T or C’s gun auc­tion, though a spokesper­son refused to con­firm or deny the inquiry.

State law says that in order to dis­pose of or destroy weapons, law enforce­ment agen­cies must first adver­tise to try and find the orig­i­nal own­ers. Then the agency has to con­tact a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the state muse­ums, who must be allowed to inspect the guns for any his­tor­i­cal value. Finally, the depart­ment must obtain an order from a Dis­trict Court judge autho­riz­ing the disposal.

Gal­lagher admit­ted he didn’t do any of those things before send­ing 87 hand­guns, rifles, assault rifles and shot­guns to an auc­tion­eer in Las Cruces. A group of reg­is­tered gun deal­ers and gun afi­ciona­dos cleared by law enforce­ment bought the weapons June 26, 2010 at an auc­tion in Las Cruces, accord­ing to doc­u­ments obtained by News 13.

Less than a month later, T or C police received a check for $10, 451 from auc­tion­eer Charles Dick­er­son for the guns, accord­ing to the documents.

In addi­tion to admit­ting he didn’t fol­low the law, Gal­lagher told News 13 he wasn’t con­cerned about putting more guns back on the streets of New Mexico.

And he’s not alone.

The Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Office reg­u­larly sells evi­dence room guns at auc­tion, accord­ing to a spokesper­son. How­ever, the agency fol­lows the para­me­ters set out in state law before sell­ing the guns, she said.

But police chiefs in the state’s three largest cities told News 13 they are con­cerned about sell­ing evi­dence room guns to the pub­lic. In fact, depart­ments in Santa Fe, Albu­querque and Las Cruces fol­low poli­cies call­ing for the destruc­tion of weapons that are no longer needed.

APD went so far as to buy a specially-designed gun-muncher a few years ago that slices the weapons in half, ren­der­ing them for­ever inoperable.

“I think it’s the last thing any­body would want is to have a firearm that was in our pos­ses­sion that some­how got sold and then some­how ended up in the wrong person’s hands and then was used in a crime,” said Albu­querque Police Chief Ray Schultz.

Schultz said APD stopped sell­ing weapons from the evi­dence room to the pub­lic more than 30 years ago.

“If they can be destroyed, let’s destroy it because, unfor­tu­nately, there’s many, many more out there in the wrong hands,” he said. “It’s not worth tak­ing the chance and we don’t need the money that bad.”

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

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 Jack­son Sun, jacksonsun.com

Jack­son, TN

We fail to see the advan­tage of a new state law forc­ing police agen­cies to sell con­fis­cated weapons, putting them back on the street. Many law enforce­ment offi­cials don’t like the idea. And a recent non-scientific poll con­ducted by The Jack­son Sun showed more than 58 per­cent of respon­ders want con­fis­cated weapons destroyed, not sold. The new law ties the hands of law enforce­ment offi­cials and should be repealed.

The pre­vi­ous law allowed indi­vid­ual law enforce­ment agen­cies to choose how to deal with con­fis­cated weapons. At var­i­ous times, agen­cies have taken dif­fer­ent approaches to suit their indi­vid­ual needs. It makes no sense to limit their choices.

The new law requires work­ing firearms to be sold. The law also requires the pro­ceeds to be used for law enforce­ment oper­a­tions. Under the old law, funds from sold weapons often made their way into com­mu­nity gen­eral funds. The new law is seen as an oppor­tu­nity to save money. Gun owner rights groups also point out that as long as the weapons are legal, sell­ing them through proper chan­nels makes sense, helps reduce the cost of gov­ern­ment and pre­vents gov­ern­ment inter­fer­ence with gun-owner rights.

The Jack­son Police Depart­ment has a pol­icy to destroy con­fis­cated weapons. The Madi­son County Sheriff’s Depart­ment has both destroyed and sold weapons in the past. This is a deci­sion best made by law enforce­ment officials.

The leg­is­la­tion was spon­sored by state Sen. Doug Jack­son, D-Dickson, last year and passed the House and Sen­ate by over­whelm­ing majori­ties. Law­mak­ers see the mea­sure as sav­ing tax­pay­ers money.

The new law came under scrutiny recently when two high-profile shoot­ings at the Pen­ta­gon and a Las Vegas cour­t­house were com­mit­ted with guns con­fis­cated by Mem­phis area law enforce­ment and resold. We don’t know how much rev­enue the gun sales gen­er­ated for Mem­phis tax­pay­ers, but they now have cost tax­pay­ers in Las Vegas and Wash­ing­ton, D.C., many more times that, and they have led to human death and injury.

In Jack­son, the com­mu­nity has been besieged by shoot­ings and has res­i­dents wor­ried about going out in pub­lic. Forc­ing police to put even one more gun on the streets is inex­cus­able and is no way to help fight crime. We are not will­ing to accept a few dol­lars of rev­enue from gun sales at the expense of pub­lic safety.

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