Upper Darby PA Police Sold Confiscated Guns to "Lethal Lou's" and other dealers.

(Note that one of the gun dealers mentioned in this article, Lou’s Loans, has been referred to as “Lethal Lou’s” and was sued by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. ATF revoked its license to sell guns in 2006.)

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Seized guns resold by police

Upper Darby's department is under investigation for past sales of confiscated and surrendered weapons to shops.

(The full article is too long to post, so here’s the link: http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_top/20070520_Seized_guns_resold_by_police.html )

Hundreds of guns seized by Upper Darby police are back in circulation, many after police supplied them to two of the region's most notorious gun shops, The Inquirer has learned.

These guns included illegal sawed-off shotguns and assault rifles. Just last month, special-education students found one of Upper Darby's confiscated guns as they collected litter near their school.

One of the dealers who sold Upper Darby's weapons is now in prison for selling guns to felons. "I don't care if you kill a cop," he told an undercover federal agent wearing a wire.

The second shop owner lost his license after authorities linked guns he sold to 19 Philadelphia homicides, including the killing of a police officer.

"This involves hundreds of guns," said retired police detective Ray Britt, one of four current and former officers who told The Inquirer that police routinely resold seized firearms.

"Lots of people knew it was happening, and some officers tried to stop it," Britt said. "But it went on for years."

<snip>

Under Pennsylvania law, police departments may resell seized or donated guns. In this case, ATF agents are trying to determine whether the proceeds from the guns went back to the township - or into the pockets of the officers, sources said.

An ATF spokesman declined to comment.

Upper Darby Police Chief Michael Chitwood said an ATF agent had visited him two weeks ago. He said he was cooperating.

"I have not seen anything - anything - that says that the Upper Darby Police Department illegally took guns out of here and sold them to anybody else," said Chitwood, who became chief of the 127-member force in August 2005, after all the transfers apparently had stopped.

But he added: "What happened prior to me coming here, I'm not responsible for, I wasn't involved in, I don't know."

Vincent J. Ficchi was Upper Darby's police chief for 11 years before retiring in July 2005. He did not respond to phone calls and visits to his homes in Upper Darby and Somers Point, N.J.

<snip>

Sales worried some officers

In interviews, several current and former Upper Darby officers said the practice had troubled them.

"I tried to stop it," said one officer who asked not to be identified because he feared repercussions. He said a supervisor had told him to mind his own business.

"They beat you down. After a while, you try to justify it. You get to thinking what they're doing is OK. But I wake up at night worrying about where the guns went."

Harry T. Davis, a retired senior Upper Darby officer, called it a "a moral issue."
"It sickens me," he said of the gun selling.

Britt, the former detective, said the department had kept seized guns in haphazard fashion, many dumped in cardboard boxes on the second floor of police headquarters. Officers came and went with no controls on what they carried out, Britt said.

And Davis, an accountant by training, said the department's record-keeping was abysmal. "There's no chain of evidence in Upper Darby," he said.

Britt said gun seizures increased dramatically after 2001, when patrol officers were asked to confiscate weapons whenever there was a domestic dispute.

"The patrol officers would say, 'We're going to take your guns until you cool down,' " Britt said.

"Officers would bring armloads to the second-floor detective room," he said. "I've seen as many as 20 to 25 guns come in at a time.

The guns typically were not returned, Britt said. If owners complained, he said, they were told that they'd have to spend a lot of money hiring lawyers and getting a court order.

Upper Darby had no trouble finding outlets for guns.

<snip>

According to one ATF document, a senior Upper Darby officer, Capt. George Rhoades, said police had supplied weapons to three gun shops.

One of them was Lou's Loans on 69th Street in Upper Darby, known for more than a decade as a problematic gun dealer.

Between 1995 and 1997, the ATF traced 111 guns used in Philadelphia crimes to Lou's.

Later, ATF agents traced weapons sold there to 19 Philadelphia homicides, including the 1996 murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Lauretha Vaird.

Finally, in July 2006, ATF revoked Lou's federal gun license.

Soon afterward, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence issued a report on the shop, titled "Lethal Lou's." It quoted Rhoades.

"Every time you turn around another crime is being committed with a Lou's gun," he said. "If Lou's tightened their sales even a little bit, how many people would have been saved?"

Reached this month, Rhoades declined to be interviewed.

<snip>

A frightening find

In mid-April, a group of students from the Kanner Learning Center, a school for mentally challenged children in West Whiteland Township, were on a nature walk outside the school.

As part of their walks, the students collect trash thrown from cars using nearby Boot Road and Kirkland Avenue.

Hidden in a plastic shopping bag dumped in the brush, the children found a pistol.

West Whiteland Police Chief Ralph Burton called the discovery "very scary," the kind of thing that every parent fears.

When West Whiteland police traced the gun, they learned that it had once been owned by a suicidal woman in another town. Her worried family had wanted to get it out of her hands. So they called their local police, who took it.

That police department?

Upper Darby.

That's like quartermasters in a war zone selling guns and ammo to insurgents on the side. I've heard that happens a lot in many conflicts. Granted, if this hadn't been going on, some criminals would've just found other venues but... the Upper Darby PD made it so easy, they simply didn't have to bother.

I snipped this paragraph for length:

On Friday, the Delaware County District Attorney's Office, citing new information provided by The Inquirer, referred the matter to the Pennsylvania attorney general for investigation.

The worst part is that they had to know that Lou's was, shall we say, not the best place to sell confiscated weapons. There is a police substation on the next block and the main police station is relatively close.

When I was young and naive, I used to stop at Lou's on my way home from college (it is across the street from the subway terminal) to buy harmonicas. It is unsettling to think that the guy standing next to me might have been buying confiscated guns. As I said, young and naive at the time. Neither remains true.

Get guns into the hands of criminals so they can commit crimes and keep the police busy. It promotes full employment. I thought liberals supported the idea of government created jobs, artificially created demand and so forth to promote full employment.