As of November, 479 firearms were reported stolen this year in Chattanooga, and most of them were swiped from vehicles.
Over the past three years, 47 percent of stolen guns were taken from a vehicle. Burglary – illegal entry of a building with criminal intent – came in at second place with 27 percent and theft came in third at 13 percent.
“We want people to be responsible gun owners,” Chattanooga Police Department property crimes investigator Sgt. Kevin Akins said. “If you’re a responsible gun owner, you’re going to be locking your stuff up. You’re not going to be leaving it in the car, unattended where it can be stolen and used to commit crimes.”
Stolen guns change hands pretty quickly, said Chattanooga police auto burglary investigator Brad Brown. And they often end up used in a variety of crimes, including homicide, both here in the city and beyond.
“Crime knows no boundaries,” Akins said. ” There’s a lot of responsibility that comes along with owning a gun. But people are negligent and don’t take that responsibility seriously.”
Just last year, Chattanooga police recovered a gun that was stolen from Memphis, Tennessee, and used in a double homicide in Atlanta, Georgia.
“Two kids [died] in a home invasion,” gun unit supervisor Sgt. Josh May said.
Earlier this year on June 14, a man, posing as a maintenance worker, stole a Black Ruger 9mm from behind the counter of the Hi-Tech Fuels gas station at 6804 Shallowford Road.
The victim gave police the factory spent shell casings from the pistol in case the firearm was used in any crimes.
Six days later on June 20, police spotted about three shell casings lying on the ground at 1100 Roanoke Ave. during a traffic stop. No “shots fired” calls had been made in that area that week, but police went ahead and collected the shell casings and they were traced back to the gun stolen from Hi-Tech Fuels.
Another five days passed before police recovered the stolen gun during a traffic stop on North Germantown Road.
Joshua Rucker, a validated gang member, was in possession of the gun and was taken into custody.
That is why police are urging gun owners to properly store their firearms so they don’t end up in the wrong hands.
“Usually, when a gun is stolen, it’s automatically by a bad guy,” Brown said. “So it’s automatically in the wrong hands.”
The most common ways stolen firearms are recovered is during traffic stops, arrests, search warrant executions and through pawn shops, Brown said.
While pawn shop owners and employees aren’t able to detain someone trying to pawn a stolen gun, they do notify police and try to get as much suspect information as possible.
But typically, knowingly stolen guns aren’t pawned. They’re sold on the streets or traded for drugs or other items, May said.
And individual-to-individual sales do not require background checks.
“You have some of these dealers that go to gun shows, and they’ll sell firearms. And unless you have the means to check that gun through a database at that time, you can be buying stolen guns all day,” May said.
Just this year, 903 firearms were recovered by Chattanooga police as of November, though not all of those were reported stolen or used in crimes.
When a gun is recovered, the serial number is run through the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Crime Information Center.
If the gun has been used in a crime, it stays in police custody until the case makes its way through the courts. That’s because the gun is considered evidence and is subject to discovery, the formal exchanging of information between parties about what evidence will be presented at trial.
“We like to notify the owners as soon as we can, to let them know the status of their firearm,” May said. “Just so they can make plans to be a little bit longer without their firearms.”
But if a gun hasn’t been used in a crime, owners can get their firearm back, they just have to go through the background check process again.
“We have to run through a criminal background check, just to make sure they’re still able to possess a firearm,” he said.
If no owner is located, the firearm is stored in the police department’s property crimes division.
One of the main issues police face is people not reporting their gun as stolen or owners not having the serial number.
Without a serial number, the owner has to have some other type of documentation to prove they’re the rightful owner.
“And that’s true with any piece of stolen property,” Akins said. “We have a lot of items that are stolen and people have no model, serial number, anything like that. So it’s not just with guns.”
Contact staff writer Rosana Hughes at rhughes@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6327 with tips or story ideas. Follow her on Twitter @HughesRosana.