LAPD launches probe into alleged resale of weapons by SWAT officers

LA Times

The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating whether members of its elite SWAT unit took advantage of their assignments to purchase large numbers of specially-made handguns and resell the weapons for steep profits, according to a report released Friday by the independent watchdog overseeing the department.

The allegations, if true, could be a violation of federal firearm laws and city ethics regulations.

The ongoing inquiry is the LAPD’s second attempt to understand what happened with the handguns. Police officials opened the investigation only after Inspector General Alex Bustamante raised concerns that a previous attempt to look into the gun dealings had been badly “deficient,” according to Bustamante’s report.

Because the initial investigation was so lacking, little is known about the gun sales. Bustamante’s report, which will be presented to the L.A. Police Commission on Tuesday, was based on the initial, substandard inquiry and so could not answer basic questions about the allegations, including how many officers were involved, the number of guns sold and when the sales were carried out. The LAPD’s current investigation is expected to be completed in about a month, Bustamante wrote in his report.

Suspicion about the guns first arose in 2010, when the commanding officer of the LAPD’s Metropolitan Division, which includes SWAT, ordered an inventory of the division’s firearms, the report said. The officer responsible for conducting the count discovered that SWAT members had purchased between 51 and 324 pistols from the gun manufacturer Kimber and were “possibly reselling them to third parties for large profits,” according to the report.

There would probably have been no problem if the officers had purchased the guns for personal use. However, with only about 60 officers in the unit, the possibility that a few hundred guns were purchased has raised concerns.

Kimber sold the guns, which bore a special “LAPD SWAT” insignia, to members of the unit for about $600 each — a steep discount from their resale value of between $1,600 and $3,500, the report said. The unique SWAT gun branding was first made several years earlier, when the department contracted with Kimber for a one-time purchase of 144 of the pistols.

During the inventory, the officer also discovered that two companies not affiliated with the LAPD — Cinema Weaponry and Lucas Ranch Gun Sales — were involved in the transactions with Kimber. Unbeknownst to the gun manufacturer, Cinema Weaponry was involved in the purchase of the handguns, while Lucas Ranch Gun Sales was charging fees “for facilitating the transfer of the pistols from Kimber to officers,” according to the report.

Jim Manhire, who owns Lucas Ranch, said in an interview that the SWAT officers relied on him, as a registered gun dealer, to complete the state and federal registration process that must be done for all weapons. The .45-caliber guns, he said, were purchased by the officers directly from Kimber and shipped from the manufacturer to Manhire. After he had registered the weapons, the officers picked them up, Manhire said.

Manhire could not recall how many officers had him register guns and was unaware whether the officers then resold the weapons. He denied that he was paid to register the guns, saying that he only received reimbursement from the officers for registration fees charged by authorities.