Authorities burn firearms, pot, other seized items

The items melted were from closed drug cases and will never be needed again.

YOUNGSTOWN — About 100 rifles, 200 pistols, more than 100 pounds of marijuana as well as drug paraphernalia and other items and evidence recovered in drug raids were purposely destroyed.

Everything burned Wednesday at V M Star, a Youngstown steel tube maker on Martin Luther King Boulevard, came from those arrested and convicted of drug offenses.

The arrests were made between 2004 and 2006 by the Mahoning Valley Drug Task Force and the Youngstown Police Department’s vice squad, said David McKnight, the lieutenant in charge of the Youngstown vice squad.

All of the items melted Wednesday are from closed cases and will never be needed again, he said.

The items and evidence filled a dozen pallets, McKnight said.

It took about an hour to load the materials into a melting pot at V&M Star, but only a few moments for them to burn, he said.

Besides weapons, marijuana and drug paraphernalia, other items burned Wednesday include ammunition and other drugs, including cocaine, McKnight said.

V&M Star has melted drugs and weapons used in criminal acts and seized by various law enforcement agencies in the past.

The melting pots are so hot that it burns the materials quickly.