43
YPD gun reports rise in 2017
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
It was just 4 a.m. Jan. 1 as officers on the police department’s midnight turn were wrapping up a busy New Year’s Eve and New Year’s morning when they took a Hi Point .380-caliber handgun from a car during a traffic stop at East Boston Avenue and Shady Run Road on the South Side.
That stop, the 86th police call of the young new year, was the first of more than 400 guns police took reports for in 2017, up from 390 in 2016, according to property reports.
Not all of the 402 guns police took as of Dec. 19 were the result of criminal activity. Some were stolen and recovered, such as a handgun taken in August 1996 from a home on East Marion Avenue on the South Side that was recovered May 31 by Cincinnati police.
Others were turned in by residents who found them; some were taken by police for safekeeping, such as when a person died or if police were called to a home and were asked to take the firearm with them.
The number of felony gun cases filed in municipal court also increased in 2017, as 131 felony gun charges were presented by prosecutors compared with 110 in 2016. The No. 1 felony gun offense was being a felon in possession of a firearm, with 60 people facing that charge in 2017 as opposed to 54 people in 2016.
The majority of guns, however, were taken as the result of criminal activity, and the most popular model gun was the 9 mm, of which 107 were cataloged by police in 2017. The second most popular was the .40-caliber handgun, of which 46 were listed.
Those were also the two most popular guns police came into contact with in 2016, with 88 and 55 taken, respectively.
Bob Miller, head of the Youngstown office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the 9 mm is is the most common in circulation and its ammunition is cheap and plentiful.
He said for several years, when police in the 1990s began switching their weapons from revolvers to 9mm firearms, the gun was popular with law enforcement, and often the gun market follows trends set by police.
City Police Chief Robin Lees said the fact the gun carries between 12 to 15 bullets makes it popular on the streets.
“Nine millimeters are usually, depending on the brand, less expensive, but they are still an automatic firing pistol, which is what everybody wants to be seen with, and usually they can carry larger-capacity magazines,” Lees said.
Lees said other guns, such as a .45-caliber, are more expensive and can only carry 7 to 10 bullets a clip. Some .40-caliber handguns also carry only 10 rounds a clip, Lees said.
But because there is so much 9mm ammunition on the market it is cheap, and someone on a budget can fill a 15-round clip for less than a more expensive .40 or .45-caliber handgun, Lees said.
Miller said the availability of ammunition heightens its popularity, as does the fact it is easily concealable. Larger-caliber handguns like .40 and .45 calibers, are heavier and more difficult to control.
Detective Sgt. Ed Kenney has won several awards over the years for his work in taking guns off the streets while he was on patrol. Kenney, who has been an officer for 17 years and now is a patrol supervisor for the South Side, said he often can guess if people have a gun by the way they act when pulled over. Those possessing guns often appear very nervous, he said.
Kenney said officers rarely see a gun in plain sight when they stop a car. Because so many people who are pulled over do not have a driver’s license, however, their car is towed, and if it is towed, it is searched before the tow to inventory it, which is allowed by the courts and is a departmental practice.
Kenney said often cars are searched when they are pulled over because officers smell marijuana inside, and that is probable cause for a search.
The guns are usually found under seats or clothes or in the trunk.
Kenney also said while he is always wary on a stop, some parts of town are known for violence more than others, and he is extra alert there. Kenney has worked the South Side for the majority of his career, and he knows the areas where certain people or gangs like to hang out at.
“You get to know the players, and you probably know who has a gun,” Kenney said.
Lees and Miller both said ownership of a 9mm is a status symbol in the criminal culture.
“For some reason, the 9mm has always been popular with the gang-banger types,” Miller said.
“The appearance of the weapon [9 mm] is more attractive, and this includes the shape, design, and the color of the slide,” Lees said. “This makes it flashier and more impressive to their peers or enemies.”
Smaller-caliber handguns, even semiautomatics, like a .380 or .22-caliber, are not trendy, Lees said.
Lees said he thinks most smaller-caliber handguns his officers seize are stolen in burglaries or other crimes, while most larger-caliber handguns, even those carried by someone who is barred from carrying a gun, are bought legitimately on the market.
In 2017, city police took reports or seized guns from 55 manufacturers, including Israeli Military Industries, FN, the Belgian makers of police munitions and Italian makers Catell Brescia.