guns confiscated by police

That's a BS policy. Like I said above, if the serial number, manufacturer and model are sufficient for the ATF to track a firearm from manufacture to retail sale, it should be more than enough for legal use elsewhere. Sounds like a case of, "we've always done it that way and won't change". :rolleyes:
 
It would be nice to meet a cop who really cares about protecting evidence property from damage in order to preserve its value to the legal owner. I haven't met any yet. I have seen evidence guns thrown onto concrete floors, left to rust in damp areas for months at a time, electric penciled with PD and case numbers, and in general treated like trash. Some cops hate guns (even their own) and deliberately lose, damage, or ruin guns that they have been ordered to return to their owners.
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My father's entire collection was in the process of being stolen in about 1989, when 2 Sheriff's deputies arrived on-scene and grabbed the thieves.
Due to the particulars of the case, all of the firearms that made it off my father's property, or into the thieves' car, had to go into an evidence locker for more than a year.

The firearms were absolutely DESTROYED by the time they were returned. Even the firearms that didn't look like they were used as a door stop on a concrete floor were still completely rusted and required refinishing.

Combined with some jewelry that "disappeared" while in the evidence locker, he spent more than 2 years fighting to get the Sheriff's department to cover the damage to the firearms. In the end, the court system told him to 'be happy you got them back, at all; and go away'. (My words.)


Since then, my opinion of anything that has a high chance of ending up in an evidence locker better be something you can afford to write off (as you said).
 
I understand that good cops sometimes take any criticism of police personally
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And I understand that you claim to have seen a BATF gun locker that looked like the bathroom in a crack house. So I guess "all cops hate guns".


Sgt Lumpy
 
Now were on a whole nother subject.

But first my place to mark the firearm was on the frame under the grip panel. I always had to bring a screw driver to court.

There are duplicate serial numbers.. It happens. Rare but it happens. Is it possible?... of course it's possible... very unlikely but it has happened. The procedure is to insure against that argument from the defense. OJ Simpson got off because of irregularities in the chain of custody of the evidence. All evidence is circumstantial. If the defense can attack the circumstance of the evidence, it becomes less valueable. The ATF can only trace a firearm as far as the FFL who was the origonal point of sale. For anyone who isnt aware the make of the gun is part of the serial number.

My department treated property with respect, and care. Any damage to property was accidental, and allowed for filing with the city to cure damages.
But then my department probably had more people working in the property clerks office than are sworn members in most departments. IMO it is deriliction of duty to mistreat property entrusted to our care.

When siezing property for a criminal case.... the ciminal case has priority, not the property. And that only has evidentury value. After the case is over the property has only value as evidence in case of an appeal. Once the case is disposed of the property brcomes what ever it was before the criminal case...
 
I'd love to see a reckless cop on the stand in a lawsuit over deliberately scratching up a gun for the sake of identification as evidence. Come on guys. If you can't ID a gun by way of barrel length, caliber, make, model, serial number, and other description, you can't really have ANY credibility at all as a cop. You would, in essence, be too stupid to BE a cop. I know. I worked with guys that stupid, and they should not have been cops. On some departments, they trash guns deliberately, due to bad policies, or because it has become a way with that department to disrespect gun owners; the "us vs. them" mentality. The police elitism. As I stated earlier, any cop or department that wants to be considered PROFESSIONAL has to drop that practice. It just doesn't hold up under scrutiny, and makes the police look very stupid, and possibly liable for the damage or depreciation from scratching up or neglect of the "property", no matter WHAT type of property. Could anyone of us FAIL to determine the difference between a paintball gun with the same serial number as a real gun (where could the defense even remotely FIND something like that:rolleyes:). That is just so much fantasy. Or, if you absolutely MUST mark the gun, why not put it in small letters UNDER the grips on the frame (where it would be concealed)? They could always be removed in court to ID the gun if necessary. No aesthetic damage to the gun., so little to no devaluation. Logical?
 
Value like beauty is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. If it were mine I wouldn't sell it at all. I'd cut a couple notches on the grip and keep wearing it around.
 
On some departments, they trash guns deliberately
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Name those departments.


I'd also like to know where that BATF warehouse is with the flooded floor. And who was that federal agent who threatened to arrest the person for "disrespecting a federal officer".

Do police now treat confiscated or evidence guns with TLC, take care to oil them carefully and wrap them in cotton wool to prevent possible damage?
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I don't know anyone who does that. Including gun owners. But the last thing they're going to do would be destroy evidence by "using it as a door stop" or "throwing it on a concrete floor covered with water". They wouldn't win many cases doing that. If you think there's a problem with some officer, some department, tell us who it is. If that's a problem, PM or email me privately. I'll get word to who word needs to get to. If you've seen a BATF evidence storage (of all places BATF) that looks as comical as you make it out to be, I'll get a reliable person to go to that facility and verify it.

But this nonsense about "all cops hate guns" and they're all out to destroy your personal property is exactly that - nonsense. The FBI sets the standards for evidence collection. Identification marking has been going on for decades that I know of. The cops didn't dream it up. The prosecuting atty's decided, probably after cases lost due to poor chain of evidence, that marking would be a good idea. The FBI does not teach disfiguring of evidence. They teach putting a mark on an area which is not easily seen under normal inspection. I can't imagine ANY department doing this kind of deliberate stuff that you guys claim they're doing just to cause YOU to have a bad day. That's just stupid.

Again - give me specifics. Public or private. I'll find out the real story. Or don't.


Sgt Lumpy
 
I took a informational class from the local PD ( called citizens academy ) where we got to see & go through every aspect of the local PD & SWAT teams... we had back ground checks performed before we were cleared to take the class... no one was ever allowed into the evidence room, in fact, they could not even open the door & let us look in ( chain of custody thing ) if the local PD has evidence security at this level, I'd have to believe that no one is getting anywhere close enough to a BATF evidence locker to see the conditions they are stored in...
 
I've handled evidence for over 14 years and never permanently marked a single firearm taken into evidence. Make, model, serial number, caliber, barrel length, any other identifying marks, photographs and chain of custody.
 
First of all at my department it is not Deputies that take evidence it is civilians in our crime scene unit. They would take all evidence to the evidence room also run by non-sworn members. I have a little experience in this as last year I was on light duty due to a surgery and I worked in evidence for two months. We do not treat firearms badly at all. However the amount of firearms that came in rusted and abused was very high. So remember that if you get it back that way after someone stole them there is a very high probability that is how we got them. I will tell you this if you find a firearm do not bring it to us as we will not give it back to you and it will be destroyed. :mad:
 
Check out the evidence room in Vallejo California and you will change some of your opinions about cops and how they handle evidence and the people they deal with. I had to deal with them once over recovering some firearms that were stolen from me in a burglary of my business. I walked out...eventually....feeling like the guilty party because I wanted my property back. If you want to recover your property, you better be prepared to prove you actually owned them or they will not be released. I showed them the police report with serial numbers and they still hassled me over proving I actually owned them. There were piles of other guns laying around on the cement floor with no regard for them. Are they carefully placed on the floors? Of course not, they are dropped on a pile and treated with about as much respect as someone's ratchet wrench.
Another firearm was recovered by the Pinole California police dept. There I was subjected to lectures about my lack of responsiblility for letting the firearm make it to the "streets". I had to be photographed with the actual firearm in my possession..after I proved I actually owned it also, before they would release it.
Now let's move on to the Vacaville, California police dept. where yet another one was recovered. Just a repeat of the last recovery where I got a Ruger returned after two hrs. of B.S. and a stern lecture from a female there.
In a perfect world, there would not be the police officers with their feelings of "god like" powers, but alas this is not the perfect world. Power corrupts and our police depts. have some good examples of this. Granted there are some good policemen out there, but sometimes it's hard to tell one from another.
 
I knew of some police that used to like to help themselves to guns in the "evidence" room. They would claim that they could not find the gun, did not have time to find the gun, or the person could not have it back.
A few people called the FBI they did an investigation and now the former prosecuting attorney Kimball Mason is sitting in prison over it.
 
In my profession many officers treat a firearm as any other tool such as a hammer. Many simple don't understand why you would be more careful with a LC Smith in mint condition as opposed to an old beat H&R single shot that was found in a basement of a house and turned in. Both should be handled so not to cause damage but we don't have spare gun cases for transport and usually our trunks are full of equipment and the firearms are "stacked" in the rear seat and then taken to a temporary evidence locker in the basement and "stacked" in the locker. Firearms taken during a B&E are usually beat up during the process but in this day and age of divorce attorneys pushing restraining orders we take in guns all the time now. Nothing will change until Cities and Towns have to pay $ for damages. People need to push the issue.
 
I bought a S&W Model 19-3 snub a couple years ago at a gunshow, from a dealer who sometimes sells LEO confiscated firearms.
It was a nickel plated beauty, a 357 I had long wanted.
It had case numbers and initials electro penciled in FIVE places.
 
There must be at least several thousand different law enforcement agencies in this country. Isn't it sort of silly to assume they all handle evidence the same way, universally and without exception? The sheriff's office in a small rural county simply cannot operate identically to the police force of a large city - either by temperament or by resources available (or both).

So it's easy for me to believe that there are LE agencies which treat evidence, including firearms, carefully and with respect, and others which do not. I happened to have a firearm which had been stolen from me recovered and returned to me and it was, I swear, in better, cleaner condition than when it had been stolen - it looked like it had been steam cleaned, in fact. Thank goodness it was stainless!
 
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Much ado, OT.

The OP's gun is what it is, and there's no sense crying over spilt milk - the gun's been devalued in most buyer's eyes; possibly worth fair market value, with written provenance/documentation, in the eyes of an interested buyer.




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Oh, I don't think airing this topic is ever a waste. Some cop who is doing it wrong may read the posts, and get an understanding of how to treat guns while they are being handled as evidence. It is really just "the golden rule": All the police have to do is handle other peoples property as they would want their own to be handled. Simple, isn't it?
 
Personally if it was me i'd get a lawyer and go after the cops,i don't care what anyone says there was/is no reason for what they did to that gun. I especially would go after them just for the fact that it happened in NYS,i have known several great cops in Upstate NY that actually take care of peoples property while its in there care but from the stories I have been told the majority up there could careless,especially when it comes to guns.
 
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