The head of the ATF’s office in Los Angeles has sent a memo to Southern California police chiefs and sheriffs saying the agency has found law enforcement officers buying and reselling guns in what could be a violation of federal firearms laws, it was reported Thursday.
The memo from Eric Harden, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearm’s Los Angeles Field Division special agent in charge, describes the finding as an “emerging problem” and expresses concern about “the growing trend of law enforcement officials engaging in the business of unlicensed firearms dealing,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
He did not say how many officers the agency has found purchasing and reselling weapons, but the memo dated March 31 says some officers had bought more than 100 firearms, and some of the guns have been recovered at crime scenes, The Times reported.
But Harden wrote that the goal is “to educate, not investigate, to ensure law enforcement officials comply with federal law in order to avoid unnecessary public embarrassment to themselves and your department/agency.”
His memo focuses on the purchase and resale of “off roster” firearms. Those are guns that are not on an approved list of weapons that can be sold to the public.
The California law establishing the roster has an exemption that allows sworn peace officers to purchase such weapons, and an additional one that allows officers to resell the guns under certain conditions. But if officers are buying and reselling weapons for profit as a business, they need a federal firearms license. The lack of a license is the conduct that ATF has uncovered and is the subject of the memo.
Selling without a license can carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Lying on the federal form carries a maximum 10-year penalty. It is unclear when the ATF discovered the problems, or what specifically prompted the memo.
Federal prosecutions of state law enforcement officers for selling off- roster weapons are rare. The most recent occurred in Sacramento County in June 2015.
—City News Service