Comptroller: NYPD Firearms Storage A Crime; Tough to Find Weapons
By MIA GOLDBERG
City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. July 1 called for an overhaul of the Police Department's system for tracking firearms stored in the Property Clerk's Office after an audit concluded nearly 30 percent of the weapons requested could not be found on a first attempt.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow IT'S A BUNGLE IN THERE: City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. said 29 percent of the weapons sought by his auditors from the NYPD Property Clerk's Office were not found during the initial search, calling that symptomatic of disarray and outdated practices.

An NYPD spokesman downplayed the problem, saying significant changes have already been made and that the department will soon have an electronic tracking system.

Couldn't Keep Track

Mr. Thompson said that his office audited the weapons sent to the NYPD's Manhattan Property Clerk Division over an eight-year period "to determine whether the [PCD] has adequate controls over the custody, return and disposition of cash and firearms." While the audit found no issue with the handling of money, Mr. Thompson blasted the department's inability to keep track of the weapons under its control.

Of the 324 firearms checked for the study, 94 - or 29 percent of them - could not be found during the initial search. Eventually, he said, all of the firearms were found or accounted for. Twenty-four were located in the property room - but only after several attempts - that sometimes took weeks. In most cases, Mr. Thompson said, "they miraculously turned up in the exact same place on the shelf where they had clearly been missing earlier." It was determined that the remaining 70 weapons had either been returned to the owner or destroyed, but none of this was reflected in the division's records, according to the report. He said the NYPD offered no satisfactory answer as to why the weapons were missing or how they were found.

"The Property Clerk Division has over 2 million pieces of inventory including cash and vehicles, 13,000 of which are firearms," responded NYPD Assistant Chief Michael E. Collins in a statement. "Every firearm involved in the Comptroller's audit was accounted for, although some could not be immediately produced because they were removed from their original storage positions for court appearances, or destruction."

Keeping Records by Hand

Antiquated equipment and outdated record-keeping methods are to blame, Mr. Thompson said, for what he called "a bureaucratic ... snafu on their part." Everything, from the time the evidence is collected until it is brought to one of the city's five PCDs, is done by hand. "Regrettably or remarkably in this age of technology, it doesn't have an electronic database," he said at the press conference. "With this kind of outdated system, it's no wonder why it has become a dysfunctional process."

Mr. Collins responded, "The department is in the final stages of procuring a $28-million electronic Property Evidence Tracking System that would detail intake, storage, inventory, location and disposition for firearms and other property."

During the press conference, the Comptroller said rifles, in particular, were stored in a "disheveled manner," some lying on the floor and others lacking identification. PCD kept firearms in storage far longer than the year required by law. Mr. Thompson said his auditors saw a weapon dating back to the 1970s. In addition to overcrowded and haphazard storage, the report noted that the records, logbooks and paperwork system used to catalog the property were "either incomplete or had inaccurate information."

Mr. Thompson made 13 recommendations to the NYPD, which included replacing the current manual tracking system with a computerized system; organizing rifle storage by year of intake; destroying guns no longer needed for court cases after one year and "red-flagging" weapons ready for destruction. He also called for an "immediate inventory" of all firearms in the Manhattan PCD and the establishment of written procedures to account for weapons currently in storage and those already destroyed or returned.

NYPD: Already Acting

The NYPD spokesman after citing the planned electronic tracking system, said, "More than half of the other 12 recommendations proposed by the Comptroller already are practiced or were planned independent of the audit." He said the recommendation "regarding the storage of long-barrel rifle firearms - must be examined further."

"Three of the remaining recommendations are in the process of being implemented, including determining the disposition of firearms belonging to retired members of the service, conducting immediate inventory of all firearms (commenced earlier this month), and future scheduled inventories."