Killing with licensed guns

Nearly 100 persons were killed or maimed with two dozen licensed guns that were reported lost or stolen and recovered by the security forces over the last three-plus years, new police data revealed.

The police did not disclose details of the cases, timelines for the killings or when the guns were reported lost or stolen, citing ongoing investigations.

According to the data, a total of 132 guns that were taken off the streets between 2019 and this year have been confirmed to be licensed firearms that were separated from their registered owners. The police did not reveal who owned those weapons.

Through ballistics testing, 26 of those guns were linked to 100 crime scenes across the island, including 37 murders, according to the figures obtained by The Sunday Gleaner last week.

Twenty-seven were linked to other shooting incidents and 22 were involved in cases of wounding with intent.

Ballistics testing matches the unique markings of each firearm to spent shells recovered at crime scenes.

The data also revealed that a total of 583 illegal guns seized by the police over the same three-plus years have been linked through ballistics testing to two or more crimes, including 510 that were used in 1,491 killings.

One of them, a Glock pistol, was used to wreak havoc across the island over a 12-year span, leaving 21 people dead and eleven others nursing bullet wounds.

The country’s gun regulator, the Firearms Licensing Authority (FLA), disclosed last November that a total of 299 legally registered guns were reported lost or stolen between 2017 and last year.

Another 7,000 guns with expired permits were also in circulation at the time, the FLA also disclosed.

Three current lawmakers and a popular pastor are among hundreds of legal gun owners whose firearms were lost or stolen in the past decade.

‘ALWAYS A SERIOUS CONCERN’

Member of Parliament (MP) and leader of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives, Phillip Paulwell, was fined $45,000 last December after he pleaded guilty for the negligent loss of his firearm.

Paulwell’s gun was stolen from his vehicle after he made an emergency stop in Hope Pastures, St Andrew, last July, he said.

Merrick ‘Al’ Miller, founding pastor of Fellowship Tabernacle Church, was fined $80,000 in 2011 after he was found guilty of a similar offence as Paulwell.

Miller’s weapon was stolen from his car after he stopped at a school in St Andrew to pick plums, he said.

Two guns owned by MP Robert Montague, a former minister of national security, are among four licensed firearms that were stolen from a safe at a house in St Mary in 2013, the police confirmed at the time.

In 2016, thieves reportedly broke into the home of Tom Tavares-Finson, president of the Senate, and stole two licensed guns.

Rear Admiral (Rtd) Hardley Lewin, a former army and police chief, told The Sunday Gleaner that it is “always a serious concern” when guns find their way into the criminal underworld, noting that it was not a “major issue” during his tenure.

He pointed out that service weapons issued to police and soldiers have also been lost or stolen so it is “not unusual” for legal weapons to end up in the hands of criminals, sometimes through criminal acts.

“You have to look at the case of each loss on its own merits,” said Lewin, who served as police commissioner from December 2007 to November 2009.

ONE GLOCK CAUSED MAJOR MAYHEM OVER 12 YEARS

The Glock pistol linked to 32 shooting incidents over a 12-year period was seized on Wild Street, in the Kingston Central Police Division, on October 19, 2019, top law enforcement sources told The Sunday Gleaner.

A 2007 murder in the Corporate Area marked the first time it was used in Jamaica, said one law enforcement official, citing a report from the police Integrated Ballistics Identification System.

Since then, it was used to commit at least one murder or shooting every year across the Kingston West; Kingston Central; Kingston East; St Andrew South; St Andrew Central; Portland; Westmoreland; and St Catherine North police divisions, according to the data.

“This demonstrates clearly the impact that one gun in the wrong hands can have,” said the senior law enforcement official.

One investigator theorised that this Glock pistol could have been owned by a contract killer or was a “system gun”, the term used for a firearm controlled by a criminal syndicate and distributed to gang members to commit crimes.

“Obviously, it was used extensively by the criminal underworld,” the veteran cop said.

FALLING INTO THE WRONG HANDS

Lewin said during his tenure as police chief he placed a “high priority” on the disposal of guns taken off the streets and those owned by the security forces that were no longer in use.

His intention, he explained, was to minimise the chances of them falling into the wrong hands, referencing the case of former police sergeant Russell Robinson, who was found guilty of several charges for stealing a cache of guns and bullets from the police armoury in Kingston.

“The accusations that police officers would place firearms on people and claims of shootout and so on … I wanted to, as much as possible, remove those possibilities,” he cited as another reason.

The FLA announced last November that it was taking steps to track down the 7,000 guns in circulation without the required permits.

The regulator said revocation notices would be dispatched to the owners, giving them three days to surrender the weapons.

Failure to turn them over is an offence under the new law and could result in a five-year prison sentence or a $5-million fine.

There has been no update on the crackdown.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com