To date, police have found 12 guns that were stolen last year from a New Whiteland gun shop.
Local police are still on the lookout for the other 21 guns, and detectives who have spent the past eight months working the case say they are close to making arrests.
Thirty-three guns were stolen July 27, 2019 from Element Armament on Tracy Road in New Whiteland. Surveillance videos at the federally licensed gun, ammunition and accessories dealership show five men breaking into the gun shop by kicking in the door and stealing the guns in about two minutes.
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Police have recovered about 1/3 of the guns, Detective Craig Whited of the New Whiteland Police Department said this week. The first was recovered in Southport during a police chase the day after the gun shop was burglarized. Multiple juveniles were arrested, but not charged in the burglary, Whited said.
Another was recovered about three weeks later when it was used in a shooting at a Chicago VA hospital. An Indianapolis man fired nine shots inside and outside the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center on the west side of Chicago. No one was injured in the shooting and the shooter was arrested.
The other 10 guns turned up in various places around Indianapolis, mostly by way of traffic stops or search warrants, Whited said.
“There’s usually nothing that exciting behind the recoveries,” he said.
People found with the missing guns were arrested on charges of possessing a stolen firearm. No one has been arrested or charged for the actual burglary, Whited said.
Although there is surveillance video that clearly shows five people breaking into the shop, the suspects’ faces were partially covered, and they wore gloves. Not being able to identify the suspects from the footage makes finding them harder, Whited said.
Forensic evidence that could be enough to charge and arrest suspects in the actual burglary was collected over the past seven months. It was sent to the New Whiteland crime lab, where results are expected soon, he said.
“We’ve left no stone unturned,” Whited said. “I am very confident that here in the coming months, we will be making multiple arrests on this.”
The suspects will likely be prosecuted federally; stealing from a licensed dealer is a federal crime. That could mean more prison time without the possibility of parole, said Suzanne Dabkowski, spokesperson for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Element Armament has since moved to a bigger shop on U.S. 31 in Whiteland, next to Kacey’s Twin Eatery. Owner David Hill said the move was to increase the store’s exposure. Besides, he said, the old location was at capacity.
As for the missing guns, Whited said police will probably never find them all.
“Some people who have stolen guns, sometimes they get cold feet about it,” he said. “They destroy them. They throw them in lakes. They throw them in rivers where they might not be found for hundreds of years.”
Most missing firearms turn up after a couple months, but this case is a much larger scale.
“This is 30-something guns we’re talking about,” Whited said.
“Unfortunately, we just have to wait. They just have to surface somewhere in some way.”
For example, Whited said if an officer in Tennessee finds one of the missing New Whiteland guns during a traffic stop, the officer will run the gun’s serial number and it will come up as stolen. That officer’s dispatch center will contact the New Whiteland Police Department, and Whited will help investigate who had the gun, and the situation behind the recovery.
Once the guns are found, they don’t go back to the gun shop. They are turned over to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Dabkowski also said tracking down all of them would be nearly impossible. Most of the time, once firearms go missing, it is hard to get them back, she said.
“It’s like that old saying of closing the barn door after the horses escape,” she said. “Once they’re out there, it’s really hard to get them back.”
The fact that more than half of the guns are still missing is concerning to police, because the firearms are most likely being sold to people who want to commit crimes, Whited said.
“Is it something that I like? No. I’m very big on keeping weapons of any kind out of the hands of criminals,” he said.
