LOS ANGELES (AP) — Dozens of handguns and shotguns were among items stolen by thieves who raided cargo containers aboard trains near downtown Los Angeles for months, authorities said.
Police arrested three people last summer carrying new .22-caliber handguns, The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. A trace of the weapons revealed they came from a batch of 36 handguns reported missing as they were being shipped by train to Tennessee, police officials said.
One of the suspects said the guns had come from cargo trains in LA’s Lincoln Heights rail yards, where widespread thefts have been reported. Shortly afterward, LA police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested two other suspects with shotguns. Those weapons were determined to be part of a missing shipment of 46 shotguns, the Times reported.
Only a handful of the 82 guns known to have been stolen from trains passing through Lincoln Heights have been recovered. Investigators are not yet sure how many other weapons may have been pilfered, Capt. German Hurtado told the Times.
“I’ve got 24 years in LAPD, ex-military, secret clearance and I have to wait 10 days to get a new firearm and these guys are going into these containers with no locks and getting guns,” said Hurtado. “These guns were unguarded, unprotected … God knows how many guns have been stolen that way.”
The cargo thefts gained national attention earlier this month after local TV stations showed images of thousands of discarded boxes from stolen packages blanketing the tracks.
No mention of the stolen guns was made when Gov. Gavin Newsom recently led a cleanup of the rail yards and promised state coordination in tracking down the thieves.
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Hold on just a minute. You mean newsom hasn’t learned about this yet and you are advertising this misinformation. Democrats proclaim every thing is misinformation until they have had a chance to spin it to make themselves look good. If that’s possible!
Hold on.. I thought you couldn’t BUY GUNS online/through the mail in Commiefornia?
When you buy a firearm on line, it is not shipped to you, but to a licensed firearms dealer, who is responsible for doing a background check before transferring the firearm to you.
I knew that applied in other states, i just thought CA was different…
Strange though they ship them, in THIS MOST UNSECURE manner???
>> i just thought CA was different… <<
It's a federal law. I think it was included in the 1968 Gun Control Act. That act was and is a major screw up, but at least it stopped criminals from getting their hands on firearms. That's why you've not heard of crime involving firearms since about 1970, just as Democrats promised.
ITUSER, WHY DO YOU ASSUME THE MANNER OF SHIPPING IS UNSECURE? Sorry, didn’t know “caps lock” was on.