Sheriff's department baffled by 70 missing guns

Washington County Sheriff Donnie Smith reports that 70 guns are missing from the department's evidence locker. More than two dozen of the missing weapons are handguns.

Smith says that the weapons, logged in by the sheriff's department between 1995 and 2006, may not have been stolen but "we cannot account for them. I don't want the public to think that someone just walked into the [evidence locker] and walked out of here carrying 70 guns. They may have been taken; they may have been returned to their rightful owners."

During those years, there were three or four different methods of record keeping, according to Smith. He says that, on taking office January 1 from outgoing Sheriff Joseph Tibbetts, "I instituted a more stringent procedure for evidence control. Only myself, Chief Deputy Mike St. Louis and full-time deputies have keys to the evidence locker." He adds, "there must be two members [of the department] whenever evidence is put in or removed from the locker."

The problem of unaccounted weapons came to light when a local citizen's attorney came in to reclaim a gun that the department was holding, and it could not be found. "I didn't know at the time whether this happened on our watch or the previous administration, but I wasn't going to cover it up. We went public with the information and then started looking to see what had happened," says the sheriff.

Smith directed the chief deputy to do a complete inventory of the guns held as evidence. "I spent about 35 hours creating a master list of all the weapons logged in from 1995 through the present," says St. Louis. He then painstakingly went through individual records of weapons returned to owners, destroyed or traded in by the department. The sheriff's department, like many law enforcement agencies, is allowed to trade weapons, which are no longer needed as evidence and cannot be returned to or are not wanted by their owners, for ammunition for the department's use. St. Louis found that, of 400 guns that should be in the locker, 70 could not be found. "I spent approximately 35 hours on the accounting and report, two hours yesterday on this, and another couple of hours today, and I will need to work with the attorney general's investigation next month."

"We do not know that these guns were stolen," says Smith. "It could be that some were returned and not logged out. It could be just bad record keeping." Guns can be placed in the evidence locker for a variety of reasons. Some are taken from people when they are arrested or as a result of a search of a home or car; some are taken as a result of a domestic violence complaint or during the course of an investigation; some are recovered after being stolen. In many cases, the guns may be returned to the rightful owner after a case has been completed in court or a protective order has expired.

Smith could not comment on whether any prosecutions had been compromised because of the missing guns or detail exactly what guns were missing. He said that the state Attorney General's Office will have investigators in Machias early next month and that they had asked him not to provide more specific information. Smith says, "Through the case information, the deputy involved with that case, an investigation may provide answers" as to whether the guns are actually missing or just not properly recorded. "That's for the Attorney General's Office to investigate. At this point, we cannot question anyone who may be involved, who had worked here or is working here now."

Chris Gardner, chairman of the Washington County Commissioners, says, "It is my hope that this is a clerical error. Whether it is 70 guns missing or one gun missing, that is too many. I want to find out where each and every gun is and make sure that this never happens again." Gardner says that when he announced that the commissioners would undertake their own investigation of the matter "I misspoke. The attorney general needs to investigate the matter. That is not the function of the commissioners."

He comments, "We need to look at the whole picture when the sheriff's [office] changes hands. All the records need to be accounted for, and that includes the contents of the evidence room."

Smith says that Chief Deputy St. Louis has begun writing up specific procedures for the transition between administrations but that only the state can require compliance. "We are going to write it up, but then it will be up to the next sheriff if he is going to follow it," Smith says. He adds, "If there is a good thing to come out of this, we will have a complete and accurate inventory, and we will have a single, clearly laid out procedure for handling every piece of evidence. I am responsible for everything that is in this [evidence room], and I mean to take that responsibility seriously."