Nothing’s Routine as Gun Seizures Are on the Rise
News reports that potentially deadly encounters on “seemingly mundane” traffic stops are escalating sharply with record numbers of guns being recovered from motorists reinforces the message that law enforcement trainers try patiently and persistently to get across: Vehicle stops should never be considered “routine” or even automatically dismissed as “low risk,” regardless of the apparent violation.
“You have to keep in the back of your mind that this stop could be something different than you think it is, and be prepared for that,” says Training Capt. Jerry Ponzi of the West Allis, Wisc. P.D. “You have no idea who or what is in any car. The most predictable thing about police work is its unpredictability.”
Indeed, Ponzi advises officers who are looking for more excitement on the job to make more traffic stops. “A simple violation may prove to be the break in a big case,” he tells Police1.com.
That certainly proved to be so in his own department recently when an officer stopped a minivan that had improper taillights. The driver committed suicide just as the officer was about to ask for his license, and was later established to be the killer of the mother and husband of a federal judge in Chicago.
Traffic Stop Menace: Nothing’s Routine as Gun Seizures on the Rise
By Laurel J. Sweet, The Boston Herald
In little more than a year, Boston cops hit upon 108 pistols, assault weapons and shotguns inside motor vehicles they pulled over for reasons as seemingly mundane as running stop signs and busted brake lights, the Herald has learned.
Almost without exception, stack upon stack of reports police filed between Jan. 1, 2004, and Jan. 31, 2005, repeated one word to describe the heat bad drivers are packing in traffic: ``loaded.’'
``It’s amazing that there’s such a high number of guns being taken off the streets this way,’' said Sgt. Thomas Sexton, spokesman for the Boston Police Department.
``It’s one of the most inherently dangerous aspects of policing because you don’t know who may be in the car. It’s a complete unknown. It only takes one traffic stop to go bad.’'
Traffic stops got more law enforcement officers murdered nationwide (101) than any other circumstance save arrests in the past decade, according to the FBI.
Two Bay State cops - Boston police Detective Berisford Wayne Anderson, 37, and state trooper Mark Charbonnier, 31, were slain during traffic stops in 1994 alone.
In many of the potentially deadly encounters the Hub’s finest had in recent months with Toyota Camrys, Land Rovers and Cadillac DeVilles blocking hydrants and sporting expired inspection stickers, by the time officers got their hands on the hardware along for the ride, the weapons’ hammers had been cocked to fire.
Such was the case on March 5, 2004, when two officers patrolling Dorchester Avenue spotted a 23-year-old man they knew to have a suspended license at the wheel of a Dodge Caravan.
One of his several passengers, Jose Alves, 18, was asked to step out because the van’s windows were too dark for police to see in. Alves, it was alleged, tried to distract the officers by engaging them in a discussion about the controversial film ``Passion of the Christ.’' But in his waistband, police would later charge after Alves’ bizarre behavior prompted a pat-down, was a loaded 9mm semiautomatic.
``The hammer on the firearm was cocked back,’' the officers reported.
Said one patrolman, recalling that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was ultimately bagged because of a license plate offense, ``You don’t know if the person you stopped just came from the dentist or from killing their entire family.’'
Between Jan. 1, 2004, and Jan. 31, 2005, police arrested 156 men, women and children between the ages of 15 and 42 on a laundry list of charges after cars they were driving or passengers in were approached and weapons found. Guns were found on seats, under floor mats, in center consoles, in glove compartments and even in a spare-tire well.
Seizures included a submachine gun, a .38-caliber revolver stolen in Oregon in 1973, a .357 Magnum stolen in Los Angeles in 1987, a .22-caliber semiautomatic stolen in a 1997 housebreak in Revere and five shotguns.
On May 15, a loaded Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, 119 birdshot shells and two bulletproof vests were taken from allegedly drunken Marine Andrew MacMasters, 21, after he drove his pickup truck too close to a crime scene.
Though just a blip on the screen when one considers police pulled over some 118,494 vehicles in 2004, the 93 guns they confiscated from those stops accounted for 12 percent of the total firearms (745) police took in all year. And so far this year, those numbers aren’t shifting into reverse. Fifteen guns were grabbed in traffic stops in January - triple what cops encountered in the same month last year.
``There’s no such thing as a `routine’ traffic stop. You don’t know who’s on the other side of the window or what they’ve just done,’' said Thomas J. Nee, president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association. ``It’s a very dangerous part of the job that’s taken for granted by most of the public. It’s scary.’'
Mean streets
Top seven types of firearms found during traffic stops in Boston:
1. 9 mm
2. .22-caliber
3. .380-caliber
4. .357 Magnum, .38-caliber revolver and .45-caliber semiautomatic (three-way tie)
7. .32-caliber
Gun seizures vs. traffic stops by neighborhood from Jan. 1, 2004, through Jan. 31, 2005:
District A-1 (Downtown, Chinatown/Theater District, Beacon Hill, Charlestown): 6 guns in 7,055 stops
District A-7 (East Boston): 3 guns in 7,952 stops
District B-2 (Roxbury): 31 guns in 10,205 stops
District B-3 (Mattapan, Dorchester): 32 guns in 12,352 stops
District C-6 (South Boston): 3 guns in 10,310 stops
District C-11 (Dorchester): 18 guns in 17,414 stops
District D-4 (Back Bay, Fenway, South End): 9 guns in 10,230 stops
District D-14 (Allston, Brighton): 0 guns in 14,755 stops
District E-5 (West Roxbury, Roslindale): 1 gun in 10,110 stops
District E-13 (Jamaica Plain): 3 guns in 8,798 stops
District E-18 (Hyde Park): 2 guns in 6,141 stops
Source: Boston Police Department