Editor’s note: With the increasing importance of data and information in Law Enforcement, Police1 wants to remind its members to make sure that your department has procedures in place to secure and minimize the loss of laptops and mobile devices.
by Christopher Newton, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department has lost track of 775 weapons and 400 laptop computers, more than half of which may have contained national security or sensitive law-enforcement information, an internal investigation found.
Some of the weapons were recovered after they were used in armed robberies, the department’s inspector general, Glenn Fine, said in a report released yesterday.
Most of the 775 weapons reported missing belonged to the FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Before last year, the FBI had not taken a complete inventory of laptops and weapons in almost a decade, despite an agency policy requiring one every two years, the investigation found.
Last year’s inventory was prompted when other agencies, including the INS, reported large numbers of missing weapons.
“This clearly wasn’t a front-burner issue,” Fine said.
Some Justice Department officials attributed much of the problem to faulty paperwork and tracking, suggesting some of the equipment may have been loaned to other government agencies or may still be in the possession of government employees.
However, at least 18 of the missing firearms cited in the report were later recovered by local police departments in connection with criminal investigations, including several used in armed robberies and another found in the pocket of a murder victim, according to the findings.
Fine reported in March 2001 that an audit of the INS found the service had lost about 500 weapons.
The audit prompted criticism from Congress and a request by Attorney General John Ashcroft to review the Justice Department’s other component agencies.
INS officials said the new report, which includes the INS figures revealed in the March 2001 audit, did not reflect follow-up investigations that accounted for all but seven of the agency’s missing firearms.
“The reality of the situation is that the vast majority of them were not missing at all, " INS spokesman Russ Bergeron said. “Either the paperwork had not been properly completed or there were duplicate records and that sort of thing.”
The FBI said yesterday it is creating new programs to address the problems.