By Charles Sheehan, The Associated Press
Pittsburgh (AP) -- One member of the Allegheny County, Penn. SWAT team was charged with taking tactical munitions and investigators were trying to determine whether other officers were illegally selling guns and ammunition.
Authorities on Monday raided the home of Mark Martin Short, 42, and found “substantial” munitions. Short told investigators he had stolen more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition intended for use by the SWAT team and was trading them for weapons, said Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala.
Investigators are now trying to determine if Short and others sold munitions or weapons confiscated by more than 100 municipalities throughout the county over the last several years. The guns and ammunition are turned over to the county bomb squad, which is supposed to destroy them.
Details were still emerging Tuesday as to what investigators found in Short’s home in Coraopolis, just outside of Pittsburgh. Zappala said there were items that would likely be of concern to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which has been contacted.
“Short’s statements to detectives potentially implicate other persons,” Zappala said.
An anonymous letter addressed to Allegheny County Police Superintendent Charles Moffatt, allegedly from a customer at a Beaver County gun shop, said Short had been trading ammunition for weapons, according to an affidavit.
Investigators went to Shooters Place in New Brighton on Monday and matched ammunition by serial number to ammunition belonging to the SWAT team.
Short had access to munitions confiscated by every municipality in the county, prosecutors said. Zappala said investigators would go back several years to determine what the municipalities took to the bomb squad to be destroyed.
Investigators said the probe was just beginning and could not say just how much ammunition was allegedly sold and to whom.
“I want to know potentially what the scope is and how much ammunition was illegally either put into the black market for the purchase of weapons or how much is out there that shouldn’t be out there,” Zappala said.
The owners of the gun shop have not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Moffatt, who has been on the job for only four months, said the department has been jolted by the discovery. He warned that other officers could be implicated.
Short, a 12-year-veteran, was in the Allegheny County Jail Tuesday on $100,000 bond on a single count of theft. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for June 21.
Jail officials could not say if he had an attorney Tuesday.