Guns damaged, some parts vanished while in police custody - advice?

[icp4life162005]

Things went missing while in police custody. Contact the PSP to start an investigation into the thefts.

This seems like the best course of action.

Your property was stolen from police custody. File a police theft report.

Hell call the fbi lol they love shit like this lol

[Walleye Hunter]

I'd also call my state Rep and see if you can get them to apply some heat.

[-JD-]

Solely my non-lawyer opinion ...

Things went missing while in police custody. Contact the PSP to start an investigation into the thefts.

I'm thinking at least a complaint to the state AG. And a call to an attorney. Missing items from the evidence room is very serious. It's far more than a business decision.

This seems like the best course of action.

Your property was stolen from police custody. File a police theft report.

Hell call the fbi lol they love shit like this lol

PSP under Wolf and AG Josh Shapiro? They would be more likely to be cheering your loss ... They may take a report/complaint, and it will be "filed" - the exception would be if there were multiple prior complaints - maybe then.

FWIW, I was told directly by a local FBI agent (He had come to see me for information related to the investigation of a business customer) that they don't even consider anything under $1M as a possible target for an investigation ... and "My scope didn't get returned to me." is not going to trigger a massive concern for civil rights violations.

Also, to be blunt, the current realm of Qualified Immunity seems to prevail in even some of the most egregious abuses of the citizenry at the hands of various agents of the government.

[snip]... giving me exactly 0 hours 0 minutes to even properly list firearms I had and/or prepare them for storage. My divorce attorney clearly recommended me to comply and let them have whatever they wanted to confiscate.[snip]

[snip]I bugged the chief every time I kept running into him (going to the municipal building for other business) and every time he was giving me "oh... I thought you were going to check with the manufacturer" ... or "well, if your scopes were there, they are still... there... somewhere". [snip]

So you do not have a comprehensive list of what was originally taken from you. The PD SHOULD have given you an itemized receipt of everything that they took into custody including obvious damage (like a broken stock) and probably had you sign it to affirm correctness. Without either, your "evidence" at this point is simply your now two year old recollection ...

Unless you have a "friendly" witness of the Chief's statements about the stock, and note you said that he said ""well, if your scopes were there ...", you don't really have anything actionable from the Chief.

Maybe Phil (@Gunlayer001) will chime in on this, but you might be able to simply request or even FOIA (if they wouldn't just give it to you in the firstplace, expect it to be denied as part of their "investigation" materials at least the first time) their logs of what was taken in. Given your description of what occurred, their logs may be far from detailed, but who knows. If you can recover a detailed log that would be something that you could uses as a reference point.

Question 1: Are you going to continue living there?
If yes, Question 2: Are you willing to make the local PD your enemy in the pursuit of justice?

[OwnTheRide]

Cheapest option is to let it go, of course.

But, to hell with that. The police must follow the law. My suggestion: obtain a lawyer and fight this with everything you've got. Put up a gofundme to help - I'll be the first contributor.

[mikka1]

Thanks for more replies, folks!

Solely my non-lawyer opinion ...
PSP under Wolf and AG Josh Shapiro? They would be more likely to be cheering your loss ... They may take a report/complaint, and it will be "filed" - the exception would be if there were multiple prior complaints - maybe then.

FWIW, I was told directly by a local FBI agent (He had come to see me for information related to the investigation of a business customer) that they don't even consider anything under $1M as a possible target for an investigation ... and "My scope didn't get returned to me." is not going to trigger a massive concern for civil rights violations.

Also, to be blunt, the current realm of Qualified Immunity seems to prevail in even some of the most egregious abuses of the citizenry at the hands of various agents of the government.

This is essentially my biggest concern. I've already lost almost $1k extra in attorney fees because of another clerical error (someone somewhere either in the prothonotary office or somewhere else forgot to properly file a court order so I had to go to the court again, have lengthy calls with PSP Firearms Unit, have an attorney show up again (and charge me extra) etc. etc. just to resolve someone's fkup and obviosly nobody even verbally apologized. So I don't really expect any authority in PA (let alone on my county's level) to step up or react to anything seriously.

So you do not have a comprehensive list of what was originally taken from you. The PD SHOULD have given you an itemized receipt of everything that they took into custody including obvious damage (like a broken stock) and probably had you sign it to affirm correctness. Without either, your "evidence" at this point is simply your now two year old recollection ...

Unless you have a "friendly" witness of the Chief's statements about the stock, and note you said that he said ""well, if your scopes were there ...", you don't really have anything actionable from the Chief.

Well, the exact sequence of events was the following (just to have a full picture):

Day 0 - I get a whole team from my local PD (even with a backup from a neighboring town) arriving in three cruisers to serve me with a temp PFA and confiscate guns immediately. They were pulling firearms one by one from my safes, carrying them outside right away and writing their serial #s down. As a result of that day I got a handwritten note with a list of firearms and their serials signed by one of the officers.
Day 1 - I get another team, this time from the county sheriff's office ... to confiscate my guns. The team is sincerely surprised they were late to the party as apparently the communication between agencies is not always there lol.
Day 5 - I went to the PD and got a printout of a page from the PFAD system (this is an IT system for restraining orders in Pennsylvania maintained by PSP and it has a section for "relinquished firearms", if I understand correctly). The list had 4 columns, I believe - model, caliber, serial# and condition. Ironically, all firearms but one (and NOT the one they ended up breaking) had a condition listed as GOOD, only one had it listed FAIR (shame on me, I should've spent more time cleaning my AK).
This list didn't have any spot for "accessories", scopes etc.
Day 200 (or so) - My temp PFA expired, case got dismissed, I petitioned the court to return my firearms attaching that list from PFAD.
Day 230 - I am scheduled to have my first firearm return hearing, but I get a huge surprise from the sheriff's office - apparently PICS still flagged me as a prohibited person due to an active PFA against me.
My attorney requests a continuation of the case (a tricky part here...), I start calling and writing PSP, file a PICS challenge request and send it to Harrisburg along with the court order dismissing PFA.
Day 258 - I get a letter from PSP PICS division formally stating that their PICS DENIED response is REVERSED and that I could "proceed". Just in time for the next scheduled hearing.
Day 260 - I finally have a firearm return hearing that takes almost 3 hours to wait for it (multiply it by attorney fees) and the whole 30 seconds of time with the judge who rules "GRANTED" on my petition. I receive a court order, make a copy and drop it to the local PD giving a chief a heads-up that I would be coming soon to pick the guns up. He asks me to come a day or tho later when everyone is not very busy.
Day 262 - I come to the PD and create a show for all the staff by going back and forth from the Chief's room to my car with guns in my hands (at least everyone in the township seems to know me on a name basis now lol). Chief goes through the same list from PFAD and crosses out what I've already picked.
He shows me a broken rifle and verbally promises to have "their gunsmith to have it repaired or replaced". He can't print out another form (firearm return) from the PFAD system, so I just handwrite on an old form something like "received all firearms except Savage... rifle" and also verbally promise him (stupid me...) to check with Savage if they can bill him for a new stock.
At that point we did NOT discuss any scopes in details because a) clearly I did not remember off the bat what rifles had them installed (I kept moving some of them from a rifle to rifle to test) and b) let's be realistic, with the whole divorce thing I had lots of other things to keep my mind busy.
Day ... let it be 270 - I checked all firearms at home, cross-checked with scope boxes I had (I kept most of them, at least from more expensive scopes) and realized 3 scopes were missing. I went back to the PD and, again verbally, asked the Chief if he had any progress with the rifle and if he found any scopes as I had some missing. He, again verbally, reassured me that "if scopes were there, boys probably removed them to make it easier to store guns, but they should be somewhere".
Day around 300 - covid lockdowns start (March 2020).
Over the next 18 months I left him messages a couple times, brough a letter asking if there was any progress, but never heard back from him. Again, obviously lots of stuff was going on, my parents and myself got covid at some point and it took us quite some time to recover, I changed jobs, then traveled a lot... so, kind of not pushing the issue actively.
That's pretty much where I am now.

Maybe Phil (@Gunlayer001) will chime in on this, but you might be able to simply request or even FOIA (if they wouldn't just give it to you in the firstplace, expect it to be denied as part of their "investigation" materials at least the first time) their logs of what was taken in. Given your description of what occurred, their logs may be far from detailed, but who knows. If you can recover a detailed log that would be something that you could uses as a reference point.

Question 1: Are you going to continue living there?
If yes, Question 2: Are you willing to make the local PD your enemy in the pursuit of justice?

And Q1 is important and the short answer is NO. No specific timelines, but I hope to call another place home some time in 2022. So while I certainly don't want (even from the emotional standpoint) to become the enemy #1 of my local and county authorities, plus I may still interact with some of them periodically in my line of work, I wouldn't care too much about pissing some people off at some point.

I need to look into FOIA, but based on my experienced in unrelated circumstances, I doubt they have any more detailed lists of inventory than what PFAD has. In the end of the day, it was not an evidence of crime that had to be bagged/meticulously described etc., so I am afraid the level of scrutiny might have been much lower.

Sorry for a long story, just wanted to give you all a better timeline of events.

[GunLawyer001]

Some relevant provisions from the UFA:

"(2) In securing custody of the person's relinquished firearms, the law enforcement agency shall provide the person subject to the relinquishment order with a signed and dated written receipt, which shall include a detailed description of each firearm and its condition."

"(4) The Pennsylvania State Police and any local law enforcement agency shall make all reasonable efforts to determine the lawful owner of any firearm confiscated or recovered by the Pennsylvania State Police or any local law enforcement agency and return said firearm to its lawful owner if the owner is not otherwise prohibited from possessing the firearm. When a court of law has determined that the Pennsylvania State Police or any local law enforcement agency have failed to exercise the duty under this subsection, reasonable attorney fees shall be awarded to any lawful owner of said firearm who has sought judicial enforcement of this subsection."

"(4) (i) The owner of any seized or confiscated firearms or of any firearms ordered relinquished under 23 Pa.C.S. § 6108 shall be provided with a signed and dated written receipt by the appropriate law enforcement agency. This receipt shall include, but not limited to, a detailed identifying description indicating the serial number and condition of the firearm. In addition, the appropriate law enforcement agency shall be liable to the lawful owner of said confiscated, seized or relinquished firearm for any loss, damage or substantial decrease in value of said firearm that is a direct result of a lack of reasonable care by the appropriate law enforcement agency.

(ii) Firearms shall not be engraved or permanently marked in any manner, including, but not limited to, engraving of evidence or other identification numbers. Unless reasonable suspicion exists to believe that a particular firearm has been used in the commission of a crime, no firearm shall be test fired. Any reduction in the value of a firearm due to test firing, engraving or permanently marking in violation of this paragraph shall be considered damage, and the law enforcement agency shall be liable to the lawful owner of the firearm for the reduction in value caused by the test firing, engraving or permanently marking."

If you end up in court, and your inability to produce detailed records of the condition of the guns, and accessories attached, is the direct result of the police failing to comply with the UFA's detailed receipt mandate, then you SHOULD be given the benefit of the doubt, same as under spoliation rules. The party responsible for the non-existence of evidence gets that missing evidence construed against them.

Note also that there's a pretty good argument that you should be awarded attorney's fees if you have to go to court to get what they still have. Watch your time limits, be careful about deciding when they finally refused to give you what is yours, because that likely starts the clock on you.

I will note that some of these helpful provisions are in the UFA only because of the hard work of attorney Jon Mirowitz, who worked back in the 1990's to get them into the legislation.

[cdi]

There*s ALWAYS enough money in the budget to prosecute a cop.

[bogey1]

When I had a firearm confiscated by the ATF, by law, they had to give it back, and what damages that were done
to it during and after confiscation, they were responsible for.
Long story short, I got it back.
I wonder if that law holds up for a regular PD. Look into it.

[Brick]

Mikka1 Pay close and serious attention to what Gunlawyer001 has to say above. The go after the PD for damages! Meanwhile NAME them here also!

[PAMedic=F|A=]

Short version is they committed a crime. They*ve done it before, they*ll do it again, and if they are not properly handling firearms, with the extra rules firearms have, then they likely are not handling other evidence properly.

I*ve seen cops go to some lengths to avoid taking a firearms into custody to avoid the paperwork. Such as calling a family member to the scene of a crash or other medical call to come get the gun, even when it caused the officer/trooper to be camped there for some time, or getting the family member to come by the barracks to pick it up on the way to the hospital.

Personally: the last thing I want to deal with is a patient who has a gun, and is unwilling to give it to the officers because of a police track record of losing them, damaging them, or refusing to return them, and so on. I personally would be very unwilling to give my firearm to an officer unless I personally knew them.

So this is the kind of thing that needs squashed, hard. Not only is it theft, but it is a civil rights violation, and the next person should have to deal with the nonsense that you did.