PD keeps bequest from inheritor

The short story... not so long, long ago; in a small Texas town, not too terribly far, far away...

In-law's elderly aunt began senility and one day brought all the guns out into the front yard, nothing threatening. Neighbors called PD, who showed up and took all the guns for everyone's safety.

She passes, leaving her entire estate to my SIL. Guns remain at the PD, but she pursues getting them back. The PD has no written record of confiscating any guns on the day that they visited her aunt. They have a report about the call, but nothing about collecting her guns.

They tell her though, if you can give us exact descriptions of these guns, and we have the same in our evidence closet, you get what you describe correctly.

Really? That's how this works?

The best description of the list of guns that anyone can create is, "A few handguns, rifles, and a shotgun or two. There was a pump shotgun for sure".

Should she just kiss her property goodbye?

Since there don't seem to be any personal records of the guns she owned, I think your only hope would be discovery of the records that the PD can't seem to find. While they may not have a record of confiscating the guns that day, they must maintain some sort log of what was placed in the evidence room, when and by whom. I'd ask to see the evidence log for the day of the event. Maybe there's an entry for "a half-dozen assorted firearms".

There's no way they have zero record of the confiscation. At the very least, they must have something in the evidence log, like ttolhurst mentioned. The problem is, I don't think they'll show any civilian a copy of it - even the page(s) for a specific day.

A court order should get it opened up, though. Makes sense to me to contact a lawyer that has experience with property recovery.

That's some low-ball dealing that our LEO agencies are doing now-a-days... To protect and serve? They're minutes away when seconds count, and don't do such a good job serving anyone...

Before you get that lawyer... I'd make a point of going directly to the department involved with as much information as possible and ask for an opportunity to speak to the Chief... A phone request to speak with him/her and a direct request for an appointment is appropriate. Lay out for the Chief exactly what you believe occurred. Time, date, case number if any.... and give the head of that agency an opportunity to sort it out. If you get the runaround then go the lawyer route....

The reason I recommend this is the following.... Officers don't always behave themselves. There's always a possibility that someone might "confiscate" an item or items and never turn them in. Another possibility is that whoever you've already spoken to is ill informed or never bothered to look into your claim. Most Departments that I know of will move heaven and earth to sort out a problem if they know about it. That's why you ought to go directly to the top before taking any other action to give them a chance to sort it out. If there's been any misconduct the individual responsible will be dealt with severely (and that was always my experience in a career that included a stint handling "personnel issues").

How ever it works out, follow through and post the results here. I'm sure it will be interesting.

Oh, and call the county commissioners, see, some of your property is miss and it would suck for you to have to get a lawyer and the state DOJ involved, they should get you a sit down with the PD chief and that should get the ball rolling, if it doesn't ,carry through your threats.

I suppose talking to the chief isn't a bad idea, but in my experience, chiefs will err on the side of backing up their guys. I would anticipate consultations, discovery motions, and subpoenas if you want to go all the way here.

prolly bad advice but i would rob that PD before giving up on those guns

Yeah, prolly.

I wonder if, by some strange coincidence, a couple of cops expanded their personal gun collections at the same time.

"Heck, Joe, the old gal has no idea what she had, so you take some and I'll take some, and we won't have to bother making a report."

Jim

Wow. This is amazing.

Please keep us updated.

I wonder if, by some strange coincidence, a couple of cops expanded their personal gun collections at the same time.

"Heck, Joe, the old gal has no idea what she had, so you take some and I'll take some, and we won't have to bother making a report."

Jim
While not an impossible scenario, I think that's incredibly unlikely.

To the OP, I would encourage you (and your SIL) to keep a level head and do what's necessary to see this through to the end without jumping to conclusions. I hate to say it, but it is a possibility that those firearms may never be in her possession again, unless she has proof that they were confiscated. Does she have any proof of ownership whatsoever?

Said by OP
In-law's elderly aunt began senility and one day brought all the guns out into the front yard, nothing threatening. Neighbors called PD, who showed up and took all the guns for everyone's safety.


I think I would call back and talk to someone in charge and explain what the 1st person said (no written records).

Then I would ask if it was their standard procedure to not have a written record of such action.

Then explain that since the neighbors called the police.... the neighbors surely witnessed the police taking the guns.

Not so "incredibly unlikely". I have known it to happen, not only with local cops but with BATFE. And not only on confiscated guns; cops have routinely "skimmed" the guns from "buyback" programs. Since the guns were counted, but the people running the programs knew nothing about guns, cops threw in junk guns and took the good ones.


Jim

Then I would ask if it was their standard procedure to not have a written record of such action.

Of course not. If it's not in the report, it didn't happen.

Then explain that since the neighbors called the police.... the neighbors surely witnessed the police taking the guns.

Who are you going to believe? Me, or your own lying eyes?

Who are you going to believe? Me, or your own lying eyes?

I doubt the police would like to have anyone... let alone more than one.... say they took guns with out recording them.

A subpeona of the officers call reports and time on the call will support their claims (or not). Officers dont hang around for an hour if they didnt do anything... conversely, they dont leave in 15 minutes if they confiscated guns.

I doubt the police would like to have anyone... let alone more than one.... say they took guns with out recording them.

I'm sorry, did I say we didn't take custody of the guns? I apologize for the confusion; I meant to say that although we did take custody of the guns, we no longer have them, as they were disposed of in accordance with department policy. Thank you for calling, and have a nice day!

I'm sorry, did I say we didn't take custody of the guns? I apologize for the confusion; I meant to say that although we did take custody of the guns, we no longer have them, as they were disposed of in accordance with department policy. Thank you for calling, and have a nice day!

Oh.... well you should talk to your officer at the desk phone about giving out bad info. I'm sure giving out correct info is part of your policy.

Now that we established inconsistancies between your and your desk phone officer and lack of procedure being followed....

I want a list of what you took, the record of them being distroyed, and your policy for such.

You see, if they were distroyed not in accordance with your policy, I need to contact an attorney and the insurance company. If they were distroyed per policy, then just a call to the insurance company.

We can do this all day if you want but Id prefer not to since th eOP didnt bring up ANYTING of what you said and Id prefer not to speculate what kooky story the police MIGHT say.

Lets just deal with what little facts we have and keep focused on that.


Police reports are public records. Anyone can request them. The OP's SIL can request it before she even calls and see what it says.

The guns are either noted or not. If they arent noted, there is a problem and the problem is with the police IF they can get a neighbor to collaborate.

If they are noted, they should be returned unless gone unclaimed for XXX amount of time.

Deleted.

I have never ever seen it done...waitaminnint, there was this hurricane thingie down in NOLA a while back...
Good luck, start polite with Da Boss then move into legal actions.

I was the commander of our property unit for several years. I agree with those that said you should talk to someone in charge. If the department is large enough, there will be some commander that's responsible for their evidence and seized property. If he doesn't satisfy you, then you can go higher, all the way up to the chief. If the department is smaller, you might have to go as high as the chief right away. Hopefully, there will be a simple explanation.....possibly that the person you talked to just didn't know how or where to check for the records and was less than helpful by not checking enough or with someone else that might have more knowledge.

Even if there are no inventories or other records that can be found, if a higher up is involved, the officers that were at the assignment will be questioned by a supervisor as to whether there were any firearms confiscated.

In Wisconsin, all seizing of and disposal of firearms are strictly controlled by state statutes. We couldn't vary at all from them. Every firearm must be recorded in a permanent record. The only way we could dispose of firearms was to turn them over to the State Crime Lab, which was a very structured procedure. Each and every firearm was checked, rechecked, verified and re-verified by hand using inventory numbers and serial numbers. We knew exactly what guns were turned over and retained those records forever. Hopefully, your state has similar statutes and there actually are records of some kind

On a side note, that turnover was one of the most difficult duties I was responsible for, because I knew that the guns the lab didn't retain for their reference library, were going to end up shredded into little bits of metal. The firearms guys at the lab loved guns too, and I recall several times when one of them would make a comment that even though they had this particular model already, it was just too pretty to destroy and would be retained. I was just in awe of the vast array of firearms in their library. It made you yearn.

Small town, population of ~6,000.

I live in Colorado and am not directly involved. I would love to take the reigns and contact the PD myself to the point that they all know my name and I, theirs. But I'm just the family gun nut who gets the gun questions. My sister in law and my brother (her husband), are not as eager to get their property back as I am for them, so I just have to let them do their thing. I would certainly have taken a more aggressive approach.

The guns have now been locked up for a year or more already.
I have known it to happen,
Same here. I grew up in a tiny little town that had its PD cleaned out one day for that very thing. My mother was the dispatcher and had to testify when those guys got sent up. I don't tend to think that this is the case here though.

There's some good advice in this thread that I didn't initially think of. I will definitely keep you posted on the progress with this one.

were the guns listed in the will? Even if no serial numbers, just the fact that there were guns included is some evidence that they belong to the heirs.

Rick

Pictures, receipts anything to prove then exist
if you SIL isn't so eager and have written them off
have them assign that portion of the estate to you or your kids so you can pursue this.

My guess is that nobody at the PD will care until they get, at the very least, a letter from an attorney. If they still don't act accordingly and your family cares enough, serve them with a lawsuit. You'd be amazed at what turns up once people believe you are serious.

Like BinRat I also ran a property unit (in my case for three years). PD's everywhere have very strict rules about what can or cannot be done with property in general and firearms specifically (and more than one police chief has lost his/her job if property wasn't handled correctly). That's why I suggested they go to the head of the agency directly. If there's been some mis-conduct going on, the chief will have every incentive to do something about it without waiting until a lawyer shows up and things get public....

That said, if the weapons were taken for safe keeping the way described... they'd be "on the clock" from the moment impounded. If not re-claimed within whatever period the law allows (30 days, 60 days, one year - all will depend on what the law is in that state and most everything about seized or impounded property of any kind will usually have specific laws telling them what to do) the weapons might have been destroyed. I personally have destroyed as many as three large garbage cans filled with firearms on just one occasion, once it was legal to do so. When you're knee deep in everything from found property to items no longer needed for trial, etc. you have a strong incentive to get rid of any items you can. If it was possible to return something we would send out a letter to the last known owner (if we even had that info) giving them a certain amount of time then the item would come up for disposal if not claimed. In our case along the coastal area of south Florida disposing weapons meant a boat trip out into more than 200 feet of water....

I would first exhaust the "amicable" ways of trying to resolve the matter, such as talking to the chief and commissioners, just because it would save so much time and money if this resolved it. If not, you will have to sue the department for conversion of chattels. This will involve the sovereign immunity issue, so you will probably have to deal with the requirements of some sort of governmental tort claims act. If the lawsuit goes through, you can conduct discovery. If the records magically turn up at this point, they will likely settle and give you the guns. If not, or if the records don't turn up, you will have to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that they wrongfully deprived you of possession of property that you had a legal ownership or right of possession of, causing damages to you. If you prove this, you collect however much the judge or jury thinks the property was worth.

Another issue you have to consider is the statute of limitations. For a tort, this usually runs from the time the injury was discovered... which would be the time that the PD informed you that they don't have any record of the guns and can't return them to you. Sometimes state law will put a shorter statute of limitations on claims against governmental units, so be careful and talk to a lawyer to make sure you aren't running out of time. If you are close to the SOL, you should go ahead and get something filed ASAP so you don't lose your rights.