No free guns for cops
WATE:
The Knoxville Police Department no longer will allow retiring officers to keep their service handguns and is considering confiscating guns from past retirees. The city’s new police chief has reversed an existing policy.
Chief Sterling P. Owen, IV says the law and finance departments of city government say the police department doesn’t have the authority to give away city property.
Owen says the department simply revised a previous form the clarify the property belongs to the city. He says the initial intent wasn’t to give away the guns, but to offer the weapons for personal protection if the retiring officers wanted them.
About 125 officers are immediately affected.
I wonder if they plan on offering them for sale to the officers? Confiscation seems a bit harsh.
Update: The KNS:
A policy instituted this year by Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV requires retired officers to sign a document acknowledging the gun given to them under the previous chief actually belongs to the city.
“We had been informed by the law department and the finance department that the police department does not have the authority to give away city property,” said Owen, who became chief in 2004.
To accommodate that decision, Owen ordered all retired officers to sign a form this year agreeing that the uniforms, police badge, police identification card and weapon they were given upon retirement belonged to the city.
“Should I no longer require the equipment for my personal use, it shall be returned to the Knoxville Police Department,” states the one-page form.
The officers were informed of the new policy this year when they attended annual firearms re-training required by law. Owen said about 125 retired officers were affected by the policy.
November 1st, 2005 at 10:07 am
Police in Knoxville aren’t as oppressed as they want everyone to believe. Request a copy of their career plan and salary steps. Not bad.
I weary of the ‘thin blue line’ mantra. They have played that card for years so much so that everytime one is indicted or jailed(Campbell Co, Blount Co, Cocke Co) you have a bunch of their family members and FOP shills arguing they are the salt of the earth, trying to paint everyone that brings up a reasonable point as ‘anti-law enforcement’
Lots of good cops out there, lot of whiners as well.
November 1st, 2005 at 12:58 pm
If they don’t have the authority to give away city property, where do they get the authority to loan city property to individuals who do not (any longer) work for the city?
And if there was no authority to give away the guns then doesn’t this constitute theft by the previous chief? He is the one who gave them away; why isn’t he paying for them?