FBI investigates Los Angeles Swat unit over illegal gun trading
Swat and Special Investigations units of Los Angeles force being investigated over claims officers made huge profits reselling pistols
The FBI is investigating whether members of the Los Angeles Police Department's elite Swat and Special Investigations Section units violated the law by buying large numbers of custom-made handguns and reselling them for profit.
Federal authorities opened the inquiry into the alleged gun sales in recent weeks after LAPD officials alerted them to possible gun violations, sources said.
The move comes after an earlier LAPD investigation found no wrongdoing on the part of officers. But on Friday, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck acknowledged that that probe was "clearly lacking" and said the department has opened a second investigation of the weapons transactions that is still ongoing.
Suspicion over the guns first arose in May 2010, when a lieutenant in the LAPD's Metropolitan Division, which includes Swat, attempted to take an inventory the division's weapons, according to a whistle-blower lawsuit filed by the lieutenant and a report last year by the LAPD's inspector general, Alex Bustamante.
While accounting for the weapons, Lieutenant Armando Perez discovered that Swat members had purchased an unknown number of pistols from gun maker Kimber Manufacturing and were "possibly reselling these Kimber firearms for large profits to people outside of Metro SWAT," said the lawsuit and Bustamante's report.
Sales records showed that as many as 324 pistols had been bought from Kimber. There are only about 60 officers in Swat, and the guns were intended to be used by officers on duty.