The Star Tribune
New Hope Police Chief Tim Fournier and his department
were still reeling from the ambush shooting of two officers by a
mentally unstable man when the investigation took a startling twist. The
12-gauge pistol-grip Stoeger shotgun wielded by attacker Raymond Kmetz
had come from the Duluth Police Department.
That
department followed all state and federal laws when it sold the gun and
45 other confiscated hunting guns to the public over the last two years.
Kmetz, who was prohibited from owning a gun because of his mental
health history, ordered it from an online auction site and had a friend
pick it up in an illegal “straw” purchase at a gun shop in Princeton,
Minn.
On Jan. 26,
Kmetz, 68, took the gun to New Hope City Hall, where he shot the two
officers. Other officers returned fire, killing him.
“You can’t guarantee where guns go,” Fournier said.
Duluth
police pocketed $5,538 for selling the 46 shotguns. Feb. 13, Duluth
Police Chief Gordon Ramsay said his department now is weighing a change
in the way it discards confiscated weapons no longer needed for
investigations or training.
“The New
Hope incident is yet another example of why we need to develop sound
strategies to keep weapons from individuals who are ineligible to
lawfully possess them,” Ramsay said.
If Duluth
decides to start destroying them, it will join many Twin Cities
metro-area and outstate departments whose chiefs say that policy sends
the right message about keeping guns off the streets.