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D.C. Officers Under Investigation for Seizing Guns without Making Arrests

Seven Washington, D.C., police officers from a violent-crime unit are under investigation after they allegedly confiscated illegal guns without making arrests, D.C. police chief Robert J. Contee III said Friday night.

“In these cases, the suspect was not arrested, and the suspect should’ve been arrested,” Contee said during a press conference. “The firearm was taken and placed into evidence, however, the suspect was allowed to go free, and that’s just not the way that we conduct business in the Metropolitan Police Department.”

The officers, who have since been placed on administrative leave or desk duty, are part of the crime-suppression team in the Seventh District, where they patrol neighborhoods in search of drugs and guns. The other members of the team have been reassigned as well, as investigators conduct an internal probe to determine the extent of the wrongdoing.

The police chief said the investigation was brought on by an unrelated citizen complaint, which led internal-affairs investigators to review body-camera footage. They found that two officers seized a semiautomatic handgun on September 11 and, despite the weapon being properly accounted for and placed into evidence, no arrest was made.

The internal-affairs investigators found seven cases where people in possession of firearms were not arrested, involving two other sergeants and three other officers.

“It’s not a mystery where the guns are. The mystery is why the people weren’t arrested,” Contee said, adding that officials believe there was sufficient cause for arrest in the cases where guns were confiscated.

“While we stress the importance of holding offenders accountable for their actions, we have an obligation to hold our members to a high standard for all that they do,” Contee said. “The expectation of our officers is they make arrests when they have probable cause to make an arrest.”

Contee said the internal investigators have alerted the U.S. attorney’s office to their findings.

D.C. police have seized more than 2,000 illegal guns this year, as of last month — roughly 800 more than at the same time last year. The spike comes as shootings and homicides are near 20-year highs in the District.

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