Dec. 20, 2012: A customer tests a Glock 20 10mm handgun at a gun shop in Phoenix, Arizona. Eight Glock .40-caliber pistols were stolen from a Compton City hall vault sometime last year, officials said Tuesday. (Reuters)
Dozens of guns have vanished from a vault in a former California city hall building and now federal officials are offering a $10,000 reward for information on the arsenal’s whereabouts.
Officials from the ATF’s Los Angeles division announced the reward Tuesday and said 23 Beretta and eight Glock .40-caliber pistols were taken from the old Compton City Hall building on 600 N. Alameda St. between March and August last year, according to the Los Angeles Times.
"There were several people at the time who were working who had the combination. I had access to the combination,” Compton City Manager Cecil Rhambo told KABC in February, when initial reports emerged of the guns’ disappearance. “But over the years I have no idea the number, over 17 years, who still had access to that combination.”
The city of Compton began storing around 200 guns in the vault in 2000 after its police department was disbanded and its responsibilities taken over by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the LA Times reported.
All the now-stolen guns had remained in the vault -- which had heavy metal doors and a combination lock -- until last year. The sheriff’s department counted them during an inventory check in March 2017, but when they returned in August to move the guns to another location, they were missing.
"There were some police department weapons. There were some weapons with no owner on file, some weapons registered to other people, some evidence weapons there," Rhambo, a former assistant Los Angeles County sheriff, told KABC.
The station reported no cameras were operating in the building at the time of the guns’ disappearance, and Daryl Thomas, the resident agent in charge at the ATF’s Long Beach office, told the LA Times that there was no sign of damage to the vault.
The hottest stories ripped from the headlines, from crime to courts, legal and scandal.
