MAJOR SCANDAL AT POLICE ACADEMY GUN STORE IN L.A.

by Bob Walsh

There is a large gun store at the L.A. Police Academy.  It is the central point of a serious scandal that just broke.

Assuming the press are reporting it correctly Archi Duenas, manager of the gun store, has been stealing and selling guns under the table for more than a little while.  He has from time to time been jacked up for sloppy record keeping and coming in to work late, but he ALWAYS closed up and NEVER took a vacation.  For years he was mister reliable at the Los Angeles Police Revolver and Athletic Club.  One of his jobs was to daily hand count the inventory.  Every day.

Finally back in February of 2020 he was ordered to take some time off due to his accrued leave time being higher than was acceptable.  Somebody else was doing the inventory while he was gone.  They found and empty gun box that, according to the inventory, was supposed to have a gun in it.  Then another one.  Then another one.  Duenas was promptly arrested and an in-depth investigation was started, leading to the above-mentioned scandal.  It seems that a significant number of the buyers of these off-paper guns were cops.  

Many of the cops involved are asserting that, as far as they know, they made a legal gun purchase from a legal gun store.  Also accusations have been made that top brass at the LAPD are deliberately screwing with the investigation.  

No cops have as yet been charged in the case.  

There are a lot of back and forth emails from people, including cops, concerning buying the guns at what seems to be highly inflated prices with the understanding there will be no records of the purchases.  

A total of 44 firearms are known to have been stolen in this manner.  Of that number 34 have been recovered.  One of the officers had five stolen weapons.  

So far the DA has declined to prosecute several of the officers citing insufficient evidence.  Several of them, though, are looking at issues over negligent storage of firearms in their homes, which in CA is a criminal offense.  Also BATF is following the case as some of the people involved were apparently engaged in large scale gun sales without proper licenses or document trails.  In CA off-paper private hand gun sales are illegal and have been for years.