Police illegally sell restricted weapons, supplying crime
www.cbsnews.com
These high-powered weapons are only meant for police. How are they ending up in criminals' hands?

“If I’m guilty of this, every cop in the nation’s going to jail,” Wendt told CBS News just days before a federal judge sentenced him to a 5-year prison term. Wendt’s crimes appear to be part of a nationwide pattern.

  • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    22 days ago

    A nationwide review of government audits and court records over the last 20 years uncovered at least 50 cases of police illegally selling their weapons online

    JFC, what a non-story.

    (Google) As of 2024, there are over 1,280,000 sworn law enforcement officers in the United States

    So we caught 0.00004% of lowlifes selling illegal guns? Over 20 years?! Save you outrage for something real. “Microscopic Percentage of Police Abuse Their Position to Sell Guns”, is not a story. Plenty enough headlines if you leave off the last phrase in that headline.

    • Bronzebeard@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      22 days ago

      The real story is that they discovered the crimes and have once again chosen to let the criminals pretending to be police off the hook

    • Lupo@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      0·
      21 days ago

      The headline being true in any instance is a ridiculous thing to allow happen without any real safeguards or punishments to prevent it from happing in the first place.

      Other cops read this line

      The officer argued at the time that he didn’t know he was breaking the law, but he later pleaded guilty. He served less than a year in federal prison and paid a $10,000 fine but was allowed to keep his Porsche and Alfa Romeo.

      And think that it’s worth the risk.

    • thesmokingman@programming.devEnglish
      0·
      21 days ago

      You’re cherry-picking the data in the article. 26k crime-related firearms in about four years and $100mil of firearms and ammunition in a couple of years for a single DHS department doesn’t seem like nonstory to me.

    • FauxPseudo @lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      21 days ago

      “at least” means there are more. “cases” means ones we know about.

      How many is the right number of times this should cops be allowed to break the laws that are charged with upholding?