UPDATE: Who Has Animal Shelters' Missing Guns and Ammo?

The city's six animal shelters are supposed to have firearms and ammo on hand. But just where are the guns? Who has them?

Brenda Barnette, Animal Services general manager, wants to know. And City Controller Wendy Greuel has announced plans to conduct a top-to-bottom audit of Animal Services.

So as part of an attempt to account for all firearms, personnel at the animal shelters were ordered to turn over about 100 weapons and ammunition when Los Angeles Police Department officers showed up on Thursday morning.

Employees at the West Valley Shelter in Chatsworth said that LAPD officers arrived about 8 a.m., and confiscated two shotguns, a rifle, more than a dozen .38-caliber handguns, along with ammunition.

The weapons are used to put down injured wildlife in a humane way, officials said.

A letter written by General Manager Barnette, instructed personnel at the shelters to "give the LAPD all handguns, rifles, shotguns and ammunition that are at your shelter.''

"We do think there are a few guns missing,'' Barnette told City News
Service. "I don't think that means anything beyond they're missing.''

Additionally, some reports that detail which guns were checked out and when and why they were fired were incomplete, Barnette said. Some reports were checked out to specific people, but had no signatures.

Barnette maintained she did not initiate the weapons grab because of
wrongdoing but because of "sloppy paperwork.''

"We realized we don't have good tracking mechanism for handling weapons and ammunition, and that's a public safety factor,'' she said, adding that she does not expect to fire or put any employees on administrative leave based on the weapons audit.

The department has come under scrutiny in recent months after thefts of animals at a Lincoln Heights shelter became public. Additional allegations suggest that Animal Services employees were paid after filling out time cards fraudulently.

Four animal services employees have been placed on administrative leave, and the number is expected to grow.

City Controller Wendy Greuel announced her audit of Animal Services in July. She expressed concern about the viability of the department and said she planned to look at deficiencies that allowed the alleged problems to occur.

"It's clear there were not appropriate internal controls (over these
weapons), and we need to know how many weapons there are and where the weapons were,'' Greuel said today.

Asked if she believed any of the weapons had been stolen, Greuel said,
"No,'' then added, "That has not been determined.''

Officers from the LAPD's Gang and Operations Support Division-Guns
Section were deployed to all six animal shelters at about 8 a.m.,
where employees were presented the letter from Barnette. The officers
confiscated shotguns, rifles, dozens of .38-caliber handguns, and ammunition.

LAPD will hold on to the weapons until the audit is complete.

The city administrative officer has recommended allowing a private
operator, Best Friends Animal Society, to manage a San Fernando Valley shelter that has remained closed because the department does not have enough money to hire staff to open the shelter.

Barnette was tapped to head the department in June 2010 after a year-long search to replace former General Manager Ed Boks, who resigned in 2009 after he lost the confidence of Animal Services Staff and some city council members.

-- City News Service contributed to this report.