80 Guns, 4,000-Plus Rounds of Ammo Recovered in Gun Bounty Program

Sawed off shotguns, 100-round magazines, a 50-calliber handgun and a 20-round shotgun magazine represent just a sliver of the 80 guns taken from criminals in St. Petersburg during a six-week gun bounty program.

Monday, St. Petersburg Police Chief Chuck Harmon held a press conference at the police headquarters to share the success of the initiative.

“Every gun here was taken from a criminal. This was in the community of St. Petersburg,” Harmon said pointing to a table of assault weapons and fully automatic weapons. “It’s out there and unfortunately too prevalent in our community.”

In total, since Feb. 28 the department collected 120 firearms, 24 pellet/bb guns, 4,123 rounds of ammunition and the seizure of nearly $74,000.

The initiative resulted in 34 arrests.

“Well this is amazing,” said Mayor Bill Foster looking at the tables of confiscated guns. “From the prospective of a civilian, (it’s) amazing and mortifying at the same time to know that these were once on the streets in the possession of criminals. It’s an eye-opener for me.”

Harmon said the program provided a window into how the department can continue to fight illegal gun ownership in the future.

“It has assisted in identifying best practices, when addressing illegal firearms in our community, and what initiative we should continue in the future,” the report said.

The program launched Feb. 28 and offered $1,500 for assault weapons and $1,000 for all other firearms recovered to individuals who made tips that led to arrests.

Harmon said only two people took advantage of the reward and that most of the guns were collected through partnerships with ATF, the department’s vice and narcotics division, with State Probation and Parole officers and the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. The increase in the focus on guns was where the department saw the greatest success with the initiative.

While Harmon said he thinks the gun bounty program made a “small dent” into getting illegal guns off the streets, he thinks the program was a success because the department doubled the amount of illegal guns than it would taken in during a normal six-week period.

One major success was the confiscation of a gun that was found at Gibbs High School on the second day of the initiative.

“We made an arrest in this case,” Harmon said. “Probably would not have happened with out this initiative."

Officers with the gun bounty program also visited all 56 public and private elementary, middle and high schools in St. Pete during the last six weeks.

“Officers informed every school already had an active safety plan and they offered a crime prevention through environmental design study to each campus to increase school safety,” the report said.

Harmon said greater strides need to be made to ensure criminals do not get their hands on guns in the first place. Recently he made the trip to Tallahassee to meet with state legislators to speak in favor of more thorough background checks.

“Time for debate on it,” Harmon said for gun control. “(However), I don’t think it will go as far as law enforcement would particularly like it.

“It ‘s going to take some political courage,” he said of politicians making changes to gun laws. “Hopefully showing something like today will help.”

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