Philadelphia Police are still working to locate a dozen firearms as part of an internal audit of the department’s weapons.
Officials say there are 12 guns that have yet to be accounted for as part the audit which was launched after a police-owned M-16 assault rifle went missing earlier this year.
Auditors still need to check with around 100 officers to see whether they have any of the guns. Officials say some of the officers are out on injury leave while others are working on special units. The weapons may also have been purchased by officers who have retired from the police force.
Philadelphia Police spokesman Lt. John Stanford said since the audit is still underway, it’s too early to consider any of the weapons missing.
“We haven’t quite completed the audit so we don’t have a final determination as to whether anything is unaccounted for at this moment,” he said.
Police determined the department was missing one of its 1,356 Vietnam-era M16s in April following another audit.
Commissioner Ramsey said at the time that the rifle was last accounted for in a previous audit in December 2012. The guns, which were given to Philadelphia Police from the Department of Defense, were in the process of being converted into AR-15 rifles.
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The rifle was stored in a secure room at the Philadelphia Police Academy in Northeast Philadelphia. Commissioner Ramsey vowed to investigate everyone with access to that room.
"This was not someone who came in from the outside to take this... there is no indication of that at all," he said in April. "I guarantee you that if it's somebody that I find out took that gun that I will do everything in my power to see to it that they get time in a federal penitentiary."
Contact Vince Lattanzio at 610.668.5532, vince.lattanzio@nbcuni.com or follow @VinceLattanzio on Twitter.
