Several Baltimore County police firearms, including two automatic weapons, could not be immediately located during a recent inventory check, according to an audit that also criticized relaxed access to weapon vaults.
Police kept keys to armories at three of the county?s 10 precincts in common areas accessible to civilians, and, in at least one case, on a ring hanging at the front desk. Firearms requiring specific qualifications were accessible to nonqualified people at all precincts, according to the audit of the department?s internal controls over its firearms inventory.
“These conditions increase the risk that a firearm could be lost or stolen without timely detection,” wrote former county auditor Brian Rowe, who resigned last month following a dispute with county administrators.
The audit was completed last month and recently published by the county?s internal auditing office. Police officials said they began their own firearms audit in July 2006, with results consistent with Rowe?s.
The department implemented several changes as a result of the audits, including completing a reliable master inventory in November, according to a written response from Police Chief Terrence Sheridan.
Officials also plan to begin periodically changing locks on vaults and conducting random inspections.
The audit suggested the department require officers log guns in and out of armories, but Sheridan said he directed precinct captains to develop their own policies to safeguard weapons.
Each will submit written plans soon, and administrators also are drafting a department-wide policy, police spokesman Bill Toohey said.
“This agency is constantly reviewing its policies,” Toohey said. “We are aware there are areas where we can improve and we?re working on them.”
The department?s central inventory was missing about 100 tactical unit firearms, according to the report, and auditors could not immediately locate two automatic weapons listed on the roster. The audit also noted 84 instances where the same serial number was listed for two or more guns and more than 100 discrepancies in serial numbers due to typing errors and employee transfers.
