The new multi-jurisdictional Gun Tracing Task Force arrested a convicted sex offender early Tuesday morning in Baltimore and seized 38 illegal guns, including a sawed-off shotgun and a 9 mm Uzi-style automatic weapon.
“You really can?t ask these men and women to do more than this kind of action,” acting Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld said at an afternoon news conference at police headquarters. “What you see right before you is really an incredibly deadly arsenal not unlike weapons that are being used too frequently in murders and nonfatal shootings in the city.”
At 4:45 a.m., task force detectives executed a search and seizure warrant on the 4400 block of Finney Avenue in Northwest Baltimore. Orlando Yarborough, 61, was arrested, and police seized 38 guns from his home.
Of those weapons, 30 are regulated firearms and eight are long guns. Police also seized numerous barrels and magazines, and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Baltimore Police Lt. Dan Lioi said Yarborough was “pretty much a collector” of guns but that in 1999 and 1998, a few of the guns turned up on the streets of Baltimore. Yarborough kept the guns in his basement refrigerator, police said.
Mayor Sheila Dixon called for the creation of the task force in May. The force is made up of officers from Baltimore police; Baltimore County police; state police; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
“This is so important,” Dixon said. “These guns represent saving lives.”
Bealefeld said what most galled him about Yarborough was that he told police he had no idea where four of his guns were.
“He has guns and he doesn?t even know where they are?” Bealefeld asked incredulously. “He should be concerned about it. What if it was an alligator? What if it was a cobra? … His guns in the past have been used in crimes.”
Yarborough was convicted of child abuse in Baltimore County Circuit Court in 2001, according to court records. He was in the process of being booked and charged at the Central Booking and Intake Facility in Baltimore on Tuesday, according to court records.
