Two 22-year-old college buddies had a bright idea last June: Let’s break into a Virginia gun shop, steal pistols and sell them on the streets of the nation’s capital.
With that in mind, Leon Waddy and Michael Henderson set out for Green Top Sporting Goods in Glen Allen, Va., just north of Richmond. They took a bat to the front door, a hammer to the display cases and made off with 34 guns. All of this was recorded on a security camera and documented in court records.
Waddy and Henderson were efficient at grabbing guns but novices at selling them. They sold a 40-caliber pistol for $550 and a 50-caliber one for $1,000 — both to an informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The feds and D.C. police quickly built a case, busted down doors and got both into custody by June 20. But they recovered only six of the 34 stolen firearms; the rest were already in circulation.
Both men pleaded guilty but neither is likely to serve much time in jail. A federal judge in D.C. sentenced Waddy to 22 months; one in Greenbelt gave Henderson 18 months.
Forgive me for playing the tough guy, but this seems like a slap on the wrist for adults who sold a small arsenal of killing machines to people who are very likely to use them in violent crimes. Imagine the cold barrel of one of the semiautomatics shoved into your temple. Why did Henderson get a year and a half when someone using one of his guns in a robbery might get 10 years?
I bring up this case now because Mayor Adrian Fenty is putting the finishing touches on his Omnibus Crime Bill. He introduced a crime bill late last year, and Judiciary Committee Chairman Phil Mendelson held one roundtable discussion. Fenty is poised to send it up again.
At the roundtable discussion, two men you might not expect to agree advocated the same thing: mandatory sentences for selling or using an illegal firearm.
Ronald “Mo” Moten, co-founder of the Peaceaholics, a group that works with street gangs, called for a 20-year mandatory sentence for anyone selling a gun to a juvenile. “We need tougher consequences,” he tells me. “It’s easier for a kid to get an AK-47 than help going to college.”
Police union chief Kristopher Baumann called for 15-year mandatory sentences for committing a crime of violence with a gun; illegally transporting, distributing or selling a firearm; and 15 years for a convicted felon who uses a gun for criminal purposes.
“We have to give the people of D.C. the chance to live a normal life,” Baumann says, “without being afraid of going to the store and confronting someone with a gun.”
If Waddy and Henderson knew they could face 15 years in the slammer, chances are they would have gone fishing that June day, rather than busting into a gun shop and polluting our streets with illegal weapons.
