Over the last year, investigations into the Oxford County sheriff have brought to light the fact that he traded guns from the evidence room to a nearby gun store without getting permission from the gun owners, keeping financial records of the deal, or telling the people in charge of finances about it.
But Oxford County Commissioners said that Oxford County Sheriff Christopher Wainwright’s actions were careless and might have been illegal. The Bangor Daily News found that this is different from what other sheriffs in Maine do after asking every county for gun sale records.
It is the first time that records and interviews have shown that 12 of the 16 elected sheriffs do not sell guns from evidence at all or have not done so in the last few years to traders who then sell the guns to other people.
With the new information, Oxford County seems to be the only one that has recently sold guns without first getting permission from the owners.
Records and interviews also show that sheriffs are less likely to sell guns to local sellers who then sell them to other people. This is because the guns may not have been sourced legally or be reliable.
Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce said, “We didn’t want to be in a position where we sold a firearm and then later found out that the firearm had been used in the commission of a crime.” That’s why his office doesn’t sell guns that have been used in crimes or suicides, found by police, or turned in by residents on their own.
In the past few years, four offices have sold guns that were used as evidence. Two of them, in Piscataquis and York counties, have only sold a few guns. In Hancock County, a third wants to stop selling guns that have been used as evidence altogether.
Oxford County, the last one, made a new rule in 2023 that any future trade-in of weapons must be cleared by the county administrator.
There are different reasons why people might give up their guns to the cops. Piscataquis County Sheriff Robert Young said it could be because they are going to a place where they can’t have a gun or because they don’t want to keep a gun that belonged to a dead family member.
Sometimes, a person who has committed a crime is not allowed to have a gun, and the county needs a court order to take it back.
You can’t sell or destroy a gun until we have a court order or signed permission from the owner to do so, said Young. His office doesn’t sell guns that have been used in suicides.
Since 2019, his office has sold two guns that were used as evidence to a licensed gun dealer in the area for cash. The money was put into a fund that is used to buy equipment like guns, laptops for cruisers, and body cameras that isn’t covered by the usual budget.
Young said that one of the guns that was sold had been used in an attempted murder case and had to be given back to the sheriff’s office as part of a plea deal.
A store in Dover-Foxcroft bought it for $400 in August 2023. Four months later, the second gun brought $150 from the same shop. The Oxford County sheriff’s office didn’t keep records of each payout, but Piscataquis did. Each record was dated and signed.
Maine law says that guns used in murders must be thrown away, but it also says that cops can sell guns used in other crimes to federally licensed gun dealers or the public, train with them, or throw them away.
Police must first make sure that no one else has a right to guns before they can be thrown away. According to Maine law, cops must try their best to find and contact the owner of lost property, or they must put an ad in the newspaper if they can’t.
The Oxford County sheriff made mistakes when he sold 52 guns and gun parts to J.T. Reid’s Gun Shop in Auburn between June and September 2021. These mistakes made Gov. Janet Mills think about whether to remove him from office after judges said he had done something wrong.
According to the Maine Constitution, only the governor can fire a sheriff who is already in office. However, this spring, the governor chose not to fire him because he did not personally benefit from the trade to the gun store for credit. She did say, though, that her choice shouldn’t be seen as a victory.
Sheriff William King said that the York County Sheriff’s Office will only trade in guns that are used as evidence for cash if the guns were properly turned over to the county and have value. In 2023, his office gave 10 guns that had been seized to First Due Firearms of Sabattus.
It does not trade in guns that were found, whose owners did not want them, were used in deaths, or could be returned but the owner can’t be found, he said. Part of the reason for this is that it’s hard to tell how reliable those kinds of guns are.
Because of this, selling them could put the county at risk of being sued if something goes wrong. “More importantly, we don’t want anyone to get hurt for no reason,” King said.
According to its records, the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office has sold 29 guns from evidence in the last five years, including some without serial numbers. This is second only to Oxford County. Chief Deputy William Birch said it will soon change course.
Its new policy, which should go into effect this month, says that guns can’t be sold or auctioned. This is to “reflect our commitment to responsible evidence management,” Birch said.
Detective Frank Jennings of the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office said in a written statement that until recently, the store sold weapons that had been legally forfeited, found, or turned in to the federally licensed Willey’s Sport Center in Ellsworth.
This was allowed by a policy from 2008 on evidence control that gave the sheriff the power to decide what happened to guns that were in evidence.
Birch said that the evidence officer “strives hard to find the rightful owners of abandoned or found property before any sale is considered.”
Since 2019, the sheriff’s office has traded in five groups of guns that were used as proof for store credit. The company kept track of how much credit the shop gave it and wrote down each gun it sold. As of April, it still had $3,147 in credit.
Jennnings said that the credit was used to buy guns, ammunition, targets, cleaning materials for guns, and optics.
The sheriff’s office has also thrown away guns. I took five guns to a nearby shop in October 2023 so they could be cut up with a torch.
On June 4, the newspaper asked counties to show proof of how much they spent on buying, selling, or trading officers’ service weapons and guns from evidence since January 1, 2019. They also asked for any rules about buying or selling guns and minutes from meetings where deals were discussed or approved.
The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office was the first office to fully answer to the request. They sent six pages of records within two days. Within three days, the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office gave out 104 pages.
Recently, on September 12, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office said that they had not sold any guns from evidence. Instead, they said that they destroy illegal guns, like ones with barrels that have been sawed off or serial numbers that have been filed off.
Cumberland and Penobscot counties, which have the most and third-most people, respectively, don’t let guns that have been willingly surrendered, collected as evidence, or forfeited be sold. Instead, they have to be destroyed if they can’t be returned to their owners.
Penobscot County Sheriff Troy Morton said that the state holds the biggest firearms auction in Maine and sells guns to help pay for public safety costs. However, his office will not change its policy.
“Many of the guns that were found were used in suicides. Some don’t have serial numbers, and others aren’t working right.” “When it is legal and safe to do so, our office does return guns to their owners,” he said.
Since at least 2015, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office hasn’t traded or sold guns from evidence. However, Chief Deputy Michael Crabtree said he couldn’t guess what might happen in the future because sheriffs are chosen every four years and rules can change.
But, “We haven’t bought or sold any evidence items, and I don’t think that will change any time soon,” he said.