Therese Apel

The Clarion-Ledger

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and local police are investigating the theft of a large number of guns being delivered to a sporting goods store in Olive Branch.

A combined 61 handguns and six long guns were being delivered to Academy Sports on Goodman Road, according to Olive Branch Police Chief Don Gammage. He said the truck driver had fallen asleep behind the store on Sunday night, awaiting an early morning delivery Monday. When he woke up, he and Academy Sports employees found that the seals and locks had been cut off the truck, and the guns and a small amount of ammunition were gone.

"We definitely want to try to find out who got these guns," he said. "When you're close to a metropolitan city like Memphis, your main concern is that they're actually sold on the black market and get out on the street. Memphis crime is very high, and we don't want these guns on the street for criminals to use to hurt people or commit other crimes."

ATF Spokesman Special Agent Kevin Moran said agents and industry operations investigators were dispatched to the scene.

"In general it’s always a concern when any number of firearms are taken from legal commerce and diverted to criminal activity, but even one gun is one too many," Moran said. "Of course, this is a priority for the ATF to be involved in, and we hope to recover every firearm and the information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those involved. It's a huge priority."

Oftentimes large shipments of stolen weapons end up in the hands of gangs or cartels, officials said, and that's a clear threat in the Memphis area where gang activity is well-documented. Last week, Fox 13's Zach Crenshaw investigated how gang crime is bleeding into the areas around Memphis as well.

Moran said it's too early to tell what could have happened to the guns in Olive Branch.

"Whether it's gang-related, or it could be cartel-related, we don't know yet," he said. "Are the guns going to funnel south? I have no clue at this time to say if they’re going to Mexico or up to Chicago, but we follow investigative leads to answer those kinds of questions. Right now it’s way too early to speculate on the end location of where these guns end up."

Not only do stolen guns turn up back on the street, said Mississippi Association of Gang Investigators spokesman Agent Daniel Dunlap, who is with the Alcoholic Beverage Control, but he can't remember a case he's worked where a criminal was using a gun he'd bought legally.

"Anytime that amount of guns is stolen, you have to wonder where they’re going. In my experience they end up back on the streets, back in the hands of gang members because there’s always a market for stolen guns because they can’t be traced," he said. "They're used in a crime, then either tossed or found years down the road."

Dunlap said in his experience many of the stolen weapons he's come across have been taken from somewhere else. He cited a case several years ago where a hardware store in Noxapater was robbed and the stolen guns turned up in Nashville.

"They're trafficked across the country. I've recovered stolen guns from as far away as Indianapolis, among other places," he said. "Most of the ones we recover are from somewhere else, which gives me the impression they’re being trafficked or traded across state line for whatever purpose."

Another more recent example is that of Jamison Layne Townsend, 35, and Joshua Garcia, 37, who are charged in the robberies of several pawn stores on the coast and the deaths of three Bill's Pawn employees in Jackson. They were caught in Junction City, Kansas, on Dec. 21.

Roughly a month later, a weapon tied to their crime spree was recovered in the home of Reno Dillard, a Missouri man. Police said Townsend and Garcia had allegedly taken several weapons from one of the coast stores, and brought "a majority, if not all of the firearms stolen" in that crime to the Kansas City area. They allegedly sold around 20 of them to Dillard for between $1,200 and $1,500.

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Contact Therese Apel at 601-961-7236 or tapel@gannett.com . Follow her on Facebook and Twitter .