A San Francisco sheriff’s deputy’s missing handgun turned up in a homicide investigation in Solano County last year, the latest discovery of what happened to one of hundreds of lost or stolen law enforcement weapons uncovered by a Bay Area News Group investigation published Sunday.

Former Deputy Armando Gonzalez apparently didn’t report his duty weapon missing for nearly two years until after Fairfield police detectives called him last year to say his gun had turned up in a search connected to the killing of a local teen. Only then did he report to his superiors that his wife took the gun “a couple of years ago” when the couple broke up.

On Monday officials from the San Francisco Sheriff’s department said they were told the gun wasn’t used in the killing, but the story of its disappearance and recovery infuriated a state lawmaker who is pushing legislation to force officers to safeguard their weapons.

The news organization’s survey of police in the Bay Area and state and federal law enforcement across California found 944 firearms have been lost, stolen or unaccounted for since 2010. The alarming figure comes a year after the high-profile killing of Kate Steinle, who was shot by an illegal immigrant with a gun stolen from the car of a Bureau of Land Management ranger.

Gonzalez’s gun was one of 192 law enforcement guns reported stolen in the news organization’s survey, and Sen. Jerry Hill said it “starkly portrayed the problem” of stolen and missing cop guns. Hill, D-San Mateo said he was “furious and outraged” by the news organization’s latest findings and even more determined to champion legislation that would make it a crime for police to leave weapons in unattended vehicles unless they are locked in hidden compartments or secure, hidden boxes. A hearing on Senate Bill 865 is scheduled for Wednesday before the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

While his proposed legislation focuses on guns in cars, Hill said Monday he hopes it will bring wider attention to how officers care for and secure their weapons both in and out of vehicles. He said he expects it to clear Wednesday’s committee vote with bipartisan support.

The California Police Chiefs Association supports the bill, said Ventura Police Chief Ken Corney, the group’s president.

Corney called this newspaper’s investigation shocking and implored officers to use “good judgment to make sure their weapon is not stolen.”

“Police always need to be aware of the potential for theft” of both their duty and personal weapons, he said.

Gonzalez’s gun wasn’t taken from a car, but it still raises questions of how well police secure and care for their guns.

Gonzalez apparently hadn’t told his superiors that his weapon was missing until Fairfield police discovered it with his ex-wife while investigating the murder of 19-year-old Aaron Malave in February 2015.

Detectives found the gun while serving a search warrant at the home of Gonzalez’s mother-in-law, records show. Police later arrested James Cruz, 19, in the killing but it isn’t clear why they were searching the home of Gonzalez’s mother-in-law.

Court records show Armando Gonzalez was served with divorce papers at the same address a few months later, records show.

Citing state laws that keep police personnel records secret, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department said Monday she could not say how Gonzalez covered for the missing weapon or how the department dealt with the matter.

When the gun surfaced, Gonzalez was ordered to file a report and wrote that his wife had told him just the day before she had his department-issued weapon.

Three months later, Gonzalez was no longer working as a San Francisco deputy, said department spokeswoman Eileen Hirst. “Read into that what you will,” she said.

She said proper storage and care of weapons by deputies is a “very serious issue.”

Gonzalez was not home Wednesday when a reporter went to his house and he did not return a message.

A Fairfield police spokesman said Monday that Gonzalez’s ex-wife, Sonia Gonzalez, was not charged in connection with the missing weapon.

Follow Thomas Peele at Twitter.com/thomas_peele.