WINONA Minn. – Nobody’s saying much to police investigators about two ghost guns they recovered after breaking up teen-agers milling around in an alley in mid-July. The kids aren’t talking, said Deputy Police Chief Jay Rassmusen — not even the 16-year-old who was arrested for possession of a firearm and a stolen motor vehicle. Said Rasmussen: “Despite most of them speaking to us, it appears that most lied about what they knew, only gave us some information, or just plain totally lied.” The parents haven’t said much either about where the guns came from. One parent seemed to be trying to defend their child’s as innocent despite video evidence, Rasmussen said: “Kind of sad.” The evidence included surveillance video from behind the coin-laundry where some of the kids had driven a stolen car, from a Kwik Trip, and from other sources. These ghost guns were the first to show up in Winona. Police found one of the guns in a trash bin in a West Side alley and the other in nearby weeds. The teens jad been gathered around a car that had been stolen near the East End marina. The kids scattered down the alley when the cops pulled up. They tossed the guns in the haste of running away. Now a month later, is there an upside to all this? Said Rasmussen: “I’m at least grateful the guns were taken off the streets.”
Rasmussen. Deputy police chief. Tracking ghost guns at dead end for now.
Ghost guns
Ghost guns, made illicitly of a polymer without any serial numbers, are a growing menace. They’re as deadly as traditional guns that have engraved manufacturer serial numbers. Without serial numbers, ghost guns are almost impossible to track through the firearms black market.
Verbatim
Rasmussen: “The guns will remain in our custody for the foreseeable future. Upon a conviction or a case disposition — and then some extra time just to be sure we are in line with retention periods — the guns will most likely be sent to the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to be destroyed, probably several years from now.”