Author Topic: Feds say KCPD, Missouri police are cutting off ATF from evidence in gun crimes  (Read 380 times)

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Online Elderberry

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The Kansas City Star By Jeanne Kuang 8/18/2021

Kansas City police and some other Missouri departments are cutting off federal agents’ access to evidence in gun crimes under a new state law banning local enforcement of certain federal firearms laws, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a court filing Wednesday.

The evidence includes background on potential suspects and ballistics information from crime scenes that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives uses in a national database to solve violent crimes.

Twelve of the 53 local police officers across Missouri assigned to work with the ATF have pulled out of those partnerships, the Justice Department said.

The new gun law, Missouri’s two federal prosecutors wrote, “undermines these critical partnerships and harms collective law enforcement efforts as a result.”

Those withdrawing include three Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers and two O’Fallon police K-9 officers, as previously reported by The Star. Also withdrawing are four police officers in Columbia, two in Sedalia and one deputy from the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, an ATF agent said in the court filing.

More: https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article253578784.html