Orlando Police Chief Val Demings talks about loss of her gun.Top cop takes full responsibility, promises to review guns-left-in-car policy
Henry Pierson Curtis and Walter Pacheco
Sentinel Staff Writers
2:48 PM EDT, March 25, 2009
Today's updates:
2:48 p.m. Orlando Police Chief Val Demings took full responsibility for the theft of her gun as new details emerged Wednesday.
The pistol disappeared a month but did not become public until late Tuesday when a tipster contacted the Orlando Sentinel. Demings held a press conference at noon Wednesday to talk about what happened and that a policy that allows cops to leave their guns in cars overnight will be reviewed.
"I would say to the community 'Anybody can be a victim, it happened to me,'" she said. "Do everything you can to safeguard your family, your home and yourself."
Asked why she hadn't alert the public weeks ago, Demings said the reported the theft to the Orange County Sheriff's Office which patrols her home in an area of the unincorporated county, her department's Internal Affairs inspectors and to her boss, Mayor Buddy Dyer.
"I felt like in terms of my reporting it, that was adequate reporting," Demings said it is not common for police agencies to mention active criminal investigations or administrative reviews of possible policy violations. "I reported it to the persons that I felt needed to know it at the time."
However, agencies including the Orlando Police Department previously have alerted the public about some previous gun thefts, especially involving officers' assault weapons. Unlike previous thefts of guns from rank-and-file officers, Demings said she told her Internal Affairs office to discipline her without going through an investigation.
Her investigators declined the offer, saying it would be treating her differently.
"I take full responsibility," Demings said. "I should be treated differently because I am chief of police so I am willing to take full responsibility."
When her gun disappeared on the night of Feb. 27, Demings did not discover it was missing until the next afternoon, according to a car burglary report she filed with the sheriff's office.
At that time, Demings told deputies she noticed a black duffel bag holding her gun belt, pistol, three magazines holding 45 bullets, handcuffs and nightstick was missing from her city-issued Chevrolet Tahoe SUV. Thinking she must have left the canvas bag in her office, she drove to police headquarters in Orlando without finding the missing weapon."
10:58 a.m. Chief Val Demings has scheduled a noon meeting at the Orlando Police Department to discuss the burglary of her agency-issued gun.
10:43 a.m. Orlando police Chief Val Demings told sheriff's deputies she had returned to police headquarters to look for her gun the afternoon she discovered it missing, an Orange County Sheriff's Office report shows.
"[Demings] stated since her laptop computer, GPS, and her agency issued uniform were still in the car she believed she had left the canvas bag in her office at 100 South Hughey Ave.," according to the burglary report. "[Demings] stated she drove over to the office to check for the bag, and was unable to locate it."
Demings told deputies she was certain the canvas bag, containing her 9mm Sig Sauer pistol, had been in her agency vehicle on the night of Feb. 27, the report shows. The incident became public late Tuesday, when a tipster alerted the Orlando Sentinel.
The police chief had told the Orlando Sentinel she had left the gun in the car that night because she and her husband, Sheriff Jerry Demings, were expecting guests for the weekend and they had young children.
Chief Demings said officers are allowed to store weapons in the trunk or passenger compartments as long as they are out of plain view.
"It was clearly out of plain view," she said.
Deputies examined Deming's car and "did not observe any forced entry."
The canvas bag also contained her agency-issued belt, handcuffs, three magazines, a baton, checkbook, drivers license and other personal items. The estimated value of the missing items is $1,000, the sheriff's report shows.
Orlando police Chief Val Demings lost her gun in a burglary of her city vehicle.
The theft happened weeks ago, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office, but did not become public until late Tuesday, when a tipster alerted the Orlando Sentinel.
"It was devastating enough for me to be the victim of a crime and have my service weapon stolen after 25 years on the job," Demings said in a telephone interview. "I need to do everything possible to get my gun off the street."
The 9mm Sig Sauer pistol was stolen the night of Feb. 27 and discovered the next morning. The weapon was left in a duffel bag inside her agency sport utility vehicle, which she parked outside the home she and her husband, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings, share in an unincorporated area of the county.
"I never leave my gun in the car, but I did that night because we were expecting guests for the weekend and they had young children," Demings said. "We are allowed to store our [weapons] in the trunk or passenger compartment as long as they are out of plain view. It was clearly out of plain view."
The break-in and theft of her duffel bag and its contents were reported the same day to the Sheriff's Office. A report of the crime was not available late Tuesday.
Demings said she reported the theft to her agency's Internal Affairs department to investigate whether she broke any policies. And she said she told Mayor Buddy Dyer that someone had stolen her gun.
A major focus of Orlando's campaign to reduce violent crime is removing illegal guns from city streets. Stolen guns, by the nature of the crime, end up in the hands of criminals.
As deputy police chief in 2007, Demings ordered off-duty officers to store city-issued AR-15 assault rifles at police headquarters after three of the weapons were stolen. Storing rifles and shotguns near the driver's seat is a common practice to make the weapons immediately accessible during a crisis.
Since 2007, the Police Department has replaced all of its in-car gun locks and outfitted all new police vehicles with alarms.
While Orlando policy allows officers to leave guns in unoccupied, locked vehicles, other police agencies follow different policies.
Her husband's department, for instance, prohibits its nearly 1,500 deputies from leaving guns in patrol cars and undercover vehicles. The reason for the rule was demonstrated in late 2006 when teens stole a submachine gun with a silencer, a .308-caliber assault rifle and a .45-caliber pistol from a SWAT team member's unmarked SUV.
Gun thefts from Orlando police vehicles have been an infrequent but persistent problem for several years. Thefts from Orange County residents' cars pose a much more serious threat.
In 2002, the Sentinel found that 193 of 680 guns stolen in the county were taken from parked cars. That year, Florida ranked fifth nationally in that regard, with 7,434 firearms reported stolen.
Since the 1990s, several dozen murders have been committed in Central Florida with stolen handguns. None of those has been linked to thefts from police officers.
Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel
