Report: Park Police Have Lost Track Of Weapons

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Park Police, the law enforcement agency responsible for safeguarding the National Mall and critical American landmarks, has lost track of a large supply of handguns, rifles and shotguns, according to a harshly critical report issued Thursday.

In the report, the inspector general's office of the Department of Interior faults staff at the agency for having no idea how many weapons they control and says the department has no clear policies or procedures for investigating missing weapons.  The office says top managers, including the police chief, have shown a "lackadaisical attitude toward firearms management."

While surveying Park Police field office armories, investigators found more than 1,400 extra and unassigned weapons that were intended to be destroyed. They also found 198 handguns that were transferred from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and stored in an operations facility firearms room without being recorded in an inventory system. There are also instances of officers storing service weapons at their homes, according to the report.

"We found credible evidence of conditions that would allow for theft and misuse of firearms, and the ability to conceal the fact if weapons were missing," deputy inspector general Mary Kendall wrote to Jonathan Jarvis, the director of the National Park Service, in a letter that accompanies the report.

The watchdog agency says its report was triggered by an anonymous tip suggesting that the Park Police could not account for government-issued military-style weapons.

A spokesman for the agency did not immediately return an email seeking comment, and an evening shift commander said he hadn't seen the report and couldn't discuss it.

The report also includes 10 recommendations to improve firearms management.

The report was first reported by The Washington Post.

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