Oakland police cited FBI agent after gun was stolen

OAKLAND » Police issued a citation to an FBI agent last month after the agent’s gun was stolen from a parked vehicle, a police spokesperson said Thursday.

Police did not release details on the citation Thursday despite requests from this news organization, but the matter appears to be an application of a 2016 law requiring law enforcement officers to put weapons in a lockbox when leaving them in an unattended vehicle. It calls for officers who don’t use lockboxes to be cited and fined.

The gun, a .45-caliber magazine loaded with bullets, and an FBI jacket were stolen from the agent’s vehicle in a parking lot on Hegenberger Road in Oakland on July 10. The weapon later was recovered, the FBI said in a statement.

An FBI spokesperson declined to comment Thursday, citing personnel matters, and declined to provide any details about how or where the weapon was recovered.

A retired FBI agent said the bureau requires agents to have a two- step system for storing weapons in a parked vehicle, such as a lockbox locked in the trunk or a chain in the trunk secured with a lock that must be opened with a key to gain full access.

“You can’t store it in your glove box,” the retired agent, John Sommercamp, said in a phone interview. He said the

agent involved probably faces a three- to seven- day unpaid suspension if the gun was not properly secured and that it is the first time the agent has had a weapon stolen. “To me, that’s pretty light,” he said.

“Leaving guns unsecured in unattended vehicles creates a serious danger and risk to the public,” Oakland City Council President Rebecca Kaplan said in a statement last month following the theft.

In 2015, a gun stolen from a U.S. Bureau of Land Management ranger’s vehicle parked in San Francisco was used in the fatal shooting of Kate Steinle, 32. An Mexican immigrant here illegally who fired the gun later was acquitted of murder charges when prosecutors could not prove the man intentionally aimed at Steinle.

That gun was just one of hundreds stolen from or lost by police and federal agents in the Bay Area and beyond, a 2017 investigation by this news organization found. In all, the investigation documented 944 guns that were either stolen from cops’ personal or official vehicles, often from gloves boxes and backpacks, homes and offices, or weapons that were lost or that police simply lost track of and were missing.

One officer left his service weapon in a car dealership restroom, and it was gone when he returned for it. UC Berkeley Police Chief Margo Bennett’s gun was stolen when she left it in a parked vehicle while jogging at Point Isabel in Richmond and her car was broken into.

State Sen Jerry Hill, DSan Mateo, sponsored the bill requiring officers to lock weapons in vehicles when they are left unattended. But officers do not always follow the law.

And sometimes they are simply careless. Last month, the San Luis Obispo police chief ’ s gun was taken after she left it in the restroom of a chicken restaurant. It was recovered when the brother-inlaw of the man who took it brought him to police headquarters and made him give it back.