Guns, ammunition stolen from San Mateo County Sheriff’s sergeant’s car
San Francisco police are investigating the theft of a shotgun, rifle, ammunition, bulletproof vest and an FBI jacket stolen sometime Friday from the car of a San Mateo County Sheriff’s sergeant who was attending an FBI task force meeting that day in San Francisco.
According to San Francisco police, the burglary of the unmarked car was reported just after 10 p.m. Friday on Jones Street. But the police released the information about the theft around noon Sunday.
San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Detective Salvador Zuno on Sunday said when the sergeant returned to his car, which was locked, he found that the car window had been smashed and his equipment was gone.
He said the sergeant immediately reported the theft to authorities and to his superiors at the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.
Zuno said sheriff’s department protocol demands that all weapons must be kept “in a secure manner’’ in cars. Asked what that means, Zuno said guns must be locked down inside a car or inside the trunk of the car. But he said he did not know if the guns were secured.
The detective said the San Francisco Police Department is leading the investigation, and that agency said there are no known suspects at this time.
He said the sergeant, whom he declined to identify by name, has been in the department for at least 15 years. Zuno said he did not know how long the man had been on the FBI task force or what the task force mission involved.
“Right now our priorities are to get as much information as we can and to recover the stolen weapons,’’ Zuno said.
Thefts of weapons from law enforcement personnel are not rare, and the consequences can be deadly.
A Bay Area News Group investigation published last year found that officers across the Bay Area and state have been losing firearms at an astonishing rate.
As of June 2016, this newspaper’s investigation found that 944 police-issued weapons have been either stolen, lost or can’t be accounted for since 2010, often disappearing onto the streets without a trace.
A stolen gun is at the center of the death of Kate Steinle on San Francisco’s Pier 14 on July 1, 2015, from a bullet allegedly fired by a gun that had fallen into the hands of Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, who is currently on trial for Steinle’s murder.
The gun was issued to a federal Bureau of Land Management agent who was driving with his family from Southern California to Montana, and was stolen from his car. There is no evidence that Garcia Zarate stole it, and he told police he found it on the pier.
Anyone with information about the theft of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office service arms is asked to call the San Francisco Police Department tip line at 415575-4444.