Posted on 08/20/2008 7:12:04 AM PDT by T-Bird45
OSBI agents went to gun dealers and pawnshops to create a list of .40-caliber Glock owners.
WELEETKA (OK) — Authorities working to narrow their leads in the June 8 shooting deaths of two girls used old-fashioned legwork to come up with a list of area gun owners with .40-caliber pistols, one of two weapons used in the slayings.Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents knew the caliber of the guns used in the killings, so they merely checked with area gun dealers and pawnshops to determine who had bought or recently pawned .40-caliber Glocks.
"It's a typical procedure of any investigation" involving a gun, according to Jessica Brown, spokeswoman for the OSBI. That time-consuming procedure yielded the OSBI the names of more than 60 owners of .40-caliber guns in the Weleetka area.
Consequently, the OSBI sent letters to all those gun owners, asking them to voluntarily submit their weapons for test firings over the weekend at the Okfuskee County Courthouse at Okemah. About 40 of those gun owners showed up on Saturday and Sunday, and their weapons were fired once or twice and then returned to them.
The fired bullets and shell casings, meanwhile, were sent to a crime lab for analysis to determine if any of them match those used in the slayings of Skyla Jade Whitaker, 11, and Taylor Paschal-Placker, 13.
Brown said about five of the gun owners no longer owned the weapons, but they provided the names of the new owners. The other 15 or so gun owners who did not show up will be checked by the OSBI to see why they didn't volunteer for the test firings.
"They can have any number of reasons" for not volunteering, Brown said. "They could be against it, they could be anti-government, or they eventually may want to help." Because the test firing of the weapons is voluntary, Brown said there isn't any constitutional violations involved.
"It's a process of elimination," she said, noting that the tested weapons may have been loaned out by the owners or someone else may have had access to the guns.
On Monday, when the OSBI announced that it had test-fired weapons, it stated in its press release that it had sent letters to the "registered gun owners." That prompted concern Tuesday among many in the public, who noted that Oklahoma does not have a gun-registry law nor a central database of gun owners.
Tom Harris, an agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in Tulsa, confirmed that. According to Harris, most states, including Oklahoma, and the federal government do not have lists of registered gun owners.
He said the only way to get a listing of gun owners is by canvassing gun dealers or pawnshops individually to find out who bought weapons — as the OSBI did. Harris said gun dealers — "federal firearms licensees" — have to fill out ATF form 4473 whenever a weapon is purchased. The form lists the buyer, the address and other pertinent information.
They also have to contact the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to determine whether the prospective buyer can legally purchase a weapon. Harris said the 4473 forms stay with the gun dealers and are not submitted to any government agency. They are, however, available to law enforcement. If a gun dealer goes out of business, the 4473 forms are stored in an ATF warehouse, he said.
Although the OSBI made public that a .40-caliber weapon was used in the slayings, it is not identifying the caliber of the other gun used. Brown would not say whether voluntary test firings would be held for the other weapon.
Authorities believe the killers are from the Weleetka area, given the remote location of the girls' slayings. They said the killers had to be familiar with the area — N. 3890 Road (County Line Road) north of Coleman Road, about four miles northeast of Weleetka.
Skyla was visiting Taylor at her home when they decided to go for a walk that Sunday afternoon. They walked north from Taylor's home along County Line Road to the Bad Creek bridge, a half-mile away.
Investigators said the two had made it to the bridge and were returning to Taylor's home when they were gunned down. Their bodies were found in a shallow roadside ditch, less than 1,000 feet from the Placker home. They were found about 30 minutes after they had left for the walk.
Autopsy reports on the girls showed they had been shot a total of 13 times. Skyla, the youngest, was shot eight times, and she suffered the most .40-caliber bullet wounds. Authorities noted that each of the girls was shot with two weapons. The medical examiner recovered spent bullets from their bodies and described them as small- and medium-sized.
Only answers some of the questions related to the letter requesting "voluntary" cooperation and police procedures used to get the gun owner info from gun shops and pawn shops.
Direct evidence that Form 4473 constitutes a defacto gun registry. The storage requirements alone exceed any legitimate use except as a registry. I am amazed that no one has brought forth a challenge along that line.
You've got to be joking.
has anyone mentioned why the dealers released the 4473’s?
I see police work happening here. If a brand new BMW 335i was used to run over a few kids and all they had to go on was the make and color of the car of course they are going to go to the local dealership and ask who bought that make model in the past year. Or, should justice be denied the innocent because we don’t want intrusion into our lives by government? In this case the cops are using reasoning to limit their search to certain areas given the specific elements of the crime.
On what authority? If I were a gun owner - I would sue because my privacy rights had been violated.
Only in a police state can they expect the killer to show up for the test, or all but the killer to show.
The other 15 or so gun owners who did not show up will be checked by the OSBI to see why they didn't volunteer for the test firings.
So does their lack of cooperation constitute probable cause towards obtaining a search warrant to seize the guns in question?
You may not understand that 'justice' sometimes REQUIRES that the guilty go free. Until you understand and embrace that, you cannot understand liberty.
For example, a person commits a murder, and the only person who saw the crime is the suspect. According to the 5th amendment, the government connot coerce him into providing the convicting evidence against himself. He will go free.
Otherwise, you cannot imagine the horrors the govt can perpetrate on other innocents.
“rounding people up for interrogation in dank rooms”
The people who did not “volunteer” will get coercive visits from LEO, to see if “eventually they will cooperate”.
No.
I really don't see the problem here...
So everyone is a suspect until they come in and prove their innocence?
Do you read what you write?
How do you know? How do you explain to a judge that declining an invitation makes someone guilty? Unless the judge sucks then he/she cannot grant a warrant based on that. If the judge does then we have a bigger problem, aka a corrupt judiciary. On the other hand, if one of the people who doesn’t cooperate with the investigation happened to know the kids then that’s a red flag, no? Maybe there was some issue with the girls or a member of their family?
Means, motive and opportunity. Without all 3 it’s hard to convict someone of a crime.
THEN WHY are the police wasting valuable time harassing local law-abiding citizens rather than trying to pursue meaningful leads?
No. These cops are using this as a diversion to make it look like they're doing something (to placate people like you two who just want to see action NOW and will never check back to see about results), knowing that they won't actually have to apprehend a dangerous murderer...and still get to pursue their SAFE pet peeve of lording over their authoritarianism against local law-abiding 'free' citizens.
Your excerpt doesn’t lead to the conclusion to reached.
Try again.
Once again you offer assumption without any real proof.
How do you manage to stay awake long enough to post the way your knee jerks up so hard and fast?
I would not have volunteered to have my weapon checked. Depending upon the “heat” police are getting from the local area, anything could happen in that testing room. My gun which hasn’t been fired in a year or more could suddenly be declared the murder weapon. So the public is satified, the police are heroes and I am innocent and screwed. No thanks. We are watching our federal govt, lead by our own president, persecuting marines as “war criminals” for Gods sake. Such despicable abuses of power do not lend themselves to a warm fuzzy feeling about ones potential treatment at the hands of the powers that be.
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