After a man’s stolen firearm was found in St. Paul, police told him he would have to wait three years to get it back.
In another instance, St. Paul police seized the gun of a man — who had a permit to carry — after he was arrested and briefly detained. He also received the same response to his requests to the police department: They would be keeping the gun for three years.
On Wednesday, the St. Paul City Council approved $22,000 to settle a federal lawsuit over police policy on returning firearms. The police department also changed its policy, which now says firearms should be handed over within one year in cases that are not charged.
Attorney A.L. Brown said he is certain the policy was changed because he raised the issue in the lawsuit.
St. Paul City Attorney Lyndsey Olson said the city was already “looking for better ways to leverage available technology to solve gun crimes” before the lawsuit was filed in September 2017. “As a result, the SPPD implemented a new policy which includes a shorter retention period for firearms that are not linked to pending investigations.”
The lawsuit had an impact on the timing of the policy change, which went into effect in September 2018, Olson said.
Andrew Henderson said he got involved because he wanted to see the policy changed.
Henderson’s firearm was stolen from his Little Canada residence in February 2016 and St. Paul police found it in a man’s possession three months later. Police told Henderson they determined the weapon was not used in any crimes, but he couldn’t have it back for three years.
“I thought that was pretty ridiculous,” Henderson said. “When someone reports that their property is stolen, they expect it to be returned to them when it’s recovered by the police. There is no logical reason for them to keep it in their possession for three years. The evidentiary value of the firearm has already been tested, documented and cataloged.”
The city decided to settle the lawsuit, which was brought by Jared Sande, Olson said, “because there was no indication that the firearms at issue were linked to any pending investigations and changes to the city’s policies and procedures rendered continued litigation unnecessary.”
POLICY PREVIOUSLY KEPT GUNS FOR 3 YEARS
In July 2015, when police pulled Sande over, he informed an officer there was a gun in the vehicle.
Officers also found a small amount of marijuana and a scale, which the passenger said belonged to him.
Police arrested Sande, though he was released within an hour of his interview with police and not charged, his lawsuit said. His gun permit was returned, but not his firearm.
Sande’s several attempts to retrieve his gun were denied by police.
In August 2017, Sande received a letter from police saying that policy required the gun be sent to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for ballistic testing and the gun must remain in the department’s possession until July 2018.
The police department adopted the three-year retention policy because, although a firearm may come back from the BCA without a connection to a possible crime, “the information needed to make that correlation may not have been processed yet by the BCA,” according to a filing by the city attorney’s office.
FIREARMS RETURNED, POLICY CHANGED
Sande filed his lawsuit on Sept. 25, 2017, alleging constitutional violations in St. Paul police policy, including conducting searches “of firearms belonging to private citizens without a warrant and despite the fact that any criminal investigation has ended.”
The police department sent Sande a letter on Oct. 10, 2017, saying they no longer had an evidentiary reason to keep his gun.
After Henderson heard about the lawsuit and contacted Brown, the attorney, he was able to get his firearm back in January 2018. Henderson and Sande will receive the settlement.
New St. Paul police policy says that when a case is not charged and there are no investigative leads from ballistic testing, the firearm should be kept by the police department for up to six months “to allow for the potential of new leads coming in from other agencies.”
If firearm testing generates leads, the police department can hold the gun for up to one year to allow time for investigators to follow up on the information.
