LYNN — Police are working with state and federal agencies to crack down on unlawfully possessed and illegal gun ownership at the tail end of the department’s record-breaking year for gun seizures.
Last year, Lynn Police took 54 illegally possessed firearms off the street, tying 2021 with 2016 for the department’s largest number of firearms seized in one year since 2008 — until this year, when police found 67 illegally-possessed firearms, a new 15-year peak.
Of this year’s 67 gun seizures, 54 firearms were seized in association with a crime, and 13 were recovered under “suspicious” or “unusual” circumstances, Lynn Police Chief Christopher Reddy said. In an interview Thursday, Reddy recalled one instance in which police responded to a noise call, cleared out a large crowd, and found a gun left behind.
“We were dispersing a large group late at night, and in the course of that, suddenly, somebody just took off, but the officers were focused on dispersing the crowd, and then shortly thereafter, in the brush, right where he had been, they recovered a firearm,” Reddy explained.
In other instances, Reddy explained that officers have arrived on the scene to investigate reported gunshots, to find a weapon without its owner, other times, police have found guns that they believe were abandoned after a crime. Either way, Reddy believed that it’s a cause for concern to find guns tossed aside.
“We might have a shots fired incident, get there, and the weapon’s there, but the person is gone. We can’t necessarily connect it to an individual for criminal charges, but just the mere fact that we find them discarded, in one manner or another, is concerning,” Reddy said.
Still, Reddy stated, an illegally-possessed gun found abandoned is better than one in the hands of someone trying to do harm. He disclosed that recently, officers fought and arrested armed suspects violently resisting arrest.
“We’ve had incidents with our detectives, too, where we just recently commended individuals because they, in the course of an investigation, ended up literally fighting and struggling and engaging with individuals who were armed with weapons and were violently resisting,” Reddy said. “Those types of really volatile encounters, I would say, are happening more than maybe we saw in the past.”
Reddy said that this year’s spike in seized firearms corresponds with increased interstate gun trafficking, which Lynn Police, with the help of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), is working to track down. Reddy also pointed to increased gang and drug activity as another potential cause of the increased seizures.
“I think that the trafficking in firearms has increased more in the last decade or so, based on our participation in various investigations with our federal partners. There’ll be trafficking in firearms from other states to Massachusetts and elsewhere,” Reddy said. “I think that there is a greater occurrence of people who are criminally involved in particular with illegal drug activity and, to some extent, gang activity, who want to have firearms, we see a strong connection there.”
Rise in demand for illegal firearms, Reddy speculated, correlates with a general national increased demand for firearms.
“Across our country, gun ownership has been on the rise for a number of years, so I think it makes sense to suggest that if legal gun owners want access to guns more criminals might also,” he said.
Of the 67 seized firearms in Lynn, three were “ghost guns,” homemade firearms built by ordering gun parts online and assembling them at home. In August, the Department of Justice announced that all gun frames or receivers that could be easily assembled into a fireable gun are subject to the same requirements and regulations as any other firearm. Prior to that, ghost guns, which often do not have serial numbers, and are virtually untraceable, could legally be squired online without background checks or gun licenses.
Reddy says that even with the new regulations, there are plenty of ghost guns still circulating the streets, posing a problem for law enforcement agencies locally and nationwide.
“Anyone in law enforcement will tell you that we consider those [ghost guns] hugely problematic, because they’re untraceable,” Reddy said. “In our community last year, we recovered three of those [ghost guns]. We’re very concerned about those, and we continue to because there’s still a lot of them out there.”
Lt. Michael Kmiec, of Lynn Police, explains that police have to walk a line between engaging with the public and remaining cautious of the possible risks to officer safety that come with an increasingly armed public.
“The challenging part for the officers who respond to the calls on a regular basis is to not become complacent. They have to remain tactical when they respond to scenes, you know, whether it’s a domestic or whether it’s a noise call or anything. It could turn bad quickly,” Kmiec stated. “Tactically, they have to be smart, but at the same time, they have to engage the people that are there, they have to speak to people, but they obviously have to be concerned that there could be a firearm at any call.”
Reddy reports that the police department remains committed to community engagement and youth education with the hope of tackling illegal gun ownership.
“Illegal Guns are bad, illegal guns that cause injury or death are much worse, so we hope that by building those relationships, the community will share more information we can get access and do investigative work and be able to remove those guns from the street,” Reddy said. “We work with different groups that are engaged with at-risk youth to try to steer them away from the impulsive behavior of their young years that might lead to participation and gun violence.”
Antonio Gutierrez is the founder of Lynn Youth Street Outreach Advocacy (LYSOA), a local nonprofit organization that focuses on engaging at-risk youth with the intention of steering them toward education, work, and an honest future. As a young man, he used to carry a gun, until he got shot and turned his life around.
“My old brothers and sisters will tell you I was no saint. I was known for carrying guns. That was my thing. I’m one of those fortunate ones that was able to live through all of that to be able to be where I’m at today,” Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez expresses that he thinks young men who carry guns will mainly do it for the tough appearance, without realizing the potential consequences of getting caught carrying, or worse, using it.
“It’s an influential thing — ‘ Ooh, he’s carrying. I want to be tough.’ I think it goes to your head. It changes your whole demeanor. Once that bullet leaves, that changes your demeanor, too. Because whoever it hits, it’s not just that person. It’s what’s going to come after that,” Gutierrez said. “Our role is the prevention of violence, or at least educate our young people to not go into that role of violence. Throw a gun in the mix, and it changes the whole dynamic.”
