‘Dangerously defective’ police guns are among Milwaukee’s stolen gun surge

By Derrick Rose

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    MILWAUKEE (WISN) — As the Milwaukee Police Department nears its completion of transitioning away from a service pistol officers said they cannot trust, department officials are unable to return several of the guns one deemed as “dangerously defective” because the guns are unaccounted for.

Since Milwaukee police converted to using the Sig Sauer P320 pistol in 2019, thieves stole five of the police guns, according to police records reviewed by 12 News Investigates.

The documents, obtained through an open records request, detail a series of policy violations and careless security that granted access to the weapons by someone other than the officers.

According to internal affairs records, the officers were off-duty when their guns were stolen. Three of the five left their service weapons inside personal vehicles, the records show.

In January, Chief Jeffrey Norman cautioned the public against leaving firearms inside vehicles, noting 1,600 reports of guns stolen from vehicles in the city in 2021 and 2022.

“We’ve seen an increase of guns stolen from vehicles. This gives greater accessibility to individuals that may not be allowed to possess firearms,” Norman said that day.

“Firearms should always be secured so that they’re not accessible to unauthorized persons or to children. So securing your gun behind an eighth of an inch of tempered glass really is not proper firearm storage,” gun safety expert Steve Wolf told 12 News Investigates.

“It should be locked in a metal container, you know, with a combination lock, a fingerprint lock or a key lock so that people can’t just randomly smash a window and get a hold of your firearm.”

Not only is leaving a gun in a car bad practice, records show it is against Milwaukee police policy.

“Department equipment (with the exception of firearms) and/or uniforms may be secured in the locked trunk of the member’s personal car,” a disciplinary memo for the theft of Officer Luciano Rogers’ gun reads.

The five guns stolen from Milwaukee police officers have added a layer of public safety concern about the weapons getting into the wrong hands. The department is transitioning from the P320 to the Glock because of three shootings where officers said their P320s fired from the holster without the trigger being pulled.

Two officers were injured in the shootings. Both survived their injuries.

One federal lawsuit, where two Milwaukee officers are among 20 plaintiffs, described the Sig Sauer P320 as “dangerously defective.”

Sig Sauer officials deny the gun has a design flaw allowing it to fire without a trigger pull.

Wolf downplayed the danger of the stolen P320s against the larger threat of gun violence in Milwaukee.

“There’s far more guns out there that are being used with criminal intent on purpose than guns that might accidentally fire themselves. So I don’t think it’s a big public safety concern,” Wolf said. “It’s absolutely a sacred responsibility that you keep your firearms safely secured, either in your holster or in your safe.”

THE THEFTS

The night someone stole Officer Brandy Johnson’s gun in May 2021, she did not intend to spend the night at a relative’s house, which has a safe, and forgot the gun in her car, according to the internal affairs records. She said she had returned from leave and was carrying her firearm on her as she traveled between two homes.

She stated that carrying her firearm was outside of her ‘routine’ which is why she forgot it in her vehicle.

Johnson was suspended for four days without pay, according to a personnel order.

The discipline was less severe for Officer Rodney Abernathy. He received a district-level reprimand after someone stole his service weapon in November 2020. According to the records, Abernathy, who had gone home after his shift, left his gun and badge in the trunk of his vehicle as he and his girlfriend had drinks at Gene’s Supper Club.

Thieves left his badge, but the service weapon was gone.

The records show Rogers received the same district-level reprimand after reporting his P320 stolen from his home in September 2021. He told investigators he left his gun on his bedroom window sill the night it was stolen. According to the records, he suspected a person who spent the night took off with the gun and his vehicle.

Tiffany Williams’ P320 also turned up missing from her home around Valentine’s Day earlier that year. Records show she suspected her ex-boyfriend of the theft. The records describe a video posted on social media where a detective noted the man admitted to stealing Williams’ gun.

“I took the police officer (expletive) heat the other day,” the detective noted the man in the video said. The term “heat” is street slang for gun.

When officers had the man in custody, he denied the theft. He was never charged in the theft case.

Williams was never disciplined in the theft. Records show she quit while the investigation was ongoing, citing personal reasons, according to her May 27, 2021, resignation letter.

She submitted her resignation shortly after crashing a car with a recorded blood alcohol level above the legal limit, according to the records.

One of the officers who responded to the May 17 crash was Officer Dominick Pritzlaff. In February 2022, someone stole his P320 from a vehicle he loaned to a relative, the records show.

“Pritzlaff stated that he forgot his duty belt inside of the vehicle on accident,” a captain wrote in a memo. The relative parked the car on the street, not knowing the gun was in the car, the captain said.

Records show Pritzlaff also left the department abruptly.

According to a personnel order, police Chief Jeffrey Norman fired Pritzlaff for failing a drug test. The records show that the drug test was one month after someone stole his service weapon.

ONE GUN RECOVERED

Only one of the stolen guns has been recovered, a police department spokesperson confirmed late Thursday afternoon. The official would not confirm which weapon, citing the ongoing investigations into all five thefts.

“The Milwaukee Police Department expects all of our members to properly secure and safeguard all department-issued property. We hold all members to the highest degree of integrity and if any member violates the code of conduct, they will be held accountable,” the spokesperson said.

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