Before he was killed in a hail of gunfire at a Sweet 16 birthday party in Dadeville, Alabama, Marsiah Collins told his father about teenagers armed with machine guns.
Bill Hutchinson and Jennifer VilcarinoJust weeks before he was killed along with three others in a hail of gunfire at ain Dadeville, Alabama, 19-year-old Marsiah Collins told his father about a growing national crime trend that had reached their community: teenagers armed with weapons converted into machine guns with a cheap accessory available on the internet.
"What that's telling us is that criminals who already are owning these handguns illegally are now taking it to the next level, and they are trying to maximize the destruction that they cause," Jillian Snider, a former New York City police officer and an adjunct lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told ABC News.In the first weekend of June, police in four U.S. cities investigated shootings in which a minimum of 25 shots were fired to a barrage of more than 100 bullets.
White said eight guns were recovered at the crime scene, including an AK-47 rifle. Two of the weapons were found to be stolen, including the one equipped with a Glock switch, he said. No arrests have been made, but White said police are making progress in the investigation and expects those responsible to be in custody soon, adding, "There were shots back and forth between some folks who had problems with some folks at the party.
During a news conference last week, St. Louis Police Chief Robert Tracy noted that of the six people shot in the gunfight outside the Playground Bar & Grill, two were convicted felons and two were undocumented gang members. "Let me be clear: Making, selling and just having these kinds of machine gun conversion devices is against the law," ATF Director Steven Dettelbach said during a February 2023 gun violence prevention forum held in New York City. "This is a problem that needs to be focused on immediately. These devices are flooding our communities."
On April 11, 2024, a 14-year-old boy was arrested in Columbia, South Carolina, and charged with murder in the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old boy and his father during a robbery, according to the Columbia Police Department. Police said the young suspect, who shot himself in the leg during the incident, was armed with a pistol illegally modified with a switch.
Georgia-based Glock Inc. does not make the switches and has no affiliation with those who manufacture them. The company did not respond to requests from ABC News for comment. "Indeed, in stark contrast to Glock pistols, the process of modifying most other popular pistols into machine guns, such as those produced by Smith & Wesson or Sig Sauer, require time-consuming and difficult engineering well beyond the capability of most civilians," the lawsuit alleges.Ludwig said the surge in the number of modified guns on Chicago streets coincides with an increase in the fatality rate per shooting in the city.
In September 2021, Houston Police Officer William "Bill" Jeffery was killed and another officer was seriously wounded while serving a narcotics arrest warrant on a suspect who opened fire on them with a weapon that had been turned into a machine gun, according to the Houston Police Department. The officers exchanged gunshots with the suspect, killing him, officials said
"Today is an important step to put on notice those who traffic in switches and who use switches. We will hold you to account," said Alamdar Hamdani, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas.
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