RCMP loses handgun - twice
Smith & Wesson still missing, raising questions about firearms control
The RCMP has lost one of its handguns - the second time the elusive weapon has disappeared.
The Smith & Wesson standard-issue revolver was first reported lost seven years ago by the Surrey, B.C., municipal detachment of the RCMP.
“All efforts to date have failed to locate the whereabouts of firearm,” says a July 18, 2018, Mountie alert to all Canadian police forces, obtained under the Access to Information Act. The notice provided a serial number for tracing.
A second such alert, dated February this year and also released under access-to-information, confirmed the same .38-calibre handgun remained unaccounted for.
The weapon had originally been issued to a Sgt. B. Shaw in Surrey sometime before he went on long-term absence, the documents indicate. And “outdated/antiquated inventory lists” indicated Shaw had held onto the weapon after he left the force, even though firearms are required to be returned if an absence without pay is to exceed 90 days.
A spokesperson for the RCMP said Shaw did in fact surrender the revolver at some point – but then the weapon went missing again.
“We determined that the firearm was used in training exercises with the Police Dog Services unit after it was returned by Sgt. Shaw,” said Robin Percival in an email.
“The firearm has been misplaced by the unit so the investigation remains open until the firearm is retrieved. Although uncommon, some RCMP-issued firearms do go missing but it is often not because of nefarious reasons.”
The apparently loose controls on the AWOL handgun raise questions about the diligence exercised by the RCMP in managing its inventory of lethal weapons.
A recently published internal audit about how effectively the Mounties retrieve equipment from departing officers, for example, found an uneven application of protocols.
“... controls are not consistently applied across the organization,” says the 2022 Audit of the Departure Process. “This limits the ability to determine whether all equipment and uniform items were recovered from departed Peace Officers.”
The audit determined that of 30 officers who were to be on unpaid leave for longer than 90 days, only 16 followed the rules through the timely return of their firearms. All but one of the remaining 14 eventually did so, the exception being the missing Surrey weapon.
There have also been several instances where the coveted Smith & Wesson handguns of active RCMP officers have been stolen: in 2012 in Arviat, Nunavut; in 2015 in Grande Prairie, Alta.; in 2018 in Saskatoon; and in 2019 in Toronto; Halifax; and Winnipeg. The mass murderer in Nova Scotia, who killed 22 people in April 2020, also stole a Smith & Wesson handgun from an RCMP officer he killed in a gunfight, later using it to put a bullet in his own head.
Percival said unaccounted for RCMP-issued firearms are tracked.
“All stolen, missing or lost RCMP firearms must be reported to the appropriate authorities (Police of Jurisdiction) for entry in the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) and any necessary investigations,” she said.
“The National Armourer Program must also be notified to ensure the appropriate changes are updated in the inventory record.”
The RCMP recently released an audit into its policies for discarding used uniforms and related kit. The probe found inconsistencies in implementing protocols designed to ensure criminals intent on impersonating officers don’t have access to uniforms.