PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The City Controller’s Office says nearly 80 guns are still missing from the Sheriff’s Office, despite claims that most of them had been found.
In November 2020, the office reported more than 100 guns missing from the Sheriff’s Office armory. It blamed the previous sheriff for the problem. But three years later, the current sheriff, Rochelle Bilal, who is up for re-election, has presented no evidence that they were located, according to controller Chief of Staff Lief Erickson.
“We found that 76 of the guns out of the 101 that were initially missing are still missing,” he says.
Erickson says that’s despite Bilal’s testimony in April budget hearings that all but 20 of the guns had been located.
“We just hope that they simply enter them into the National Crime Information Center’s database and that way we consider them — if not accounted for, at least that they’re potentially being tracked if they ever come up outside of Philadelphia,” Erickson said.
The Sheriff’s Office announced it would respond at a Thursday afternoon press conference and has no statement until then.