An elite police unit has now taken 200 illegal guns off city streets this year, the police chief said Monday.
The Area Command Unit, working the east, central and metro patrol divisions, recovered five guns and ammunition on Sunday, chief Darryl Forte said in his blog.
He formed the unit in January to work with all other units, provide intelligence and especially focus on illegal guns.
It also serves as the main enforcement unit for the No Violence Alliance, the multi-jurisdictional group attacking crime on many fronts.
Command unit officers on Sunday did a “knock and talk” at a house in the 4100 block of Monroe, where police had seen someone selling guns in the front yard.
The resident allowed police to search every room but one. They got a search warrant for it and found the illegal guns, Forte said, which were possessed by a felon not allowed to have guns or ammunition.
Forte said, “Illegal weapons are used in a significant amount of the city’s violent crime, and now there are 200 that can’t be.”
How to deal with guns has been a constant source of tension between city officials and the Missouri legislature.
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