Who Guards the Guards: Veteran Police Officer Hoarded Guns For Years

A Bristol, Conn. police sergeant with nearly 30-years of time on the job has been placed on a three-week suspension for “procuring guns associated with crime incidents” reports The Bristol Press. Sgt. Rodeny Gotowala may have good intentions, but his methods are truly questionable.

The paper notes that Gotowala obtained the guns and kept them locked away:

“(Gotowala) had stowed 17 guns, many related to emergency incidents within the city, in a locked cabinet in the detective division responsible for keeping track of evidence, an internal affairs investigation concluded. Gotowala admitted to gathering the guns while working as a detective by sometimes calling residents who had been suicidal and informing them, ‘they could not have their gun back so they would have to get rid of the gun,’ the report said. He then would purchase the weapon from the resident and store it without any identifying tags or markers. He was the only person with the key, even years after he left the detective division, investigators concluded.”

And somehow this only warrants a three-week suspension? On the one hand it might sound like a good deed, but there are procedures that should be followed. And worse, this sort of event would make it very easy for a gun to end up in the very wrong hands.