Fresno Police seize guns at record-breaking numbers

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BYLINE: Sontaya Rose
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Fresno, CA

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Fresno Police have spent the summer seizing a record number of guns. The past three months, police have taken in almost 250 guns as evidence. The numbers are so high, police have run out of storage space in the department's property room.

Wednesday night, Fresno Police took 11 guns off the streets, including an SKS assault gun with a thirty round magazine. Police are finding quite a few people just driving around town are criminals armed with guns.

Wednesday night two officers who stopped in to use the restroom at the Shell station on Olive and Cedar didn't end up getting much of a break. Inside the store they got a tip about a customer armed. After a brief scuffle in the doorway, police say they found a loaded handgun on Devaughn Lenor. Police say, these types of scenarios have become the norm.

Chief Jerry Dyer said, "Some of the firearms are brought in from out of state and we also know that a lot of these firearms are stolen in home burglaries."

On a weekday night in the city of Fresno, these are the findings of Fresno Police. One thousand rounds of ammunition booked into evidence, nearly all of it from his home in Southeast Fresno.

Police also found two ballistic vests stolen from Fresno County Probation. Arrested were Jason Mendoza and Adam Duenas.

The property on display doesn't even include a gun police found that they believe was used in a murder.

Sergeant Kirk Pool runs the evidence and property room at the police department; he says currently it's packed with guns.

Pool said, "It's far more than what we are used to and we have the storage capacity for so it's taking a lot more man hours to process it and we're having to be a lot more creative in finding new space to store firearms."

Last Friday, Fresno Police Officers took in a whopping 42 guns in a single day, including 36 from a chop shop bust that stretched all the way to Chowchilla.

Police Chief Jerry Dyer says he's not sure why officers are recovering more firearms, but he has a few ideas.

"It could be because the intelligence information that we are receiving is better, that our proactive efforts are more focused or it could be that were just seeing more people out there on the streets that are arming themselves with guns," said Chief Dyer. "And the people that are arming themselves with guns are the gang members."

Shootings are up citywide 8% over last year. The puzzling part is that homicides are down 22% and overall violent crime is down 4%.

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