The news was a shocker: 30 guns stolen from an Atlanta school official’s car.
But an investigation by Atlanta Public Schools has found it wasn’t true and that all its firearms accumulated over more than a decade are accounted for. The state is still investigating, but school officials say a deep dive into receipts and other documents, plus interviews with potential witnesses, has led them to conclude that an anonymous tipster gave them bad information.
The call to an APS ethics hotline about guns taken from the trunk of the school security director’s district-provided car came on June 14. That triggered a two-month hunt for all district guns and documentation concerning them. It took so long, officials said, because of disorganized records.
The school district’s former procurement officer left in 2008, and the district changed its records-management system around that time.
“When you change systems, things happen,” said Pamela Hall, the chief human resources officer for APS. Because the tip alleged employee theft, the ensuing investigation was her responsibility.
School officials consulted what records they could find, including receipts for gun purchases. They also sought documentation from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and from weapon vendors. In the end, the district identified 113 guns and determined what happened to all of them, including those no longer in the district’s possession.
So what was APS doing with all that firepower?
Though it didn’t have a police force, like some large districts, it did arm part-time employees who worked security, augmenting Atlanta police. Then, the district decided to replace the Atlanta Police Department officers, and established its own police department. It came into existence on July 1, and the school system purchased 90 more guns for it.
Here’s what happened to the other 23: seventeen have been added to new chief Ronald Applin’s arsenal, so he now has 107 guns; one other was stolen from the home of former security director Marquenta Sands Hall in 2008 (as executive director, she’s now Applin’s boss). She reported it to Atlanta police and they recovered the weapon and held it as evidence.
That left five apparently missing guns. After calling around and scouring paperwork, it turns out that the school system had returned them to Smyrna Police Distributors, and the vendor had records showing $2,149 in credits.
The exercise took a lot of employee time, but, said Hall, the HR chief, “we can’t have firearms disappear.”
Superintendent Meria Carstarphen said in late June that there was no evidence that the tipster's claim was true, but added, "This is the stuff that keeps me up at night."
Her district enlisted help from other agencies, including the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
A GBI spokeswoman said Tuesday that her agency’s investigation is ongoing, held up by a backlog of other cases. It was initiated as a theft case, said the spokeswoman, Nelly Miles, and the investigation team told her they did not know when they would wrap up their work.
About the Author
