Missing, presumed pilfered.
Officer Thomas LaValley of the Shreveport, LA police was ambushed and killed two weeks ago. His murderer took his Glock, a fact the police department initially covered up.
At least ten more department pistols are missing, including one stolen in February along with the officer’s badge, radio and protective vest.
Shreveport police revealed Wednesday officer Thomas LaValley’s service weapon is missing. It’s been two weeks since the officer was killed answering a suspicious person call.
That’s all police are saying.
“We’re not ever going to do or say anything that would potentially compromise the operational integrity of an investigation,” SPD chief administrative assistant Bill Goodin said.
Shreveport police in February said there are at least 10 pistols missing from their inventory. Now LaValley’s Glock gone.
Police think Grover Cannon, the suspect in the slaying, stole the weapon. Cannon is in custody and is not cooperating with the search for the gun, police said.
via Few details available on LaValley’s missing firearm.
A lot of people seem to think that if we did X, Y or Z we could end “gun violence,” as if the Grover Cannons were getting their cannons from Cabela’s. Unfortunately, as records show, Grover and his ilk can get guns from family and friends, from criminal associates, from theft from legitimate users, and even by murdering police officers.
Guns do make suicide very easy, and that’s why purveyors of instant “gun violence” solutions like to use “gun violence” numbers that include self-destruction along with accidents and homicides (lawful and unlawful). These people are sincere, but their thinking doesn’t reach the necessary depth. For instance, on suicides, it doesn’t occur to them that suicidal intent will seek a weapon of opportunity, and given the fragility of Homo sapiens, such a thing is always at hand. Nobody really knows how much locking up weapons (or, for example, fitting bridges with jumper nets) deters suicide, versus how much it merely displaces it to a less inconvenient method. For instance, on homicides, it doesn’t occur to them that the thing differentiating a spree shooter from a gun collector — murderous intent — is the same thing differentiating a serial slasher from a gourmet chef. The gun, the knife, are mere implements in a hand guided by a mind — the chef’s knife and the murderer’s may be the exact same tool, but one is guided by a creative mind and one by homicidal impulse.
Grover Cannon would still be a threat if he never owned anything that is not your kitchen. It is not late Officer Lavalley’s gun, or the gun he allegedly killed Lavalley with, that made him a threat. It was his heart and his mind that made, and makes, him a threat.
You could make every gun in the world disappear with a magical incantation, and Grover Cannon would still be a threat, a toxin, a pathogen. You could give the Dalai Lama a nuclear bomb and he would be no more a threat than he is now.
When a man’s heart and mind is a threat, he is never disarmed.
Kevin was a former Special Forces weapons man (MOS 18B, before the 18 series, 11B with Skill Qualification Indicator of S). His focus was on weapons: their history, effects and employment. He started WeaponsMan.com in 2011 and operated it until he passed away in 2017. His work is being preserved here at the request of his family.
10 thoughts on “How Criminals Gun Up in Shreveport: With Cop Guns”
“You could make every gun in the world disappear with a magical incantation, and Grover Cannon would still be a threat, a toxin, a pathogen. ”
Indeed, he would be a bigger threat, potentially lethal to anyone a little weaker, smaller, slower or of a more trusting nature. Arming good people acts as a great equalizer.
“You could give the Dalai Lama a nuclear bomb and he would be no more a threat than he is now.”
Probably put a dent in his social calendar, though. Can’t be bringing that sort of hardware into Beverly Hills, after all.
So the Shreveport Police Department puts out a notice that they want to find the gun, described as “a semi-automatic Glock Model 22 .40 caliber pistol.” Notice can be seen here:
http://www.shreveportla.gov/DocumentCenter/View/5380
No serial number was included in the press release. How are people supposed to know if a Glock model 22 they find at a garage sale, flea market or in a classified ad is the one that the cops are looking for? This has been one of the most popular and widely-used pistols in America for the last 20 years, and there are thousands, if not tens-of-thousands of them in the hands of cops and non-cop owners. Even if they are playing their cards close to the vest, they could have included the 3-letter prefix for that pistol’s serial number to at least narrow-down the search and reduce the false positives.
This is so inexplicable, it makes me wonder if they even KNOW the serial number of the lost pistol.
Yep, and currently departments are trading them in, in great batches, mostly for 9mms.
“Police think Grover Cannon, the suspect in the slaying, stole the weapon. Cannon is in custody and is not cooperating with the search for the gun, police said.”
Police are baffled at why Grover Cannon would not cooperate in generating evidence against himself, for both theft and capital murder.
US is ranked 50th on suicides per capita. Virtually every ” advanced” first – world state ranks above it. Including UK, Japan. and Iceland .
Suicide will be done by any means available and guns have absolutely nothing to do with it. This is coming from a guy who came home from work an hour late almost 10 months ago to find his girlfriend had stolen the key from my keyring to the gunsafe and took her own life in our bedroom behind lock and key. I’ve seen alot in my 30 years and
I didn’t blame the gun, I blame myself for not being there at the time and for thousands of different things, but I don’t blame the gun. Honestly, after months of discussions with therapists and support groups I have realized that she would have done it another way at another time since she truly went through with it. The only solace I have from it is that she didn’t suffer, and isn’t suffering, any longer.
Look at what happened today with the psychotic and evil news reporter that blamed the world for his problems and took it out on two ppl just starting their lives, on air, and then disseminating the video he took to the world like the sick bastard he was. There’s a case where he should have ate his gun and done everyone a favor.
Death by suicide or murder is senseless and it affects everyone in its web. But only guns are elevated to this level of misguided evil thinking because it’s a useful guise for those in power to rest easier knowing that all they need to do is capitalize on some poor family’s loss and brainwash the uninitiated and uneducated into doing the work for them with “ending gun violence” and “gun control”.
Sorry for the long post but with everything that happened today and the great article from Hognose, I felt that my opinions and experiences could add some real-life example of someone that would have every logical reason to hate guns, the people associated with them and call for a ban to help assuage the guilt and sadness that I have for my tragedy. Instead, I deal in the cold reality of the human condition.
“…These people are sincere, but their thinking doesn’t reach the necessary depth.”
By ‘sincere’, do you mean ‘done with the best intentions’?
They could just as easily be operating with bad intentions. As time goes on I’m having a harder time giving the benefit of the doubt to people constantly pushing evil ideas.
Australia is a good example of how removing firearms as an option will force people to find other ways to off themselves.
This study of suicide numbers from 1998, two years after the gun confiscation of 1996, has the authors scratching their heads, trying to figure out why so many more people are hanging themselves.
http://www.aihw.gov.au/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=60129550649