A group of fifth grade students were on a tour of the Rock Island Police Department. Students were allowed to step inside a holding cell when one of them pushed on a pillow and felt the presence of a handgun hidden inside. The student alerted staff who immediately took possession of the weapon. The gun was unloaded, and a check of the serial number determined that it had been stolen during a burglary in 2022.
If the police can’t even prevent people from getting a gun while in jail, where everyone and everything is searched when entering, then how can they prevent criminals from getting guns? Even if they turn the entire nation into a prison, criminals will still be able to get guns.
3 Comments
Rick · May 12, 2024 at 8:17 pm
Control. By their very nature, criminals are outside of the law, outside of the control of the law.
Control is meant, even designed, for the non-criminal aka law abiding.
Finding criminal props inside the jail should be no surprise. The law applies to the criminal only when caught. Even then, only briefly.
(Even the habitual criminal does very well for themself inside the jail or prison.)
It is only that a 5th grader embarrassed the PD that this is a big deal. Evidence ‘missing’ from the evidence locker is an old story. I mention stolen evidence only because of where it ends up. Like in the hands of cops then criminals.
Surly · May 13, 2024 at 12:04 pm
A gun is found in a cell, thus showing that Rock Island police cannot search either a cell or a prisoner. However the important thing for officials to note is ‘…no students physically saw or touched the gun…’ What a pathetic comment to make!
Rick · May 13, 2024 at 3:36 pm
In my earlier comment I avoided naming the PD. The reason is because such antics occur in jails all across the nation. Perhaps not every jail or even a jail very frequently.
Yet frequently enough that the citizen should expect contraband from jails will touch their life many times over. Never in a good way.
Consider how probable that the gun in the pillow came from an evidence locker.
(High prob since no one walks in off the street to give Johnny Outlaw a gun.)
So the inmate is armed and the missing evidence results in charges dropped in the trial of another hoodlum. That’s messed up and happens every day across the nation.
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