Security giant G4S has lost hundreds of guns
Washington DC December 17 2019 The largest private security company in the world can’t keep track of its guns.
And the consequences are clear: One of their missing guns was held to a woman’s head as a man threatened to rape her. Another was used to pistol-whip a pizza delivery driver. A third ended the lives of two men playing video games.
Before they were used to hurt or kill people, each of these guns was assigned to a security guard whose job was to protect the public. Then they were stolen from G4S, a company that brings in billions of dollars with promises of “securing your world.”
For decades, G4S executives, managers and guards have failed to secure the company’s vast arsenal despite repeated warnings from federal regulators that its missing guns have been used in murders and other violent crimes, a USA TODAY/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation found.
Under a firearms license with the federal government, G4S is supposed to make sure its weapons are secured and accounted for at all times like gun shops do. But the company saves time and does more business by shifting much of that responsibility to individual guards, trusting them to safely store the weapons at home.
Too often, they don’t.
More than 600 G4S weapons have been reported lost or stolen since 2009, according to figures maintained, but never publicly revealed, by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. For perspective, the Drug Enforcement Agency has more than twice as many guns as G4S but loses about five on average annually, according to federal audits.
Under federal law, almost all the information about guns used in crimes is kept secret from the public. Reporters reviewed thousands of pages of local law enforcement records from around the country to create the most comprehensive public accounting to date of how so many G4S guns had disappeared and where they ended up. The effort revealed details about 154 of the lost guns, uncovering shoddy record-keeping and a pattern of negligence. Some guards quit or were fired and never gave back the guns. Others pawned them for money. Three dozen guards broke company policy and left weapons unsecured in their cars, where they were stolen. One lost his in a drug deal.
The records also show where 60 of the missing weapons resurfaced: Inside a teen’s school locker. With a gun trafficker. In a string of armed robberies.
Many of the lost guns have never been located – either by reporters, law enforcement or G4S. Those guns could be anywhere.
The company’s inability to keep its guns off the street extends beyond its guards to the company managers and executives responsible for keeping tabs on the weapons. In at least six G4S offices, records show, weeks or months or even years went by before managers realized company guns had disappeared.
“A couple a times a month we’d get a call about a gun we never knew was missing,” said James Granan, who worked at G4S for 25 years before retiring as the corporate inventory weapons manager in 2011. “It was a surprise.”
A couple a times a month we’d get a call about a gun we never knew was missing. … It was a surprise.
In a November interview, G4S Chief Compliance Officer and General Counsel Michael Hogsten said the company overhauled its weapons policies and digitized its paper gun records in 2012. The changes came as a result of an ATF audit that threatened to revoke the company’s federal firearms license after it lost 72 guns.
But records show the company has continued to lose guns at a steady pace, more than once a week. This year, G4S has lost at least 65 guns, according to the company’s own numbers. Each year, more than a dozen of the guns that had been reported missing are ultimately recovered by G4S before they wind up on the street, Hogsten said.
Hogsten blamed G4S employees who don’t follow company policy for most of the missing guns.
“Not one loss of a firearm is acceptable to us,” he said. “My goal is to get people to be more aware on a regular basis of the issues related to how important it is to follow these rules.”
An October USA TODAY/Journal Sentinel investigation detailed how G4S made questionable hires often driven by low wages, high turnover and pressure to sign and fill new contracts quickly. But Hogsten denied that the company’s hiring practices contributed to the problem of lost guns.
Guards are supposed to use company-issued cable locks to secure their weapons at home and in their cars so they can’t be moved or fired. Managers are also required by law to report missing guns to ATF within 48 hours.
“In the vast majority of cases that you’ve identified where there’s a big problem, it’s a failure of the local manager who didn’t follow process,” Hogsten said.
During its most recent federal inspection of G4S, in 2016, an ATF official cited the company for failing to properly document its guns.
“Some of the crimes that these firearms have been recovered in range from homicides, robberies, domestic violence,” the ATF report states. Other G4S guns were found at suicides or in the possession of convicted felons, who aren’t legally allowed to have them, according to the report.
Field offices around the country have noticed multiple guns missing during inventory checks. In some cases, months or years had gone by since they were last accounted for.
From 2004 to 2017, ATF issued eight violations against G4S for problems with its firearms paperwork. Allied Universal, G4S’ only major competitor with a federal firearms license, had no violations in its most recent inspection, and ATF did not note any problems with missing guns, according to agency records.
Hogsten said he had not seen G4S’ full 2016 inspection report until reporters showed it to him and that no one at ATF brought concerns about missing company guns to his attention during the most recent inspection.
“Their view is we’ve done everything they’ve asked of us and more,” Hogsten said. “And they believe our compliance is in line with what we should be doing.”
G4S is now developing a software system that will flag headquarters when a guard leaves the company so executives can track if guns are returned, he said.
ATF spokesman Wayne Bettencourt declined to answer specific questions about G4S. In general, he said the agency can revoke licenses of companies that “willfully violated the law.” Although license revocations are rare, failure to account for guns is among the most common reasons they happen, he said.
Five current and former ATF officials with knowledge of G4S’ operations and the license revocation process told reporters the company should not have been allowed to keep its firearms license this long given its track record of inventory problems.
Steve Barborini, who worked at the agency for 25 years before retiring in 2011 as resident agent in charge of the West Palm Beach, Fla. office, said he and his colleagues frequently traced guns used in crimes back to G4S.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said. “How many times do you have to be warned?”
After his shift on Christmas Eve 2009, G4S guard Edwin Prado stuck his company-issued revolver into a bag with another gun, stashed the bag in a closet and left town for the holidays.
When he got home four days later, the gun was gone. Police discovered that a screen had been cut and suspected burglars, according to police reports.
The next night, about 70 miles away, three men crept through the fence and into a backyard shed behind a home in in Brandon, Fla., police and court records show. With the revolver stolen from Prado’s closet, they fatally shot two young men playing video games inside.
One of the victims was 22-year-old Tony Black.
Black’s mother, Shardretta Williams, woke up that night to the sound of pounding on the door of her home.
Two police officers stood on the porch. Tony’s been shot dead, one of them told her. Williams shook her head back and forth and lay down on the couch, convinced she was having a nightmare.
Her other son, just 9 years old, was listening at the top of the stairs and called his aunt, who rushed over. Williams realized then she wouldn’t wake up from this.
“I just screamed and screamed,” she recalled in an interview. “I screamed because now I know this may be real.”
Black’s killers were sentenced to life in prison.
The police didn’t realize that the gun G4S had issued to Prado was the murder weapon until journalists alerted them nearly a decade later. An officer who investigated the homicides had written down the wrong serial number on some of the reports. A USA TODAY reporter noted the correct serial number in other documents from the case and matched it with the weapon that was stolen three counties over.
G4S executives also weren’t aware the gun they assigned to Prado was used to kill two people, according to Hogsten.
“Whenever we hear things like this… this is terrible stuff,” he said. “And that’s why we put so much effort and time into trying to find a way to stop thefts of firearms.”
Prado said in an interview that his bosses had reprimanded him for losing the gun and transferred him to an unarmed position. He worked for G4S for three more years before retiring, he said.
Told his stolen gun had been used to kill someone, Prado sucked in his breath.
Really? he asked in Spanish. De verdad?
Williams also didn’t know a gun intended to keep people safe took her son’s life until she spoke with reporters. She was incensed that neither Prado nor G4S was held accountable.
“If I had a gun, and I have a five-year-old and he shot somebody, guess what? I’m responsible. I’m either going to jail or they’re taking my child,” she said. “But if you have a security guard who’s supposed to be trained with a weapon, who has permission by those authorities above him to have a gun and it shoots several people, who’s responsible?”
For 40 years, G4S has benefited from the same federal firearms license that gun dealers possess, even though it’s in the business of providing security, not selling guns.
The license saves the company time by allowing it to buy guns in bulk directly from manufacturers and ship them across state lines.
Most firearms licensees are gun stores or collectors, which are heavily regulated. Anyone who buys a gun from a licensed dealer must fill out a form that addresses criminal history, mental health and other issues that could bar them from owning a weapon. The shop must then contact the FBI, which verifies the information by checking its database. When sending guns across state lines, a licensee may only ship them to licensed dealers, not to other businesses or individuals.
The system is meant to ensure that guns don’t fall into the wrong hands, and if they do, that ATF can hold the gun dealer responsible. But G4S gets the benefit of a license without following those same regulations.
USA Today
