On a typically brisk day in December 2023, a throng of people gathered in the basement of St. Sabina Church in Auburn Gresham to hand over hundreds of guns.The scene was similar to dozens of other gun buyback events held at the Catholic parish, where more than 5,100 guns have been exchanged for gift cards over the past 19 years, more than any other location in the city.That day was marked by excitement, confusion and ultimately chaos after one cop inventorying the weapons at a police station noticed something unusual. A Glock handgun that cops had been admiring was missing.A tag identifying the gun had been slipped onto another one, and an envelope for that gun was soon found in the trash. In an office full of cops assigned to inventory the guns and keep them secure, someone had walked off with the Glock.Police say they found the stolen gun nearly a year later after chasing down a 16-year-old boy. He had allegedly been pulling on car door handles in South Shore, about five miles from the church.The boy’s mother was stunned when she learned the gun had been handed to police at a buyback.“This is a lot to take in right now,” she told reporters. “How did it go from being turned in to police to a kid getting it?"That question hasn't been answered.A police sergeant who supervised the officers working the buyback received a one-day suspension, but no one else was disciplined.Michael Tate, the commander of the Gresham District, where the buyback was held, didn't respond to messages seeking comment. Officers inventory firearms that were recovered during a gun buyback held by the Chicago Police Department at Chosen Bethel Family Ministries, 6201 S. Sangamon St., in Englewood, Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024. | Jim Vondruska / For the Sun-Times 1 of 5 A Chicago police officer examines a pistol during a gun buyback at St. Sabina Church, 1210 W. 78th Place, in Auburn Gresham, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. | Casey Toner / Illinois Answers Project 2 of 5 A box of tagged firearms recovered during a Chicago police buyback at St. Sabina Church, 1210 W. 78th Place, in Auburn Gresham, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. | Casey Toner / Illinois Answers Project 3 of 5 A Chicago police officer unloads a handgun that was recovered during a gun buyback at Chosen Bethel Family Ministries, 6201 S. Sangamon St., in Englewood, Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024. | Jim Vondruska / For the Sun-Times 4 of 5 Officers inventory firearms that were recovered during a gun buyback held by the Chicago Police Department at Chosen Bethel Family Ministries, 6201 S. Sangamon St., in Englewood, Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024. | Jim Vondruska / For the Sun-Times 5 of 5 A spokesperson for the Chicago Police Department says: “It is inexcusable that any weapon in the possession of CPD goes missing."This one incident is not indicative of the mission of CPD's Gun Turn-In Program, which has recovered more than 6,500 firearms since 2018 in an effort to reduce the likelihood of guns ending up in the wrong hands. ... Our members work every single day to take dangerous weapons off our streets, and we will continue to do this as we strengthen public safety."The lost weapon’s journey mirrored an earlier event in which a gun turned in by a Cook County judge disappeared from another buyback in Chicago — only to resurface at a fatal police shooting in Cicero, as the Better Government Association and Chicago Sun-Times reported in 2017.After that report, the city launched an investigation that lasted more than five years. But investigators decided it would be “difficult and unwise” to question everyone involved in the buyback. So they didn’t interview anyone.Both cases raise questions about the integrity and logistics of Chicago’s gun buybacks, which are a key element of the police department’s community policing and public relations efforts.‘Where is the Glock?’For nearly two decades, gun buybacks have been presented as a solution to combat violent crime. Police say the buybacks have engaged Chicagoans on the intractable problem of gun violence and eliminated firearms that could have been used in crimes.But academics have questioned their effectiveness, saying they do little to reduce the supply of guns used in shootings.The Rev. Michael Pfleger, the pastor of St. Sabina and a longtime crusader against gun violence, says he believes buybacks work. But he says it's “troubling” that a gun recovered in his church had landed on the street.“Obviously, your hope is this is a onetime thing that happened, and this has not happened before,” Pfleger says. The Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church in Auburn Gresham. Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere / Sun-Times Police officers from the Gresham District were excited as they eyeballed the cache of weapons turned in at St. Sabina on Dec. 2, 2023.About 300 guns were recovered that day, many exchanged for gift cards that the police later learned were already expired. The haul included a police-issued .38 Special and a pump-action Winchester rifle.But one stood out: a .45-caliber Glock 21.“There was a group of officers, and a lot of who were [saying] how good the Glock looked, how good the weapon looked,” said a tactical officer whose name was redacted in a recording with an internal affairs investigator. “I looked at it briefly, like, ‘Aw,yeah, it’s a nice one.’ ”Officers who weren’t even working the buyback showed up to get a look before the weaponry was sent to a police facility in Homan Square, where evidence is processed before getting shredded at a Pilsen scrap yard.Officer Justin Magnan was inventorying the firearms at the police district when he discovered the inventory sheet for the Glock had instead been placed on a .25-caliber chrome handgun.“I told everyone in the office,” Magnan told an internal affairs investigator. “I asked, ‘Where is the Glock? This is not a Glock.’ ”Officer Krystal Rivera, who helped transfer the guns from the church, told the investigator her team scrambled after learning the Glock was missing.“I helped look for this gun through many boxes, through many envelopes, through areas in the [tactical team] office, garbage cans, behind desks, behind seats,” Rivera said. “I even looked in some of my coworkers’ bookbags.”The officer whose name was redacted told investigators he entered the Glock and the chrome handgun into a police database and said he last saw the Glock on a table inside the office.But he couldn’t tell who was responsible for checking whether the information from the manifest matched the guns he was entering into the database. That confusion was prompted by a decision to switch the inventory process on the fly to save time.“We had a way that we were inventorying, and they would look at it, like, ‘OK, this is taking too long . . . The way you guys are doing it is taking too long. You need to come up with a faster way,’ ” he said. A Glock handgun recovered at a gun buyback on Dec. 2, 2023, later went missing from the Gresham District station, 7808 S. Halsted St. Police say the gun was found on a 16-year-old boy nearly a year later. Anthony Vazquez / Sun-Times Asked to explain the “security gap” that led to the gun being swiped, he suggested it was “on the table … about 10 to 15 feet away from the door.”Sgt. Robert Brown Jr., who was listed in the paperwork as the sole supervisor for the buyback, said the pistol was tagged “by members of the Saint Sabina Church,” implying that police had let members of the public handle guns that were turned over.But police sources and Pfleger say church personnel are relegated solely to crowd control and other work unrelated to guns.“No one knows where this weapon that was inventoried in the system was at,” according to the police report. “Several checks of the office, other bags and surrounding areas did not locate the weapon. The office was occupied at all times and the office door was open.“The weapon was never found.”Brown told a detective he was “uncertain if a clerical error had occurred during the turn-in event.”The detective suspended a criminal investigation into the stolen gun “pending any new investigative leads.” But a police spokesperson says it remains ongoing.Brown was recommended for a one-day suspension after internal affairs investigators found that he had “failed to adequately secure and care for department property,” resulting in the theft of the gun. They also determined that he’d failed to get statements from other officers who were processing the guns when they discovered it was missing.Brown says he is appealing the suspension and declined to comment further.The boy with the gunThe gun had been missing for nearly a year when officers in an unmarked vehicle saw a boy pulling car handles just after midnight on Nov. 30, 2024, near 77th Street and Essex Avenue, according to an arrest report.As the officers got out, the boy ran and grabbed his waistband, according to the police.They said they chased him through a gangway in the 7700 block of South Essex, where he dropped two bullets. Then, they followed him onto a CTA bus, the report says. After he got off, he lost his balance and fell, and the officers’ report says he dropped an “L-shaped object … believed to be a firearm,” then picked it up before running again.Police arrested the boy in the 7800 block of South Crandon Avenue. He isn’t named here because he is a minor.The police said he was carrying an ammunition magazine, two grams of marijuana, two screwdrivers and a glove. The gun was recovered a few hundred feet from where he was apprehended.The Glock’s serial number — CGT316 — matched the gun that was reported stolen from the buyback.The boy was charged with illegally possessing the firearm. His case is pending in juvenile court. After a hearing in February, his assistant public defender, Brenda Pacouloute, said she was unaware the gun had been stolen after a police buyback until reporters told her.By then, the case was nearing the end of the discovery phase, in which prosecutors and defense attorneys are required to exchange all evidence. A mosaic in the halls of the Cook County Juvenile Center, where a teenage boy is facing charges for possessing a gun that was previously recovered by Chicago police at a buyback.Casey Toner / Illinois Answers Project At a hearing four days later, a Cook County prosecutor said her office had offered the teenager a plea deal.A spokesperson for Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke declined to comment, citing a state law that shields juvenile court records.Eugenia Orr, a spokesperson for Cook County Public Defender Sharone Mitchell, says only, "We work every day to advocate for our clients — especially our young clients — and pursue outcomes that support their growth, protect their rights and promote their future success."The boy’s mother says her family has struggled since her eldest son was shot and killed in Woodlawn in June 2021. They settled in Chicago after the shooting following stints in Iowa, Indiana and Michigan.The boy had been placed on electronic monitoring and was living in a West Englewood apartment with his sister and twin brother, who the family says also was on court-ordered monitoring in a separate gun case. The boy attended an alternative school but was otherwise stuck at home, save for a family reunion that Judge Sanju Oommen Green allowed him to attend.In an interview, the boy wouldn’t say where the gun came from, deferring to his attorney.“I got to fight and stay strong,” he told reporters.About a week and a half later, the boy and his brother ran away, prosecutors said during a March 4 hearing.Calumet City police arrested the boy, now 17, at 2:20 a.m. March 18 after responding to a call of a car break-in. He was charged with attempted motor-vehicle theft, burglary, possession of burglary tools, obstructing identification and resisting arrest.He is being held at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center pending his next hearing on April 22.More guns than peopleIt doesn’t matter whether you’re facing felony charges or free and clear of the justice system: When you show up to exchange a weapon for a gift card at a Chicago gun buyback, no questions are asked.The idea is that anonymity encourages people to get guns out of their hands and off the streets and, in the process, help create safer neighborhoods.But there’s one big problem. By many estimates, there are more firearms than people in the United States. So the thousands of guns that are recovered through buybacks amount to a drop in a lake.The guns that are recovered are often inoperable or older weapons not associated with gang violence.At a gun buyback at St. Sabina in September, Larry Bromberek, of Lemont, exchanged 13 guns that he got from a friend’s safe. The stash included single-shot rifles and a blunderbuss from the 1800s, according to Bromberek. Each was exchanged for a $100 gift card, which he planned to give to his grandchildren. Larry Bromberek displays a cache of old guns that he turned over at a buyback at St. Sabina Catholic Church on Sept. 28, 2024.Casey Toner / Illinois Answers Project “They are not the guns you'd be seeing in regular gun violence,” says retired Buffalo State University professor emeritus Scott W. Phillips, whose research found that a buyback program in the city in western New York didn’t reduce violent crime. “They are not getting the guns you want.”Some academics argue that the buybacks are more useful for community policing — an easy way to engage people on gun violence, which killed more than 47,000 people nationwide in 2023.“When somebody asks me, 'Should we do a buyback,' my response is that it depends on what you’re hoping to accomplish,” says Dr. Garen Wintemute, a trauma surgeon from Sacramento who has studied gun buybacks. “If you think it will reduce rates of crime, go back to the drawing board. If you are trying to mobilize the community with a sustained effort, start with a buyback, by all means.”In Chicago, the guns handed over at buybacks are added to the total number of guns the police department reports it recovers every year, boosting a key statistic the agency uses to tout its crime-fighting efforts.Since 2006, the department has inventoried more than 199,000 guns. Roughly 35,000, or about 18% of all weapons collected, came from buybacks.Guns can live many livesPolice officials won’t discuss efforts to find out what happened to the gun or disclose any changes that have been made to ensure more guns don’t disappear from buybacks.They also won’t release the findings of the internal investigation into the gun theft. Illinois Answers has sued for those records.The police say buybacks are effective crime deterrents.“Remember, a weapon is something that doesn't spoil,” Glen Brooks, the department’s director of community policing, told a reporter at the buyback in September. “It can be as deadly today as it was last week, last year, a decade ago or five decades ago.” Glen Brooks (left), director of community policing for the Chicago Police Department, walks with members of the Secret Service to Henry Horner Homes on the Near West Side after a news conference on July 26, 2024, to canvas residents ahead of the Democratic National Convention.Pat Nabong / Sun-Times Stephanie Kollmann, policy director for the Children and Family Justice Center at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, blames the Glock’s theft on a breakdown of “police protocol” and questions whether an officer might have stolen it.“It is a troubling part of our society that the adults who are involved in unlawful transfers, and I would say carelessness around handguns, are not the ones who are deemed to be primarily accountable,” Kollmann says. “Now, that doesn’t always mean that criminal sanctions are the best way to hold adults accountable.“But if we’re willing to use them on children who possess guns, certainly we ought to be at least as willing to see whether police officers — in this case, who are potentially either permitting or themselves allowing and proactively stealing a firearm — to be held to at least as high of a standard.” Related Chicago cops did little to investigate how gun a judge turned in to be destroyed ended up at a crime scene Casey Toner and Peter Nickeas report for the Illinois Answers Project. Tom Schuba is a Sun-Times reporter.Contributing: Rosemary Sobol ...read more read less