Police kept Navy shooter’s gun after 2004 arrest
Sep 20, 2013, 8:44 PM
SEATTLE (AP) – Police say Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis never got his gun back after a 2004 arrest in Seattle.
The Seattle Police Department said Friday that officials held the gun in evidence until they destroyed the weapon in 2007.
The department says Alexis had repeatedly contacted detectives asking to get his firearm back, but detectives did not release it because they had not received paperwork indicating that prosecutors had dropped the case.
Alexis was taken into custody in 2004 in Seattle after police say he shot out the tires of a vehicle parked near his grandmother’s home, where he was living at the time.
It remains unclear why he was never charged. Seattle police said they referred the case for prosecution in municipal court, but the city attorney’s office says it never received the case file to review for prosecution.
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