Police Achieve Milestone: One Gun Recovery Every 30 Hours

Pasadena police collected 300 firearms from city streets in 2024, a figure Police Chief Eugene Harris called a “staggering stat” during his year-end review to the Community Police Oversight Commission on Thursday, February 13.

The recoveries included both police seizures and a significant number of voluntary surrenders from community members.

“Every gun that’s taken off the street is a potential life saved, so that’s the way we look at it — as lifesaving currency,” Harris told Commissioners.

Of the 300 firearms recovered, 144 were seized by police officers through enforcement actions, while citizens voluntarily turned in 149 for safekeeping. Seven additional weapons were found by citizens and reported to police.

Police seizures occurred through multiple channels: 46 during traffic stops, 45 during calls for service, 33 during compliance checks and search warrants, five taken by officers for safekeeping, one found by an officer, three from pedestrian stops, and one from a pedestrian stop related to a ShotSpotter alert. (ShotSpotter is an automatic gunfire detection system used by police.)

Harris explained that voluntary surrenders often came from responsible community members dealing with inherited weapons or guns bequeathed after a family member’s death.

He noted that citizens sometimes discover discarded weapons in public spaces, likely hidden by criminals hoping to retrieve them later.

The Chief pointed to the collaborative nature of the successful gun recoveries.

“The police are setting the right tone, but it is the community members that are doing the work and taking responsibility,” Harris said in his presentation, noting that citizens were “stepping up and seeing it as a problem and really engaging in solving that problem.”

The gun recovery statistics were presented as part of Harris’s comprehensive 2024 year-end review to the oversight Commission, highlighting the department’s efforts to remove potentially dangerous weapons from city streets.