GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The Grand Rapids Police Department says it recovered more than 400 illegally possessed or stolen guns since the start of 2022.
On Thursday night, they recovered three more just blocks away from the intersection of Martin Luther King and Eastern.
The intersection is identified as one of the areas with the highest volume of violent crime in Grand Rapids.
FOX 17 talked with GRPD Chief Eric Winstrom Friday who said all three guns were possessed illegally and one of them was stolen out of Ottawa County.
Chief Winstrom added that GRPD officers recover at least one gun each night during traffic stops.
He stressed that his officers are not stopping people for things like broken taillights and during Thursday’s stops, one person in possession of an illegal gun was driving erratically and another was driving without a plate.
Chief Winstrom explained that this is something he knows the community wants addressed through the “DICE” model.
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“Every day, one or two. You never really hear about it, but it’s happening. That’s why I thought it was important to tweet that, to let people know how engaged the police officers are, to take that community feedback we got that, ‘we want these illegal guns off the street and we don’t want our kids to get shot, to know that our officers are proactively engaged.’ I think that’s a positive,” Chief Winstrom added.
Chief Winstrom said GRPD will test fire the stolen gun to see if the ballistics match any crimes in the area, while the two guns possessed illegally will get melted down.