Whipped Cream Difficulties

Anthony Magsam worked for the Philadelphia Police Department in the Firearms Identification Unit. In that position, Officer Magsam had the opportunity to handle a lot of nifty guns. Officer Magsam was something of a gun buff as well:

Magsam was known by colleagues in the FIU as a gun collector, and he spoke often about knowing how to convert semiautomatic weapons into automatic weapons, according to more than a half-dozen police sources…

Unfortunately, Officer Magsam let his gun buffery get the better of him. Allegedly, he removed the trigger group from what’s described as an AR-15 with three-round burst capability, and replaced it with a semi-auto AR trigger group. He also allegedly took parts out of an M2 carbine:

“The bolt had been removed and replaced with nonautomatic parts that had been ground down and colored with a marker, so that nobody would notice,” the source said. “That started a snowball effect.”

So this is bad, m’kay? Officer Magsam was fired and criminally prosecuted, right? That’s what would happen if you or I were in illegal possession of full-auto parts, right?

Bzzzzt! Wrong! Thanks for playing! Officer Magsam was allowed by the commanding officer of the FIU to transfer out of FIU into another unit, and the theft was not reported.

When a handful of FIU members complained to [Lt. Vincent] Testa [the unit’s commanding officer – DB] that Magsam had broken the law, that the incident should have been reported, the sources said he told them: “That’s what’s going to be done. I gave an order. If you don’t like it, that’s tough s—.”

If I understand the Daily News article correctly, Internal Affairs is investigating. But IA had been investigating for over a year when the Daily News reported the story; it seems the investigation was “stalled”.

By the way, the guy who was overseeing the IA investigation used to work with Lt. Testa in the FIU. And Officer Magsam’s mother…

…Barbara Feeney, a longtime police sergeant, is married to retired police Chief Inspector Michael Feeney.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 1st, 2011 at 9:19 am and is filed under Cops, Guns, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.