SAN ANTONIO – A 2016 audit of the San Antonio Police Department armory found “inventory controls" … are not effective, efficient and in accordance with relevant policies and guidelines.”
SAPD requested the audit of the armory, located at the SAPD Training Academy.
The audit was performed during the 2016 fiscal year and completed in the spring.
During the process, a 9 mm handgun used for training was discovered missing.
“We scoured, we inventoried and we interviewed and we could not come up with that gun,” Police Chief William McManus said.
The department filed its own police report about the gun, which still has not been located.
The audit report found that “policies and procedures were not established to direct and control the maintenance and distribution of firearms and equipment.”
There was also a “lack of evidence to show periodic physical inventories were performed” and too many guns were being stored in the armory -- pushing it over capacity.
Discussing the audit with the City Council’s Audit and Accountability Committee Tuesday, McManus called the findings revealed “sloppy housekeeping” and said changes have been implemented to correct the issues.
“When trainers use those guns, they’re required to check them out. Systems are now in place to prevent that from happening again,” McManus said, in reference to the missing gun.
Other changes include updating the software systems used to track gun inventory to ensure those systems communicate with each other.
The armory commander now takes a physical inventory of guns at random and at least once a month.
Excess guns stored at the armory have been moved to a secured mobile storage facility.
The audit focused on the 1,400 guns stored in the SAPD vault at the time. The department owned 3,900 guns total during the same time period.
The serial numbers on guns assigned to officers are checked once a year when officers do annual training.
