St Clair County Missouri Sheriff Department is gonna wish they hadn't said this.
Pickup truck, deputy’s gun stolen in O’Fallon, Mo. | St. Louis Crime Beat | STLtoday
Pickup truck, deputy’s gun stolen in O’Fallon, Mo. | St. Louis Crime Beat | STLtoday
Not only criminals are dumb.Pickup truck, deputy’s gun stolen in O’Fallon, Mo.
By Joel Currier
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
O’FALLON, MO. - Police are asking for the public’s help finding two men suspected in the theft of a pickup truck and sheriff’s deputy’s gun this morning in O’Fallon, Mo.
Shortly after 6 a.m., a man stole a pickup truck from a home Bryan Valley subdivision and drove it to a nearby home where a St. Charles County sheriff’s deputy’s patrol car was parked, police said. Someone broke the driver’s side front window of the car and stole a deputy’s .40 caliber handgun. Police believe the gun was in the car’s middle console.
O’Fallon Police Lt. Pat Hossenlopp refused to provide the hundred block and street of where the gun was stolen. “We just want to protect the deputy a little bit,” Hossenlopp said. “We don’t want his address getting out.”
Sheriff’s Lt. Craig McGuire said the department’s policy requires deputies to secure their weapons. Keeping a gun hidden from view in a locked vehicle is considered a secure method of storing a weapon, he said.
Preliminary findings show the deputy did not violate the department’s policy for storing weapons while off-duty, McGuire said. Deputies are allowed to take cars home.
“I don’t know what else you could do to make it more secure,” McGuire said. “Just because you have it in the house–you can hide it as best you can–but there’s only so much you can do.”
Police say they are looking for two white men in the incident. One drove off in the stolen truck; the other was spotted leaving the subdivision in a dark pickup truck.
The white pickup has Missouri license plate number 0KL227, police said. Police had no additional description of the other pickup.
Investigators are asking for anyone with information on the incident to call Detective Dean Frye at 636-379-5579.