LAPD to Begin Tracing Guns Seized From Juvenile Suspects

Seeking to crack down on gun dealers who illegally sell weapons to young people, Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks said his department will trace every weapon recovered from juveniles in the city beginning this fall.

To that end, Parks has said he will assign three additional detectives to the department’s gun unit to investigate illegal gun traffickers. A similar program began informally about six months ago but police officials say more officers are needed to make it work.

Beginning in October, LAPD officers are expected to join a national database sponsored by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that tracks weapons recovered in crimes. The computer system matches weapon information against other databases to trace guns to their original owners.

The bureau’s National Tracing Center in West Virginia last year tracked the history of about 100,000 guns nationwide, officials said. The computer program can, for example, link a gun found in Inglewood, one of the cities participating in the program, to a crime committed in New Jersey.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department also will participate in the gun tracing effort. Last month, President Clinton announced that Los Angeles and nine other cities were joining the national computer network.