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Cops look for source of guns and bullets

Handgun recovered Thursday just blocks from school where bullets were found on Wednesday
By Rick Pfeiffer/pfeifferr@gnnewspaper.com
Niagara Gazette

First it was bullets, now a gun.

In the last two days, Cataract City cops have recovered almost 100 hollow-point bullets from a school parking lot and a semi-automatic handgun from a senior citizen’s garden just a few blocks away.

Falls police called the discoveries disturbing but not uncommon.

“It’s not unusual to find things like this in some areas of the city,” Detective Capt. Ernest Palmer said. “There is a lot of transient activity in that area and, particularly after a weekend, we might recover handguns, rifles and drug paraphernalia.”

The handgun was discovered late Thursday morning in a garden bed in the 1600 block of Cleveland Avenue. The weapon is described as .22-caliber Tech machine pistol.

The high-powered handgun was found inside a black plastic case along with a fully loaded ammunition clip. A search of the gun’s registration number showed it had been reported stolen from a home in LaSalle on Nov. 2, 2006.

Other guns, including an AK-47 assault rifle, were also taken in that burglary.

On Wednesday morning police were called to Harry F. Abate Elementary School on Lockport Road after a parent found a box of live ammunition there. The plastic case held 98 .22-caliber hollow-point bullets.

“(The box of ammo) was found on the east side of the school, in an area not readily accessible to children,” Palmer said. “They weren’t right out in the open.”

The detective chief also said as shocking as the discovery may have been to the parent, without a gun the bullets did not represent a serious danger to any children in the area.

“You wouldn’t want children around them, but they can’t really hurt themselves (with just the bullets),” Palmer said.

School Superintendent Carmen Granto said school security officials conducted a search of the school and its grounds after the parent’s discovery. He said no weapons or additional amounts of ammunition were discovered.

“I’m grateful to the parent who found (the bullets) and brought them in,” Granto said. “On more than one occasion when there have been police chases, we have found stuff (primarily weapons or drugs) that shouldn’t be (around schools).”

Still, Granto said he had no concerns about security or the safety of children at Abate or any other city school.

While investigators know where the handgun came from, they are now trying to find out where the case of bullets came from.

“We have no idea how they got (to the school grounds),” Palmer said. “They could have been dropped or ditched by someone being chased. We don’t believe (the bullets) are associated with the school in any way.”

Palmer said detectives will comb through burglary and larceny reports to see if anyone has reported a theft of bullets. If not, he said the ammunition will be destroyed.