Posted: Monday, 25 January 2010 10:45AM
Happiness Is A Warm Tommy Gun
Steve Corbett Reporting
Monday, January 25, 2010
For decades the Tommy gun just collected dust.
Former Luzerne County Sheriff Mike Savokinas said on “Corbett” Friday that some of the deputies fired the antique submachine gun every now and then but other than that the antique served no real purpose.
So Savokinas decided to sell the old automatic weapon to make up for a shortfall that turned a supposedly lean and mean law enforcement agency into a cash-strapped government wasteland.
And that was that.
Or so Savokinas thought.
When WBRE’s Joe Holden heard the tale he turned it into an investigative scoop for the evening news.
But I needed to know more.
Before “Corbett” ended Friday at 7, Savokinas had called the show three times to explain and clarify the Tommy gun reports. Like it or not, a machine gun in the courthouse is worth talking about.
So is a lawman turned gun dealer – without the proper authorization, according to county officials.
Commission Chairwoman Maryanne Petrilla emailed me during the show to say that every county asset – including a machine gun – must be officially assessed for value and put out for bid before it can be sold.
Then County Solicitor Vito Deluca emailed to say that the state coded prohibits the sale if any county asset without the proper procedure – a procedure Savokinas did not follow.
Savokinas said he mentioned his plan at a meeting Petrilla attended so she knew he intended to sell the gun.
She maintained that he still did not follow procedure.
Deluca emailed me a second time to say that he wasn’t sure if any criminal penalty or fine exists with which Savokinas could be charged but that he will check.
We’ll find out if the proper paperwork was filled out and if anybody broke any law.
But I’m still trying to find out how the sheriff got himself a Tommy gun to begin with.
Savokinas said a county prison official turned the gun over to another former sheriff about 20 years ago, although Savokinas isn’t sure which sheriff took possession of the gun made famous by Elliot Ness and the Untouchables.
Chicago gangster Al Capone had one, too. But who gave the gun to our guy? And where’s the paperwork? There is paperwork, isn’t there?
Or did this submachine gun just find its way into the hands of this guy and then the next guy with the simple ease of the Taliban passing around rocket propelled grenade launchers?
Savokinas said the proper paperwork exists that allowed the sale to a Pittston gun dealer. But he seemed a little hazy about the original paperwork that allowed the transfer in the first place.
Maybe that’s not his problem. But I figured that any paperwork would include the history of the gun from origin to its most recent sale. Car titles are like that, aren’t they?
When my dad died and I gave the hand gun he carried while on duty as a state police detective to a former partner of his, I made sure that all the paperwork was complete and cleared through the proper authorities.
Since guns of any kind can be used for good or evil, I wanted to make sure that I followed the proper procedure. And I wasn’t bound by any county or state regulations regarding the sale of public property. The gun belonged to me.
But the Tommy gun, whatever its origin, was public property. And although Savokinas said the solicitor for the sheriff’s office approved the sale, we need to know the details about the gun.
Did U.S. Navy officials donate the gun to an as yet unknown sheriff? Did police confiscate the gun in a raid? Or did our local Mafia don slide the gun to one of his boys on the inside to be used in the event that county officials wanted to invade Lackawanna County?
Mobsters didn’t use the submachine gun in the Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago, did they?
C’mon, of course they didn’t. Did they? No way. They didn’t. Did they?
If they did, Capone ain’t talking.
Like most Luzerne County officials, he don’t know nothing about nothing.
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