Gun stolen from Scheels turns up in Phoenix
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By LORI PILGER / Lincoln Journal Star
One of the handguns stolen two months ago from Scheels in Lincoln turned up Friday — nearly 1,400 miles away in Arizona.
A Phoenix police officer looking for a missing juvenile in a high drug area found the .45-caliber Glock with night sights on the ground near an abandoned apartment, Lincoln Officer Kacky Finnell said.
“There was no one near the gun, and they suspect that someone saw officers in the area and dumped the gun,” she said.
Finnell said reports didn’t indicate whether it was loaded. But police in Arizona soon learned from the gun’s serial number that it had been stolen in Lincoln.
“We are following up with them on any possible ties back here,” she said.
Early Oct. 1, two people in hooded sweatshirts shattered the glass doors at Scheels at SouthPointe Pavilions, pried open the entrance security cage and headed upstairs to the guns, police said.
The burglars came and left within eight minutes, hauling more than 80 guns from the store.
By 11 that night, the SWAT team searched an apartment at 1724 L St., allegedly finding 17-year-olds Cleophus Collier and Michael Nimox with four rifles and 22 handguns stolen from Scheels.
Investigators followed leads into the night, resulting in another arrest and the recovery of four more stolen guns, police said.
Fifty-one guns still are missing.
Chief Tom Casady called the Arizona gun the first one stolen in the burglary to surface since the initial seizures.
That the gun turned up in Phoenix confirms a tip investigators had gotten that some of the guns were distributed after the break-in.
“I’m surprised it’s taken this long for one of the stolen guns to surface,” Casady said.
He suspects the guns could continue to turn up for years.
“My hope is that there is still a significant stash somewhere in Lincoln, so that not all of the missing guns have been dispersed into the criminal underground,” Casady said. “But we don’t know.”
The investigation locally is continuing, he said. Police are fairly confident the four arrested weren’t the only ones involved in receiving or distributing the guns, he said.
“As with most criminal investigations, the primary challenge is that defendants and suspects do not have to talk to the police.”
Reach Lori Pilger at 473-7237 or lpilger@journalstar.com.
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