They "LOST" my Luger.
 

Well thats that. The Luger that my Grandfather brought back from WWII that I just restored and was confiscated by the Gestapo..er I mean police has gone missing somehow while in their custody. My lawyer has told them they will either need to produce the gun as ordered by the court (yes I went to court and won) or they will have to pay an amount that I will later name. The police claim they have no record of the Luger being taken but I kept the receipt from when they came to raid my house so I have them by the short and curlies. The internal afairs dept is investigating this and all the officers that were involved in the raid. All the other guns are fine and accounted for and are due to be released to me in the next few weeks but the Luger is gone and somehow none of the police know what happened to it.

So thats that my grandfathers Luger is gone forever. :mad:
As for value I'm thinking of claiming somewhere in the of the $10k range as it was passed down and is irreplaceable. Yes I know its not really worth that much but seeing how I think its priceless what do I do?

I don't think sentimental value will be taken into consideration but I hope they do. I would demand lie detector test for all officers and anyone with access to the arms/evidence room. Those that lie, demand they be fired.

Remember, there is a price difference in its intrinsic value and 'replacement' value.

I would demand a very large amount too, as you can't just get a replacement of your grandfathers luger. Just any luger would not be the same.

As a minimum, I would settle for no less than $3000 - lots of websites to point to 'mint' lugers.

I agree with Ron [post below]. :)

Your Luger has been stolen, plain and simple. Someone needs to be held accountable and damages paid. It goes beyond intrinsic value, you have been the object of a criminal fraud and the individuals responsible should be prosecuted.

I'm with Postino.

"Then make sure your original Luger is reported as stolen. You may have to go to the State Police as your local Police may not be agreeable to reporting it stolen (understandably)."

Should be reported by serial number and letter suffix.

David

Probably in some cops safe.

Sad that people who are sworn to protect and serve are now suspected of theft..What a World we live in.

why did the police take the gun in the first place?

I guess that I am not surprised, but this is really the bottom of the barrel!! First they take it illegally, and then they "lose" it.....plus they say that they have no record of it. Looks like a complete investigation of this whole situation is called for...perhaps by another police force(state).

Call and make a complaint to your states attorney, police don't like an investigation from the States Attorney Office.

Wonder if you could get the ATF involved, and wouldn't that substantially shake up your local police "disappearing act" dept!

Some things never change.there is an Roman empire saying,"But who shall guard the guards?".From reading some books on WW2, i get the impression that the more power the police have, the more corrept they are.read Schlinders list, a friend asked Schlinder if the SS could be bribed, he said "I have not found one who couldn't be bribed"

I had a burglary in 1998 and lost several guns and many of my furnishings. Luckily I had serial numbers and pictures of my guns, and so I got most of them back. You might report your stolen pistol to your county sheriff’s office. The point is to get your gun into the national database of stolen firearms. Police usually take stolen guns seriously.

They confiscated it because it was not registered and they "didn't like" the way the other guns were stored. The 1891 Mauser hunting rifler was hanging on the wall under my dads US flag from his funeral unloaded and not touched since we moved in almost 18 years ago. My mom had his off duty snub nose .38 in her closet with 15 rounds of ammo, my wife's .45 was in its case in the night stand unloaded but with its magazine loaded in the same case. We were told because they weren't "properly secured" they were taking them until such time they could be "properly secured". I asked them who defines properly secured and in what way, their response was that I should know and they would not give me a direct answer.

As for the ATF the detective works on the ATF's Balto Co. gun task force. The county police where I live know all about it too but none of these agencies seem to give a crap.

Perhaps time to get involved with your Federal Congressman or Senator.

Do you know of anyone that has worked on a campaign, or that has given significant dollars to one of them?

The agencies dislike inquiries from Congress even more...

Marc

Why can the local law enforcement come into your home and confiscate your personal property? Why are they even in your home? Hearing stuff like this just makes me sick. jim

Unless theyy have a warrant tell them to take a hike.

They came to my place because I went to the state police and asked who to register the Luger, I was told because I received it so long ago, prior to the laws that requires regulated firearms to be registered in MD were written, that I did not need to worry about it. However when I took it to the range and filled out the range form that I had a 9mm it raised a red flag because I did not have one registered to me. They came to my house and asked about it and I told them the MSP had told me and the detective said OK and left. He then went back and filed for a search warrant to search for more unregistered guns at my residence. In MD guns MUST be registered if you aquired them after 1994 (I think it was 94) or you are breaking the law. So they raided my house, 20 of em, some dressed in full on swat team gear complete with MP5's and face masks all for a old German Luger that my grand dad had passed down to my dad who gave it to me.

I currently live in Maryland and this state is about as unfriendly towards guns as it gets. The elected officials in this state have said many times they want to totally disarm everyone in the state. The 2nd Amendment has been brought up many times and they do not care. We are also currently looking for a new home out of this state.

Come on down to Virginia. We are pretty gun friendly at this point in time.

You, my friend, are the victim of crooked cops. As Ron said, your pistol was stolen...it's that simple.

That TOTALLY sucks...

Make sure to file a stolen firearm report, detailing all the circumstances.

If they don't find it by the time they have to return them all I am telling them that I am going straight to the state police to report it stolen and I am taking the receipt given to me by the police who raided my house and I will be naming the lead detective as the #1 suspect followed by all the other officers that were there.

Believe me guys this ain't over, no fat lady has sung and I am one STUBBORN son of a bitch when someone screws me over!

Keep on it like a dog with a bone bro.

I might suggest that you make a few copies of that receipt and keep the ORIGINAL one safely locked up in a safe. There is only one, and without it, it is your word against theirs. Better safe than sorry.....Just a thought.

Rhuff makes an excellent point.

Years ago when my wife was pregnant with our second child the public school system which she worked for tried to tell her she can’t work because she couldn’t do her job 100% due to a doctor ordered lifting restriction. I told them that is discrimination and they said it was school policy. I asked them to show me where this policy was written and they told me it wasn’t actually a written policy; I responded by telling them that their policy was then not worth the paper it’s written on and that if they continued to try to enforce it I would seek litigation against them.

Shortly after they said she could return to work but only if we produced a note from my wife’s doctor stating her restrictions and turn it in by a specific date. On that date I hand delivered the doctors note and the person said they would see that the appropriate person would get it. Before she could walk away I asked her to stamp it “Received” and make me a copy; to which I got quite the stink eye, but I wasn’t going to take the chance of them saying they never received it.

Sorry for the long story, but just trying to point out the unfortunate necessity to cross your T’s and dot your I’s; always better to be safe, cover your butt and leave nothing to chance.

My lawyer has the original and he seems to be enjoying making the police squirm so I know its safe. But good call. :D

Lawyers can lose stuff also.

Imagine if it showed up for sale on this site...

Here's another example of wishy-washy police behavior.

Years ago, my son's BMX bike was stolen from the carrier on his mom's car, while she was shopping inside a place. As these things tend to happen, a kid who went to the same middle school rode it one day and parked it in the bike rack. OK, now the bike is found..but it's "evidence", right? This means it has to be picked up by a Sheriff's deputy (the city school is actually outside the city limits), transferred to the city police, where we were told it could be picked up later. We watched the deputy put the bike, intact, into his trunk.

When we went to retrieve it, we were taken to a back hall of the station where the bike was leaned up against the wall; but the saddle was missing. We all looked for the seat in a mountain of bikes in a storage garage across the street, to no avail. The sergeant, however, stood right there and watched as I proceeded to act upon my statement, "There's a seat on this bike that looks about like it.", by twisting the bike's seat off the post before returning to the station to load up our bike.

Nowhere near the magnitude of your experience, Terry, but still indicative that LEOs anywhere can have jerks/thieves among their ranks. Either a sheriff's deputy or city officer had purloined the original seat, and another city cop, a sergeant, was complicit in our rough justice. TWO bad showings for the price of one... I actually still feel kinda bad about snitching the other seat, don't think I'd repeat it

I didn’t go into detail about my burglary, but shortly thereafter I figured out who had cleaned out my house, and what he had done with my furnishings, including guns. I located some of my belongings in a local antique mall and lucked into more information as to who had my guns. The various police forces fought me (and ignored me) the whole way. In spite of the police, I did get most of my guns back as well as a few other items. Some of my recovered property was taken into an evidence room where it later disappeared. I later found that much of my property went to the Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market. The thief moved to Great Falls, Montana and as far as I know he still lives there.

Well we went to court again Friday and the judge said because the Luger hadn't been registered there is no proof it is my gun therefor they DON'T HAVE TO GIVE IT BACK! Better yet he said since my dads old .38 and 1891 Mauser also aren't registered they don't have to give them back either that the only gun we can have back is my wifes new 1911 as it is legally registered to her.

My lawyer said its not over yet as he'll be filing papers today with the state again. I told him why the other judge ordered it returned butt his one said tough crap and he said thats just the MD legal system. This is CRAZY! At least my wife gets her .45 back. As for my dads .38 and 30.06 they will be able to be gotten back because all we have to do is bring in his death certificate and will because they are still registered to him and his will gives them to my mom who lives with us. So at this point only the Luger is in question but it seems they "found" it at least. Seems it was "just logged in incorrectly". I HATE this state this has been absolutly crazy.

I suspect that it wasn't logged incorrectly. You have just made enough stink about it, they made the thieving cop bring it back.

Yeah thats kinda what I was thinking too.

Good news at least it looks like you are moving forward.