Planning and Natural Resources Enforcement Officer Roberto Tapia, busted recently with what investigators say was seven kilograms of cocaine, testified to the Legislature in March that he regularly confiscated boaters’ firearms. But DPNR has no records at all of any firearms confiscated by Tapia and the weapons the department had in its storage apparently predate Tapia, Commissioner Alicia Barnes told the Source on Wednesday.%201.jpg "Firearms that former DPNR enforcement officer Roberto Tapia said were confiscated from boaters in the Virgin Islands and held by the department (photo courtesy of DPNR).")
During a March committee hearing, Barnes said DPNR regularly confiscates firearms from boaters who arrive in the territory with registered, legal firearms, but who had failed to register them with U.S. Customs and local police as required. Gun owners have 24 hours to present proper registration and licensing documents and, while most of the guns are registered, many owners just abandon the guns, Barnes said.
"Generally about 85 percent of the boaters leave the territory without retrieving those weapons," Barnes said. "We maintain them and eventually turn them over to the V.I. Police Department or maintain them … in our cache of weapons," Barnes said when asked what happened to the weapons.
At that same March meeting, Sen. Kenneth Gittens asked about the chain of custody and record keeping for the weapons.
"Yes we have a chain of custody. … The person signs a receipt and we will take that to our office and file it," Tapia testified in March.
Sen. Nereida "Nellie" Rivera-O’Reilly asked acting Police Commissioner Rodney Querrard if it "concerns" him that "DPNR is confiscating weapons and holding onto them."
"Yes it does," Querrard said. "We need to be able to run serial numbers. There is a process we have to go through. And just knowing about that now, I will be following up with them. Because we should be in the loop," he said.
.jpg "Firearms that former DPNR enforcement officer Roberto Tapia said were confiscated from boaters in the Virgin Islands and held by the department (photo courtesy of DPNR).")
Later in March, St. Thomas Firearms Unit Supervisor Cpl. Bernard Burke and St. Croix Firearms Unit Supervisor Officer Karen Stout both confirmed to the Source that they had never seen any weapons whatsoever turned over to them by DPNR.
Burke said he himself regularly boards boats to verify a weapon carried by a transient vessel is registered and stored properly. Boaters have a duty to report any weapons to Customs when they enter the territory, he said. If it is properly secured and the person is just passing through, they are allowed to keep the weapon, but only on the boat. If it is not properly secured, or if the person is not simply passing through, they must turn it over to police until they leave the territory or until it is registered, Burke said.
"I had about three guns in 2012," Burke said in March. "In one case he actually had it registered and it sat (with police) until his paperwork came back and we returned it to him," Burke said.
The Source contacted DPNR requesting information on how many firearms it had confiscated, how many it still had in custody and how the weapons were accounted for.
DPNR spokesman Jamal Nielsen arranged a telephone interview with Tapia, who re-iterated that he regularly confiscated firearms from boaters.
"Every year we have taken off boats about 15 to 25 weapons, but those are the legal people and they come back in 10-20 days they are here and retrieve their weapons," Tapia said.
A much smaller number are confiscated permanently, he said, seeming to contradict Barnes’ testimony to the Legislature that 85 percent of the weapons are left behind.
"Last November, the last time we picked up weapons in the St. Thomas harbor, we retrieved an AK-47 and an UZI and both weapons had silencers," Tapia said. "In December we retrieved a shotgun from a vessel in Red Hook. In June, July and August, we retrieved two 22-caliber rifles from a vessel in Coral Bay and that is it for the year," he said. "I have a total of maybe 32 weapons altogether," he said, offering to send a photograph. Nielsen subsequently emailed a photograph of 14 weapons, provided by Tapia.
Bolstering the evidence that regular searches and seizures occurred, boat owners have complained that Tapia and officers under his command regularly boarded boats, behaved abusively and searched cabinets below decks. Ultimately one officer was reprimanded for improperly using his firearm and the V.I. Department of Justice issued a heavily censored report on the incident, citing an ongoing investigation to justify giving out little information. (See Partial Report Finally Public in Coral Bay Enforcement Action in Related Links below)
Two other boaters told the Source off the record that they feared reprisals from Tapia if they said anything about him publicly.
Asked how the weapons were secured and how he could be certain all were accounted for, Tapia said they were kept in a secure room.
"There is only one key and that should say everything. There is one key, one door, no windows and that is it," Tapia said.
Tapia’s assertion that the weapons were secured by the fact that there was only one key, presumably in his possession, and his vagueness about the method of record keeping raised concerns about whether the system was truly secure.
When asked to let a reporter see the records and match them up with the serial numbers on the firearms themselves, Nielsen initially said he would make arrangements with staff to show the records. On a second request, Nielsen said the Source would have to submit a formal, written request that cited the V.I. Open Records Act. The Source made that request April 26.
DPNR officials made an appointment to look over the records with the Source at DPNR’s St. Thomas offices Wednesday.
A Source reporter, Barnes, Nielsen and St. Croix-based senior enforcement officer Howard Forbes Sr. all took flights from St. Croix to St. Thomas for the meeting, at which it was revealed DPNR had no records at all of the firearms and that the V.I. Police Department had asked DPNR not to allow access to the serial numbers.
None of the requested records were provided. The only record provided of any kind was a simple list of the 16 weapons and partial weapons DPNR turned over to VIPD, and a similar list from the VIPD, with serial numbers blacked out.
At the meeting, Barnes said she discovered that DPNR had weapons in storage during the March Senate committee hearing, and had turned them all over to the V.I. Police Department.
Joining the meeting by telephone, Querrard confirmed Barnes’ account, and said 16 weapons and partial weapons were turned over from DPNR. Querrard also confirmed he would not release their serial numbers, saying that to do so could jeopardize ongoing investigations.
Barnes said DPNR was working with the VIPD to "develop a standard operating procedure with legal counsel," which Querrard also confirmed.
Asked about DPNR’s records of the firearms it has confiscated, Barnes said, "We were told by Mr. Tapia most of the weapons were confiscated prior to his tenure."
"They should have had receipts and forms," Barnes said. "We requested the paperwork for all of them," but Tapia has not provided any and they have no other records, she said.
Taken together, the events and information unveiled so far indicate that, at best, there were inadequate controls and records of firearms confiscated by Tapia on behalf of DPNR and, at worst, an unknown number of weapons may have been confiscated from boaters by a corrupt V.I. law enforcement officer and subsequently vanished.
