Previous reports mentioned the gun store the weapon was purchased from alluding to a straw purchase, which was not true.
Via WISTV:
A gun that was stolen from the City of Marion in October of 2011 is the same gun that was used in the murder of a New York Police Department officer killed on October 20 of this year.
Randolph Holder, a five-year veteran of the NYPD, was killed on Oct. 20 after being shot in the head in Manhattan’s East Harlem neighborhood. He and his partner had been chasing a man after responding to a call of shots fired and a bicycle stolen at gunpoint. Authorities allege the suspect hopped off the stolen bicycle and shot Holder in the head.
According to Marion County Police Chief Dewayne Tennie, the gun used to shoot and kill Officer Holder is the same gun stolen from a vehicle’s glove box on South Pine Street in Marion in 2011. The police report lists Roderick Hughes as the victim of the theft.
South Carolina Highway Patrol Lt. R. Kelley Hughes said Roderick Hughes was a trooper for Troop 5 from 2003 to 2009.
In December 2007, Highway Patrol started a weapons transition from the .40-caliber glock. For those transitions, Highway Patrol will sell the old weapons to the same store the new weapons are being purchased from, which in this case was Lawmen’s Safety Supply in Columbia.
Troopers are given the option of buying their weapon back from the store before they’re put up for sale to the public.
Hughes chose to do that in 2008 and the gun became his own private weapon. He left South Carolina Highway Patrol the following year.
It was two years after that when he reported the gun stolen from his personal car at his house on South Pine Street.
The Marion Police Department hadn’t heard anything on the whereabouts of the gun until recently.
“The case went cold until last week we got a call from the New York Police Department stating a gun was involved in an officer shooting and unfortunately the gun was taken from South Carolina and ended up in the wrong hands in New York,” Chief Tennie said.