Community urged to help get illegal guns off streets

Jen Lawson

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 | 9:05 a.m.

In an effort to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, local law enforcement agencies are urging citizens to call a hotline if they know of anyone who is in illegal possession of firearms.

Standing in a gravel lot at the corner of Carey Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard, an area that was gripped by a gang war that left at least 16 dead in 2001, Lt. Robert DuVall of Metro Police's firearms section said getting guns off the streets would greatly reduce the number of people who are victimized by gun violence.

"We are not after legal guns," DuVall said. "We're after guns possessed and used by criminals."

The hotline number is 385-GUNS. Callers can be anonymous.

The hotline isn't new -- it's been open for about a year and a half -- but police are hoping to make more citizens aware of it. With summer approaching, police said they expect to see an upswing in violent crime.

Using a $170,000 grant from Project Safe Neighborhoods, a federal initiative to put criminals in prison for illegal use or possession of guns, Metro is rolling out a campaign to inform the public of the hotline and warn of gun violence.

Four billboards will be going up at Paradise Road and Harmon Avenue, Desert Inn Road and Washington Avenue, Smoke Ranch Road and Rainbow Boulevard and Las Vegas Boulevard and Charleston Boulevard.

The posters will also be in 20 bus stop shelters, and 800 will be posted in places such as malls, community centers and police substations in Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson.

A gun violence task force with officers from Metro, Henderson and North Las Vegas police, the Clark County district attorney's office, the U.S. attorney's office and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was formed in October 2001. Its purpose is to catch and prosecute people who are in illegal possession of guns.

Since then 1,016 people have been prosecuted for gun-related offenses, DuVall said. The most common charge: being an ex-felon in possession of a firearm, an offense carrying a penalty of one to six years in prison.

About 75 percent of those who were charged with firearms offenses in 2003 have gone to prison, Chief Deputy District Attorney Victoria Villegas said.

Part of the effort of the task force was the hotline, which resulted in information that came "in peaks and valleys," DuVall said. He is hoping the reminder will yield more calls.

Last year guns were used in 60 percent of the homicides investigated by Metro.

Nineteen-year-old Aaron Church was one of the victims. He was shot in the head at close range last September and left to die on Hinkle Street near Dinning Avenue, near Torrey Pines Drive and U.S. 95.

His father, Boyd Church, said Aaron pretended to be a successful businessman, wearing gold chains and romancing women. He thinks whoever shot him found out the truth too late and killed him because of it.

The murder remains unsolved.

"I believe in my heart someone out there knows something," Church said, holding up a framed photograph of his son.

It's not clear if Aaron Church was killed by an illegal gun, but that doesn't matter to his father. Boyd Church would just like to see the person who shot Aaron arrested.

Aaron Church had been visiting friends nearby and was seen driving away with a man in his car. Moments later he was found shot in the head four times. Police said he had no criminal record and wasn't known to associate with gangs.

Boyd Church said losing his son has been "devastating."

"I'd hate for anyone else to go through what we've gone through," he said.