Police Commissioner Ray Kelly addresses a press conference where he joined Mayor Bloomberg, Special Narcotics Prosecutor Brennan, District Attorneys Vance and Hynes and Criminal Justice Coordinator Feinblatt in announcing the largest seizure of guns in the history of New York. Photo Courtesy Spencer T. Tucker
Mike Bloomberg and Ray Kelly may be approaching the end of their realm but they won’t be leaving without a big bang. The gun crusading duo saw the largest gun bust in the history of the city happen under their watch this week after investigators closed in and seized 254 illegal guns and made 19 arrests.
Bloomberg and Kelly have led a long charge against the “iron pipeline”, the name assigned to a smugglers route between southern states with looser gun laws and the east coast where guns often bring triple the price on the street that they are sold for at retail.
At a press conference on Monday afternoon, New York City Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan told reporters the bust involved two different rings that picked up the guns through illegal purchases or by stealing them in North and South Carolina and then shipped them up north where they could command top dollar. “The marketing strategy was very simple. Buy low, sell high, keep a low profile,” said Brennan.
The two lead suspects were identified as Earl Campbell, 24, of Rock Hill, South Carolina and Walter Walker, 29, of Sanford, North Carolina. Although each of the suspects ran a separate operation, they shared a common middleman who was running a recording/rehearsal studio in Brooklyn.
And further to the credit of the investigation is the testimony offered by one of the defendants about the effectiveness of stop-and-frisk taken from wiretap testimony during a January cell phone call. Earl Campbell moved the sales base of his operation from Brooklyn to Manhattan because he was afraid of being stopped in Brooklyn as part of the stop and frisk initiative. Commissoner Kelly quoted the ring leader, “I can’t take them (guns) to my house … ’cause I’m in Brownsville. We got, like, whatchamacallit—stop-and-frisk.”
Authorities say that the guns got to New York in shipments over a period from September 2012 through July 2013, just last month. The defendants allegedly hid the firearms in luggage that was carried on to low fare buses that travel to Chinatown and the surrounding area. It appears guns were sold within hours of their arrival. Included in the arsenal were assault weapons, a fully automatic machine gun and other weapons used in violent crime.
Walker and Campbell met with an undercover cop on nearly 50 occasions and collected over $150,000 in sales.
Bloomberg said that 90% of guns used in crimes come from out of state. Two of the top providers of the guns in New York are North and South Carolina.
“It is impossible to know exactly how many victims might have suffered had officers not identified and investigated these gun traffickers,” said Kelly.
And echoing a similar sentiment was Bloomberg, “There is no doubt that the seizure of these guns has saved lives.”
The last time the NYPD had a large gun seizure was back in October of 2012 when a trafficking operation was uncovered in East Harlem. Over 100 weapons were turned up in that investigation.
By Patricia Adams
