Between 2020 and 2022, there were at least three separate incidents when a Milwaukee police officer’s firearm discharged without anyone pulling the trigger, resulting in serious injuries.
In 2022, Milwaukee’s police union sued the city over the safety concerns around the guns at fault, Sig Sauer P320s. The union withdrew the lawsuit after the police department announced that all the P320s would be replaced with Glock 45s, and the Milwaukee Common Council voted to approve the funding for the switch.
Rather than being destroyed, the Sig Sauer guns were sold back to the supplier, effectively putting them in the civilian marketplace.
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Ava Sasani, a reporter for the Gun Violence Data Hub at The Trace, told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that used firearms from police departments are popular among some buyers because they are likely to be well-maintained. But buyers might not be aware of the P320’s history of accidental discharges, which has led to dozens of lawsuits against Sig Sauer.
Sasani said Milwaukee is one of many police departments around the country that replaced their Sig Sauer P320s citing safety concerns. Over the course of two months, she and her team surveyed more than 60 police departments around the country to learn about their use of this weapon. She joined “Wisconsin Today” to talk about what her reporting uncovered.
The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Rob Ferrett: Milwaukee is not the only police department to encounter this. How widespread are these concerns?
Ava Sasani: It’s all over the country. Outside of law enforcement, we have over 100 allegations of people being injured by the P320. In October of last year, we had one person allegedly killed by a P320 firing accidentally. All over the country, this gun is incredibly popular with law enforcement. So. we’re seeing departments like Denver, Chicago, Oklahoma City, all reevaluating their relationship with the P320 in light of these new allegations.
RF: In your piece, you note that the manufacturer of these firearms denies that they’re defective. What have they said in public statements?
AS: Sig Sauer, which is the company behind the P320, based in New Hampshire, they have pretty consistently maintained that these reports are all actually user error. With any gun, there are risks. And the company has said that all of these incidents were a matter of negligence, and the gun itself is totally safe to use. They’ve been pretty limited in what they’ve said publicly, but they have not wavered from that statement.
RF: How common is it for police departments to replace this make and model of firearm?
AS: It’s tough to say exactly. We interviewed over 60 police departments over the course of two months, and we found about a dozen that decided to do this trade-in process that Milwaukee ultimately opted for. But we know there are police departments that we didn’t get to, smaller departments.
Within Wisconsin, there were at least two departments, likely more, based on my conversations with the state’s Fraternal Order of Police. But we know for sure that Milwaukee PD and Hobart/Lawrence decided to make the switch in light of these safety concerns.
RF: What happens to these firearms after a police department, like in Milwaukee, stops using them?
AS: So a very common practice that we’ve known law enforcement departments do for a while is they will pay for new guns by trading in the old ones. It’s similar to how when you have a used car, you can put the value of that old car toward a new purchase. Many, many police departments around the country, including Milwaukee, do this with their guns. So they’ll go back to the dealer and say, “Hey, what can you give us for these old guns that have been used for however-many years? And then we’ll use that money as a discount for the upgrade.”
In this case, I think what is particularly concerning about trading in P320s is the department themselves have decided that the gun is too risky after all these multiple accidents being reported for their own officers with a great deal of firearms training. So it’s a little bit concerning that, indirectly, they are putting these guns back on the civilian market. And as we said, Milwaukee is certainly not alone in that. There are departments all over the country that have done this practice. Of the 60-plus that we interviewed, only one — a small department out of Connecticut — decided that even though they normally trade in their old firearms, because of the concerns with the P320, it would not be ethical to do that with a potentially risky firearm.
RF: Did you get any sense that there’s movement among police departments or state regulators to take a closer look at what happens to these weapons — deemed too dangerous for police officers — to stop them from going to the public?
AS: Honestly, among the law enforcement departments that we interviewed, no. I think the impression is: “We as police officers are not responsible for deciding what guns can or can’t be sold. That is the responsibility of lawmakers,” which is technically true. But I think the trouble comes from when you have an industry that is not regulated in the same way that any other consumer good would be regulated. There gets [to be] this nebulous responsibility or hope that we have of the people that are sworn to protect us, that they would be conscious of what might happen to their old guns.
After we published the story, Milwaukee Alder Peter Burgelis did write to my editor saying that they are going to look into this practice. They’re going to try to understand exactly what happened to the P320s and look more broadly at the practice of reselling police guns. So there is a bit of movement there, I think. But within police departments and law enforcement agencies, no, honestly, I think there is still that understanding that that is outside of their purview.
