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Excerpt from - 'People will lose their lives' 13 Investigates explosion in illegal 'Glock switches'

By Ted Oberg and Sarah Rafique via KTRK logo
Monday, January 31, 2022

[...]

"Houston's not different, although it's magnified a little bit, but Chicago's having a big challenge. Washington, D.C. is having a big challenge, other places around the country are also having this challenge for the same reason," Milanowski said. "It's a mindset of the criminals, particularly gang members that want this latest, greatest device to show how much they can intimidate their neighborhood."

Two of the three officers injured in Thursday's shooting have already been released from the hospital. Caballero, the suspect, was shot in the neck during the incident. He has multiple prior charges in Harris County, including aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Finner emphasized that it is just a small number of Houstonians who are "committing havoc," but that city and county leaders need to come together and do whatever they can to address and lower violent crime.

"No more excuses," Finner said. "Everybody take an active role and get intentional in doing whatever you can do to fight gun violence in our city. Period. It's not really a difficult thing. Bad, dangerous people, there's a place for them and that's in jail."

'No legitimate purpose for these'

With more of these illegal devices on Houston streets, Griffith said officers never know what they might face when encountering criminals, who need to be held more accountable for their actions.

"You've got to look at every traffic stop now as you may be facing off with an automatic weapon," Griffith said. "We've recovered a lot of those here in Houston already and it's surprising how many we've found that already have these switches on."

Milanowski said since there are more Texas law enforcement agencies - like state troopers, county sheriff's and constable offices and local police departments - and fewer federal officers, it would be helpful for state and federal law to both consider just possessing the device to be illegal.

"There's no legitimate purpose for these. It's not like they're being diverted from legal sales to illegal sales," Milanowski said. "These are illegal to manufacture them, illegal to possess them, illegal to sell them."

He said through their investigations, they've targeted manufacturers, sellers and people who possess them for use.

Milanowski said many of the illegal devices are manufactured in foreign countries and shipped illegally to the U.S. under the guise of "toys" or "accessories."

[INSERT: Yes, but - "No longer are switches just being manufactured overseas and sold online. Many are now being made locally with inexpensive 3D printers in less than 20 minutes. The locally made switches are being sold on social media apps, including Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram."
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=170145943]

"We have sent cease and desist letters to several social media sites, but it seems like every time you shut one down, they don't have to go very far to find another one," Milanowski said. "These are for sale, we know, on the internet and we follow up on every single one we become aware of, hence the reason our investigations have tripled since 2020 to 2021."

As switches are being found more and more at crime scenes, there has been a push to educate law enforcement officers about what the metal pieces look like and how dangerous they can be when installed on a gun.

Thursday's shooting, which ended up injuring three officers, is not the first time a modified handgun has been used in a police shooting.

In September, Houston Police Department Senior Officer William "Bill" Jeffrey died and another officer was seriously injured by a suspect who had an illegally modified weapon with a Glock switch.

"These violent individuals, I'm damn tired of it and we need to stand up as a community and do whatever we've got to do. If that is to have more jail capacity, let's get it done. No more excuses," Finner said Thursday.

[[ The sentiment understood. Trouble is over the long run (see
bottom line of this excerpt) jail is not solving many problems, is it.]

Over the last few months, Milanowski said ATF has been conducting training with local law enforcement officers to educate them about switches. At just about every training, he said, there are officers who say something along the lines of "oh, we came across those and didn't know what they were."

He said, when the device is not attached to a gun, it's easy for officers to overlook, especially if they don't know to look for them.

"We continue to educate local law enforcement because the reality is they're the eyes and ears. They end up with traffic stops and looking in vehicles or search warrants or narcotics warrants and if they know what they're coming across, if they know what they are, those can be seized and taken off the streets," Milanowski said.

Last year, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said "deputies responded to a residential neighborhood where they found a vehicle that was riddled with bullet holes."

Talking about that incident during a press conference in October, Gonzales said that someone who was picking up pizza was shot to death when he returned to his driveway in a scene. He said neighbors described it sounding like a machine gun and they discovered 30 rounds that were fired from a gun equipped with a switch.

He said deputies also found a switch after stopping a felon for reckless driving in March.

'We will get through these times'

Milanowski said glock switches have been around for years. He's not sure why they're seeing an uptick in cases, but said they've been confiscated from people who shouldn't have guns at all, like convicted felons.

"A lot of criminals' mindset is they want the latest, greatest, coolest, dangerous thing. It emboldens them to think that they're stronger," Milanowski said. "If they're doing a drive-by at a house or a car, they can put 30 rounds into that car in 2.5 seconds (but) they can't pull a trigger quick enough as they're driving-by to do that, so that (using the glock switch is) intimidating."

The officers in Thursday's incident were shot in the foot, leg and arm and are expected to recover. Caballero carjacked a woman and fled the scene of the shooting to a home in the 1800 block of Lockwood, where he barricaded himself for hours until finally surrendering with his hands up at 7:45 p.m.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said there are too many guns on the streets.

https://abc13.com/glock-switches-are-illegal-downtown-houston-officers-shot-hpd-shooting/11518379/