Opinion ID: 2377250
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Proper Police Officer

Text: The first sentence of § 6-2375(a) describes generally the act of voluntary and peaceful delivery of the firearm which would result in immunity from prosecution. The second sentence describes places where delivery may be made. The statute provides for immunity from prosecution following the surrender/abandon of weapons to  a police officer  in a wide variety of situations; at any police district, station, or headquarters, or even at a person's home or business. D.C.Code § 6-2375(a) does not identify a specific type of police officer to whom the weapons must be delivered, and there is no indication in the Firearms Protection Act that the statutory term police officer is somehow confined to members of the Metropolitan Police Department. D.C.Code § 6-2375(a) also provides for surrender of firearms to the Chief. According to § 6-2302(4), the Chief means the Chief of Police of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia or his designated agent. Just who qualifies as a designated agent of the Chief, however, is unclear. Nowhere does the statute indicate that only Metropolitan police department members could be designated agents of the Chief. The Capitol Police have been authorized by local statute to make arrests for the very firearms offenses at issue herein, see D.C.Code § 9-115.1, and have been designated as exclusive law-and-order custodians of Capitol buildings like the Russell Senate Officer Building. See D.C.Code § 9-115; 40 U.S.C. § 112a. It is certainly arguable that a police officer who has been officially designated as an agent of the state for purposes of making arrests under the firearms law in these limited circumstances should have his agency status carried over into effecting compliance with other interrelated provisions of those very same firearms laws in the same limited circumstances. It is eminently reasonable, in any case, that a citizen would believe that such a police officer had the authority to accept surrendered weapons pursuant to the statute. [2]