COLUMBUS, Ohio — A shipment meant to be delivered to the Columbus Division of Police was stolen from a warehouse on the west side of the city. Now, police are concerned because the contents of the shipment included more than 160,000 rounds of rifle ammo.
Pallets containing Winchester 5.56 ammo, along with a delivery truck, were stolen on April 1 from the Westbelt neighborhood of Columbus.
Columbus police say that 32-year-old James Scaff and 36-year-old Christopher Kimmel are accused of getting into two different warehouses and stealing ammo along with the appliances, trucks and generators.
Police recovered the two stolen trucks, but did not locate the $64,000 worth of ammunition.
CrimeTracker 10 asked if any Columbus police officers may be involved.
“Absolutely not, there's no way. We don't know based on where we purchase the ammunition from, we purchase it from the company who then uses a distributor and a shipping company,” answered Columbus Division of Police Deputy Chief Smith Weir. “We have no idea who that shipping company is.”
Now, police are looking to make more arrests and working to get that ammo that is now on the streets recovered.
“Anytime there's extra ammunition on the street it is concerning,” Weir said.
Columbus police are asking for help from the public.
“If people out there have seen it in the past couple of weeks, if they have bought ammo from somebody maybe not at a store, if they have bought it from someone at an after-market area whether they got a phone call or social media post in one of the market places or anything like that, we are asking them to call us,” Weir said.
The ATF and U.S. Attorney's Office are assisting in the investigation.