BAKER COUNTY, Fla. – A total of 11 guns -- seven pistols, three shotguns and an assault rifle -- are missing from Baker County Sheriff's Office building, Sheriff Scotty Rhoden said Thursday.
The discovery was made by the new sheriff, who's pointing the finger at former Sheriff Joey Dobson for losing nearly a dozen weapons, saying shoddy record keeping is to blame.
Dobson has fought back, saying plenty of audits were conducted during his five terms and no discrepancies were ever found.
When Rhoden took office three months ago, he said, his first focus was to check for any liabilities.
Less than a week in office, Rhoden said that he noticed a problem -- guns were missing from the evidence vault.
"We're hoping that they are not in the wrong hands. I don't believe they are," Rhoden told News4Jax on Thursday.
According to Rhoden's administration, the former administration's records were incomplete with no sense of organization. Rhoden also said several staff members had keys, but there was no verification process in place to ensure inventory control.
A weapons inventory report found that seven Glocks, three round burst rifles and a shotgun were missing. The report also said 19 undocumented weapons were discovered without any case number -- meaning they have been issued to deputy sheriffs as service weapons, but may not even belong to the Sheriff's Office.
Rhoden then asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to perform its own review, which found minor issues, such as firearms not having casing numbers and firearms and ammunition being stored together.
But that's not all.
"They found some cocaine that was in there that was not labeled or had a case number. We're not sure where that came from, but we tried to track it down and do the proper procedure there, but we couldn't find it and then we had that destroyed," Rhoden said.
But Dobson denies the claim, even citing that the policies governing how evidence was submitted and stored met the State’s Accreditation Standards.
Dobson issued a statement, saying in part, "The unlabeled drugs were acquired through JSO to be used in training canines and were stored in the evidence room. It is my understanding the drugs have been destroyed, as they were no longer needed for that purpose."
He goes on to say that the evidence room was limited to two people and said during his audits, no discrepancies were found.
At this time, the location of the missing guns is unknown, Rhoden said.
"We did enter them into the computer as lost, not stolen. The previous administration, they did give weapons away as a retirement gifts," Rhoden said. "We have exhausted everything we know to do to trying to find these weapons."
Dobson confirmed those actions, saying in the statement, "While Sheriff, I made it a practice, allowed by law, to give as a gift, to officially retiring law enforcement deputies, their agency assigned firearm. It is possible that these retiree guns were either not properly documented or removed from the official inventory, as they were never turned back in."
The Sheriff's Office has since created a weapons inventory, which shows who is assigned and responsible for every weapon. The property supervisor will now conduct audits annually and at random.