Trenton's two-day gun buyback program netted over 2,400 weapons by 7 p.m. Saturday and ran out of cash.
TRENTON — Prosecutor’s Det. Brian Kiely lets what looks to be an ordinary policeman’s nightstick dangle back and forth from a leather strap in his hand.
Then he clasps it in his palm, screws off the top and points to where you insert a 12-gauge shotgun shell. He flips it over, shows the head where the gun fires and, from the wooden stick’s smooth side, he plucks out a trigger.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” he said. “That’s a conversation piece.”
The nightstick-turned-shotgun was just one of the more than 2,500 guns turned in during Trenton’s two-day, state-sponsored gun buyback program.
The total number of guns bagged by the program will be officially announced at a press conference Tuesday, but Mercer County Prosecutor Joseph Bocchini Jr., said the number of guns they collected Friday and Saturday was a pleasant shock. So much so that they ran out of cash.
He said by the end of Friday they had collected just shy of 1,350 weapons. That was more than the two-day total of Camden’s buyback earlier this year.
“We really didn’t know what to expect. With Camden, they had close to 1,200. I thought if we reached that number and a few hundred more we’d be doing well,” Bocchini said. “I was very surprised yesterday when the final tally came in. Where it goes from here, I don’t know. We’re not turning anyone away.”
On Friday, Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa said he was more than willing to authorize money beyond the $100,000 in forfeiture funds his office initially planned on using.
As it turns out, that wasn’t enough.
By noon Saturday, about $245,000 in state and county funds were dried up and officials resorted to handing out vouchers redeemable for the same amount of cash this Friday.
Standing among a steady stream of people placing their firearms on fold-up tables, Bocchini said Saturday morning that people were outside waiting at 8 a.m. for officers to unlock the doors of the two Trenton churches where the buyback was held.
Throughout the two-day buyback, all sorts of firearms were handed over. Bocchini and Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office Captain Veldon Harris said that of the guns turned in, probably 20 to 25 percent would have been considered illegal.
Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor Lou Korngut counts out cash for a participant during day two of the gun buyback program at the Pentecostal Assembly of God in Trenton on Saturday, January 26, 2013. Andrew Miller/For The Times of Trenton
The buyback was no questions asked, with no ID or firearms paperwork needed. Before the cash ran out, participants got $25 for BB guns, $50 for inoperable guns, $150 for a revolver, rifle, semiautomatic handgun or shotgun. The most available was $250, which was reserved for military-like weapons and illegal guns, according to signs at the churches that said prices were non-negotiable.
At the Mount Zion AME on Pennington Avenue and Pentecostal Church on North Clinton Avenue, yellow bins lined up against the walls were stuffed with rifles, handguns, assault rifles and shotguns.
And behind the partitioned off portion of Pentecostal church’s basement was the nastier stuff.
The nightstick shotgun. A pair of TEC-9 semi-automatic handguns. A few sawed-off shotguns.
And stuffed in a bin was what Angelo Onofri, first assistant prosecutor in Mercer County, called a “street sweeper” — a 12-gauge shotgun with a tommy gun-like drum cartridge that holds up to 12 rounds.
“We are really surprised by the response and the turnout, and incredibly excited we can get this stuff off of the street,”he said.
At the Mount Zion Church, Ralph Nalepka of Millstone was standing in line with a small box filled with six guns, mostly .22-caliber pistols, he said.
“I’ve had these forever. I’m getting older and I wanted to dispose of them. You can sell these online, but you never who’s going to buy them, and we have enough problems now as firearms owners,” he said. “I’ll tell you, this is a good thing, this buyout. If you get 1,000 guns off the street, you’re probably going to save a life.”