INDIANAPOLIS — While investigating a robbery, armed carjacking and an officer-involved shooting – all within the last week and a half – IMPD found three guns with Glock switches.
“It’s a device that’s put on a semi-automatic gun that turns it into an automatic gun or a machine gun,” said Lt. Shane Foley, an IMPD Public Information Officer.
Investigators found a gun equipped with a Glock switch and extended mag next to 22-year-old Christian Myers, who fired at police and was then shot near 38th St and Fall Creek Parkway on Jan. 29th.
A gun with a Glock switch was also found after an investigation into an armed carjacking on the 2400 block of Lafayette Road on Jan. 28. 19-year-old Wardell Wright was arrested the next day for the crime and the weapon with the Glock switch was found near where the man was arrested.
Most recently, 28-year-old Donnie Fisher was arrested on Feb. 2. That investigation turned up four guns, a Glock switch, narcotics and stolen property from a robbery on Feb. 1.
“It makes it more dangerous for our community because so many more rounds can be fired in a shorter period of time and they are harder to control,” said Foley.
Foley said they’re seeing more Glock switches and other machine gun conversion devices out on the streets.
“A lot of them are made overseas and then shipped here and they can also be 3-D printed,” Foley said.
In a report released this month, the ATF said it collected five times as many machine gun conversion parts between 2017 and 2021 than it did between 2012 and 2016.
Between 2012 and 2016, the ATF confiscated 814 machine gun conversion parts. The period between 2017 to 2021 saw a 570% increase. Between those years there were 5,454 machine gun conversion parts confiscated.
“These things are continuing to multiply and become more prevalent,” said John Nokes, the Asst. Special Agent in Charge of the ATF Columbus Field Division.
Nokes said the switches can be installed in about a minute and are very accessible to the people looking for them.
“Depending on the source and the quality, we’re seeing them as cheap as $20 and as expensive as $200,” Nokes said.
Criminals are able to order these online. The ATF works to stop shipments of switches at the U.S. border.
“I did a google search last week and they popped up,” Nokes said. “So, we’re trying to go after these websites that are selling these. They know they are illegal.”
Nokes said many of these websites are run in foreign countries. He said they’re working to do everything they can to proactively keep these off the streets and then prosecute the people who do have them.
