Ill-Reputed Store Sold Gun Used To Kill Officer
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
A pistol used to kill a New York City police officer was originally sold by a Virginia gun shop notorious for putting weapons into the hands of criminals.
Investigators don’t know when or how the .45-caliber semiautomatic was acquired by the man charged with using it to ambush Officer Russel Timoshenko during a July 9 traffic stop in Brooklyn. The gun’s initial owner, who bought it legally in 1999, died several years ago. Authorities are trying to determine what happened to the pistol next.
But records showed that the handgun’s source was R & B Guns, a store in Hampton, Va., that was criticized by gun-control advocates for what they claimed were careless sales practices.
R & B Guns was shuttered for good in 2001, a year after owner Richard Norad was arrested by Virginia state police for violating firearms laws.
