A Lot Of Guns Still Got Away
Convictions Fail To Satisfy ATF And D.C. Police

By Clarence Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 22, 2008

The crime took place about two hours from Washington, on the outskirts of Richmond: Two masked burglars smashed into a sporting-goods store and walked away with 34 semiautomatic handguns.

The two novice criminals, college-educated men who had been friends since their high school years in Greenbelt, pulled off the heist in June with plans to sell the guns for quick cash in and around the District. Federal agents and D.C. police arrested them about a week after the theft, but not fast enough to keep the guns off the market.

The men, Leon Waddy and Michael Henderson, both 22, have pleaded guilty to federal charges and were sentenced this month. The case was a law enforcement success in the courts but not necessarily on the street.

Only six guns were recovered. The others were sold, many to drug dealers, authorities said.

"That is a lot of guns out there. They're going to wreak havoc," said Sgt. Curt Sloan of the D.C. police gun recovery unit. "They mean death."

Tracking illegal guns is a pillar of Chief Cathy L. Lanier's strategy to combat violent crime. She revived the citywide gun recovery unit in October 2007, hoping that it would get hundreds of guns off the streets, curb violent crime and lead to more prosecutions. Since then, more than two dozen specially assigned officers have seized more than 500 guns in raids, traffic stops and other enforcement actions.

D.C. police often work with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and their joint efforts led to the convictions of Waddy and Henderson. A Washington Post reporter was following the D.C. police gun squad the morning that it raided Waddy's apartment in Southeast Washington. Authorities had hopes of recovering the guns stolen from the shop and of building a bigger case against gun trafficking in the city.

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Waddy and Henderson grew close during their days at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, court papers say. They remained close after they went to college.

Waddy, a math and education major at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina, was to graduate in June 2009. In a court filing, his attorney said the plan to rob the store was hatched by Henderson, who had just graduated from Virginia Union University in Richmond.

The two men, who had no criminal records, broke into Green Top Sporting Goods in Glen Allen, Va., about 13 miles northwest of Richmond, at 12:25 a.m. June 13. The theft was captured by a security camera. It took just a minute and 24 seconds.

According to court papers, Waddy swung a baseball bat to break through glass in the front door. Henderson used bolt cutters to cut the lock on the security gate inside the door. Then, court papers say, the two used hammers to break into two display cases. They loaded the guns into two duffel bags and escaped, the papers say.

Within hours, Henderson was back in his home town of Bowie, where he sold a .40-caliber pistol for $550 to a person acting as an informant for the ATF, authorities said. Agents traced the gun three days later and tied it to the theft at the gun store. Then, on June 20, at the ATF's behest, the same informant paid $1,000 for a .50-caliber pistol in a follow-up deal at Mitchellville Plaza in Bowie, and Henderson was arrested.

Agents found a pistol in Henderson's waistband and another gun in a backpack in the back seat of his Chrysler New Yorker; both guns were traced to the store, authorities said in court filings.

Once caught, Henderson identified Waddy as his accomplice, prosecutors said. He told investigators that the two divvied up the guns inside Waddy's apartment in the 200 block of Orange Street SE.

The raid came next.

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Henderson's statement set off a fast chain of events June 20, as investigators hoped to catch Waddy before he could leave town or sell more guns. The ATF called the gun recovery unit and asked police to obtain a search warrant for Waddy's residence and help carry out the raid.

Each minute counted.

Late on June 20, D.C. police Detective Wayne Gerrish drove, lights flashing and siren wailing, to the home of D.C. Superior Court Judge A. Franklin Burgess Jr., who signed the search warrant.

Back at his office, Sloan put on his police-issued 9mm pistol and worried about the guns the authorities might find -- high-powered .40-caliber and .50-caliber Desert Eagles, able to shoot through police vests. At 5 a.m., he joined about two dozen officers and agents, bleary-eyed and wearing bullet-resistant vests, in a briefing room as they took assignments for attacking the apartment.

Federal agents outlined what they were seeking: guns, burglary tools and clothes that might have been stained with blood when Waddy cut his finger on glass at the store.

The team set off and was in place on Orange Street at 6 a.m. Sloan's voice cracked the early morning silence: "Police! We have a search warrant! Open the door, now!"

Police used a metal battering ram, inscribed "Knock Knock," to break through the door.

Police found a stammering woman inside but no sign of Waddy. They recovered two semiautomatic pistols -- a .45-caliber Smith & Wesson and a Sig Sauer P-32, both with price tags -- a bloodstained pair of camouflage pants, a black hooded sweat shirt and a pair of boots authorities think were worn during the burglary.

"Oh, that's sweet," Gerrish declared after finding one of the guns in a dresser drawer. "Life is good."

The second gun was found in a box along with Polo-brand boat shoes.

Waddy's relatives confirmed that he had been to Howard University Hospital to have his finger stitched.

About two hours after the raid began, Waddy's mother called and persuaded him to turn himself in, which he did. Authorities interviewed Waddy, and he said he had sold guns on the street to people "he thought to be drug dealers" for about $2,400 but kept the two weapons found in his apartment for himself, according to officials and his plea agreement.

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Although the two men pleaded guilty, neither led police to people who had the guns. Of the guns stolen, authorities have recovered the two sold by Henderson to the informant, the two Henderson had when he was arrested, and the two found in Waddy's apartment.

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Washington sentenced Waddy to 22 months in prison. On Dec. 8, a judge in Greenbelt sentenced Henderson to 18 months. The two men were ordered to pay a total of $22,610 in restitution to the store. They still face prosecution in Virginia on state charges, Waddy's attorney said in court filings.

The case is one of many that the ATF and Washington area investigators have been pursuing. All told, federal authorities have been searching for 240 guns from 18 store burglaries in the region in the past year, said Edgar A. Domenech, the ATF special agent in charge of the Washington field office.

Investigators said they had not determined why Waddy and Henderson decided to steal and sell guns, and they acknowledged being less than satisfied with the results of all the hard work spent on the case.

"Anytime you can get the guns before they hit the streets, put that in the win column," said ATF agent Harry Brady, who worked on the case. "Unfortunately, the next time we see them, it's going to be in a violent crime. It's a shame."