A 20-year-old man was arrested with a stolen gun after a report of a negligent discharge in Leesburg.
Leesburg police officers were investigating a negligent discharge of a firearm on Monday at a residence located in the 900 block of West Dixie Avenue when one of the officers made contact with 20-year-old Walter Gaines Jr., who volunteered that he had learned the firearm had been reported stolen after he came to possess it.
Gaines showed the officers where he kept the pistol, a .380-caliber model 42 Glock.
The investigating officer called the Glock’s serial number into the communications center which verified that the weapon had been reported stolen to the Eustis Police Department on Nov. 27, 2021.
After reading the Miranda warnings to Gaines the officers asked him how he came to possess the pistol. Gaines told them he gave $320 to an acquaintance who he only knew by the name of “Treyvente” who then bought the weapon from another person. Gaines told the officers that he has had the weapon since April. When asked how he found out the weapon had been stolen, Gaines claimed he received a screenshot from an unidentified person on Snapshot informing him the hand gun had been stolen according to the arrest report. Gains claimed that he had sent a picture of the gun to the unnamed person the day before the police came to investigate the negligent discharge and had just found out the gun was stolen when the unnamed person checked an unnamed website which showed the weapon to have been stolen.
Gaines never contacted law enforcement to report that he had a stolen gun in his possession.
The officer placed Gaines under arrest and he was booked at the Leesburg Police Department for the third degree felony of theft of a firearm. Gaines was transported to the Lake County Jail where bond was set at $2,000.
