CHRISTIAN COUNTY

Missing automatic weapons in Christian County

Giacomo Bologna
GBOLOGNA@NEWS-LEADER.COM

Fully automatic weapons are missing from the Christian County Sheriff’s Department, the interim sheriff says in a 19-page report.

However, the report said the sheriff’s department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are working together to find the missing weapons and notes that they could have been “legitimately transferred to another agency or authorized (Federal Firearms Licensed) firearms dealer.”

The number of weapons involved is unclear.

Interim Sheriff Dwight McNiel was not immediately available for comment.

He wrote the report, which alleges poor record-keeping, a complete lack of accountability, operational flaws and other problems within the department.

The report called the missing weapons “one of the most disturbing things.”

“Additionally, silencers, suppressors, and full automatic trigger components are also gone with no paper trail,” the report said.

Furthermore, the report says former Sheriff Joey Kyle, with “assistance from others,” took a “large cache of weapons” from the sheriff’s department the night of May 19 — the day before he pleaded guilty to embezzlement and aiding a fraud scheme. The weapons were later turned back over to the department and the FBI by Kyle’s attorney, the report says.

No further details about the type or number of weapons are included.

“Over the past week, witnesses have reluctantly come forward with statements regarding their observations during the course of that evening (May 19),” the report says.

The report, however, does not include those observations.

The report says the ATF conducted inventories of the sheriff’s department that led to the discovery that automatic weapons were missing.

The News-Leader has attempted to reach the ATF and Kyle for comment, but has not been immediately successful.