From http://www.avondaleestates.org/

Avondale Estates police officers on Sept. 3 arrested three men who were in possession of stolen handguns. But when the city sought warrants, a DeKalb County Magistrate Judge refused to approve them.

The suspects were released.

Police Chief Lynn Thomas said, “We made a traffic stop on a vehicle and found some handguns in the car, ran the numbers on them. They were stolen on the city of Atlanta.”

Officers arrested the men on charges of receiving stolen property. The judge said that the men did not admit they knew the guns were stolen when they bought them and said police could not prove that the suspects knew. That was the reason judge declined to approve the warrants, Thomas said.

“The justice system just didn’t give us a lot of leeway toward prosecuting the case,” he said.

The Police Department kept the confiscated handguns.

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