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By CHRIS SCHNEIDMILLER; Times Leader Staff Writer
Thursday, July 16, 1998     Page: 3A

WILKES-BARRE- More than 100 guns used in Luzerne County crimes dating back
to the 1960s will never shoot another bullet.
   
The District Attorney’s Office had 70 handguns, 39 rifles and shotguns and
one machete chopped into scrap Wednesday.
    Some of the weapons have been stored for decades in the walk-in storage
safe at the Luzerne County Courthouse. They are pieces of the county’s history
of shootings, suicides and robberies, said District Attorney Peter Paul
Olszewski Jr.
   
Destroying the weapons is one of final components of the office’s
three-month renovation project of the storage room.
   
“It’s the safest disposal of the weapons,” Olszewski said. “I don’t have to
worry about those weapons ever being used in a crime ever again.”
   
It took Allan Industries of Wilkes-Barre Township about one hour to destroy
the weapons, said owner Allan Allan.
   
Each weapon was placed in a metal shear. Two 12-inch blades cut the
handguns into two pieces and the longer guns into three pieces.
   
“The upper blade comes down and cuts the piece like it would a piece of
paper,” Allan said.
   
Olszewski commended the company for doing the work free of charge for the
county. Allan could not estimate the cost, but said selling the scrap to a
steel mill should bring the company close to breaking even on the project.
   
“I felt it was a community service,” he said.
   
Weapons aren’t the only things going to the big evidence locker in the sky.
The district attorney’s office is disposing of old clothing and judicial
records from the 1950s, among other items.
   
“We’re getting rid of electronic surveillance equipment that’s totally
outdated and outmoded,” Olszewski said.
   
Disposing of the old material gives the district attorney’s office more
room to store new evidence, Olszewski said. The county commissioners also
authorized moving items from other departments to increase space.
   
Olszewski said his office revised its written protocol for storing items,
devised a new tagging method and is using new bags and stickers.
   
“It was fine. It was professionally kept,” Olszewski said of the storage
room. “This is just a matter of improving it.”
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