2 Duffel Bags Filled with SWAT Weapons Stolen from St. Louis Police Bunker

What to know

A 25-year-old man is accused of sneaking into a St. Louis police parking garage, entering an unlocked SWAT bunker and stealing guns, ammo and other gear. Police realized the theft two days later.
Police didn't discover the theft until two days later, and investigators used surveillance footage and a mugshot recognition program to identify the suspect, who was arrested and charged in the theft.
Although most of stolen items were recovered, police are still searching for a projectile launcher.

By Dana Rieck

Source St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS — It took police here two days to realize someone had snuck into the parking garage at police headquarters, gotten into an unlocked SWAT bunker and made off with guns, ammunition and a projectile launcher.

Alex Johnston, 25, was charged Sunday with the crimes.

Police said at a news conference Monday that officers still hadn’t found the projectile launcher.

“We’re doing everything we can to recover it,” Lt. Col. Renee Kriesmann said.

The investigation began Wednesday, when police realized the weapons were missing from headquarters at 1915 Olive Street, according to charging documents.

Detectives say Johnston can be seen on surveillance footage on April 21 — two days earlier — ducking under the gate of the department’s parking garage as it was closing. He walked around inside the garage, “pulling on door handles and looking into windows of vehicles.”

He walked out of the camera’s view, police wrote in charging documents, and when he reappeared, he was wearing a police tactical vest with multiple SLMPD patches.

Johnston then entered the department’s unlocked SWAT bunker, police wrote, and loaded two duffel bags with guns, ammunition and a multi-use launcher — a weapon that typically shoots projectiles including bean bags, tear gas and other “less lethal” rounds.

Johnston left the garage with the weapons. He was then seen on surveillance footage pulling on car handles at an apartment complex about 3 blocks away from police headquarters, police wrote.

A detective ran surveillance stills through a mugshot recognition program and Johnston came up as a match, he wrote in charging documents.

A witness told police Johnston came to his Crystal City home in the early morning hours of April 24. Police found in a bedroom of the home some of the stolen weapons, including a starter pistol, the SLMPD vest, a shotgun and shotgun ammunition.

Later that day, police found him at another acquaintance’s home, in Fredericktown about 90 miles south of St. Louis, and arrested him. A witness told officers Johnston had said he was on the run after stealing from the police department.

Johnston has multiple prior convictions for stealing, police said.

He was charged Sunday with first-degree burglary, four counts of stealing, unlawfully possessing a firearm and unlawful possession, transport, manufacture, repair or sale of an illegal weapon.

At the news conference on Monday, police said officers recovered all of the stolen items except the projectile launcher. Police noted the launcher cannot legally be sold to a civilian, and civilians cannot purchase the components to make the launcher functional.

Kriesmann said the department opened an internal investigation on Monday into what happened inside the garage and why the bunker was unlocked. Normally, she said, the bunker is locked. All department SWAT officers have access to it, but the department would not provide the number of SWAT officers on staff.

“We are looking at every aspect of how this burglary happened and what additional safeguards need to be implemented to ensure that something like this never happens again,” Kriesmann said.

Johnston was in custody Monday without bond. Court records say Johnston lives in Union, Missouri.

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