Source: Murder weapon stolen under bed

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - The .40-caliber handgun Rodrick Dantzler used to kill seven people, then himself, in this city's worst-ever mass murder, was reported stolen two years ago this month, a source told 24 Hour News 8.

A man who lives on Coit Avenue NE in Plainfield Township, and who owned the gun legally, reported the theft in July 2009, the source said.

The man told police he kept the weapon hidden under a bed at his home and that he showed it to a man who was visiting.

A week later, he checked under his bed and the weapon was missing, he told police.

Police say there was no apparent connection between Dantzler and the man who had stopped to visit. What's not clear, police say, is how the gun got into Dantzler's hands, or when.

Dantzler was a convicted felon with a long history of violence, sentenced to three to 10 years in prison more than a decade ago for a road rage incident in which he shot at a man and woman in another car.

He could not legally own a gun.

The Kent County Sheriff's Department, which investigated the original gun-theft case, said it could not release the police report because the investigation had been re-opened.

Grand Rapids Police Chief Kevin Belk said his department is working with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to investigate the gun's travels.

"We obviously want to track that back and figure out how it was stolen, with the idea of trying to prevent these sorts of things from happening again," Belk said. "One of the problems we have with our shootings, most of them are involving stolen firearms."

He said the theft and shooting show why it's important for legal gun owners to lock up their guns.

"The more people can do to secure them, to put them in safes, as opposed to merely putting them on shelves or in drawers...even if they have a gun lock, that doesn't prevent someone from taking the gun, walking away with it," Belk said. "They can still be used in crimes and that's become certainly part of the gun problems that we're addressing on a daily basis."

Despite recent cases involving guns, Grand Rapids police records show that weapons offenses have fallen steadily in the city since the late 1990s. In 1997, Grand Rapids reported 320 weapons offenses. Last year, there were 94.