Santa Rosa police chief announces plan to crack down on ‘ghost guns’

With homemade firearms known as “ghost guns” increasingly showing up during criminal investigations in Santa Rosa, the city’s police chief is looking for new ways to crack down on them.

Chief John Cregan announced Wednesday a proposal to install new surveillance technology around the city to aid police investigations, which he said would in turn boost the number of illegal guns officers confiscate.

His plan, which he’s seeking federal funding to help pay for, includes installing license plate readers and surveillance cameras in the city, plus ShotSpotter microphones that track gunfire.

The technology would be housed at a new “real-time crime information center,” an area police staff would sit in during major incidents.

Cregan announced the proposal during a news conference hosted by North Bay Rep. Mike Thompson at a Santa Rosa police station.

Thompson, D-St. Helena, chairs the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force and called for the conference to discuss the proliferation of so-called ghost guns in Santa Rosa.

Ghost guns can be built using kits ordered online and, until recently, vendors weren’t required to run background checks on buyers. The guns have no serial numbers, making them difficult to trace back to a buyer when they turn up at the scene of a crime.

“I think it’s pretty safe to say anyone that would go out of their way to build a gun that they can buy without a background check and serial numbers is probably up to no good,” Thompson said.

Last month, a new federal rule about ghost guns took effect, mandating background checks for buyers and requiring that the kits have serial numbers.

Thompson said some vendors are now skirting that rule by selling parts individually, rather than in kits.

“We have to be vigilant and keep after this if we’re going to keep these guns off the street,“ Thompson said.

In July, Santa Rosa police arrested a Windsor man suspected of using a 3D printer to create components for ghost guns he was allegedly selling in Santa Rosa and the surrounding area.

Santa Rosa police officers are “seeing more ghost guns than ever before associated with crimes,” said Sgt. Chris Mahurin, a department spokesperson. The growing number of ghost guns officers have confiscated over the past five years reflects that trend.

Santa Rosa police seized six ghost guns in 2017, three in 2018, 10 in 2019 and 15 in 2020. Last year, they seized 44 and in the first six months of 2022, they seized 49.

The guns are popular because of “the easiness of being able to get them, and because you don’t have to have a background check,” Mahurin said.

He attributes their proliferation in recent years in part to lawmakers, authorities and media outlets talking about them more often.

“You’re just seeing more publicity about ghost guns in general,” he said. “People start to research these things and find out how easy it is to make them.”

Photographs of ghost guns confiscated in Santa Rosa appeared in a slideshow projected above Thompson’s head as he commended Chief Cregan for his department’s work seizing illegal firearms.

Council member Natalie Rogers called the images “quite scary.”

“But I know we have men and women that are working very diligently and very hard to get (ghost guns) off the streets,” she said.

Cregan is set to discuss license plate readers with the City Council’s public safety subcommittee during its Oct. 19 meeting.

You can reach Staff Writer Matt Pera at matthew.pera@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @Matt__Pera.