Reports from San Antonio, Texas, say one of the city’s police officers is on “indefinite suspension” after taking firearms home from a so-called “buyback” event. According to a write-up from Emilie Eaton, a writer for the San Antonio Express-News, Officer David Mahula was handed that indefinite suspension on May 9 for breaking the police department’s administrative rules—essentially, he’s been fired, says Eaton.
Gun buybacks @ TFB:
The incident that sparked an Internal Affairs inquiry seems to have been an incident from November of 2023 when Mahula was working at a firearms buyback organized by City Councilman John Courage. At that buyback, citizens could hand in their firearms and get an H-E-B gift card in return.
An aide to Councilman Courage reported seeing Mahula putting firearms in his personal vehicle at the buyback. Here’s how KSAT describes the fallout from that incident:
During an interview with investigators weeks later, Mahula admitted asking multiple citizens if he could buy or have their weapons instead of them surrendering them, records show.
Mahula said there were “no takers.”
Nine boxes of ammunition were found in Mahula’s personal vehicle, the records show.
Mahula told investigators he kept the surrendered ammo in order to destroy it at the firearm range, according to records.
He also told investigators he had placed two rifles and a World War II-era handgun in his personal vehicle to “safeguard” them and to separate weapons that potentially had historical significance, records show.
But from there, things got worse for Mahula, reports KSAT. Naylor said the firearms he witnessed Mahula taking were not the ones that Mahula had admitted to bringing home from the buyback. A statement from a citizen who surrendered two firearms at the buyback also contradicted Mahula’s statement—those shotguns were never found. KSAT reports dashboard cam video appears to show Mahula taking a pistol and putting it in his own car, then also taking a pistol and putting it into a colleague’s cruiser, then her personal car.
One of the firearms that went missing from the buyback was a World War II-era pistol.
KSAT says that two other police officers who were working the buyback with Mahula asked him about the whereabouts of the World War II handgun that was turned in. Internal Affairs’ paperwork has those officers’ description of the event:
“One of these officers reported that Officer Mahula responded to their inquiry by placing a finger over his lips, and the other officer reported that Officer Mahula made a facial expression that the officer interpreted as ‘be quiet.’ Both officers stated that Officer Mahula later showed them a U.S. Government-issued Colt handgun inside of a case/holster similar to the one observed in the COBAN video.”
The Express-News says that Mahula has filed an appeal, denying the allegations made to Internal Affairs and that he has asked for an arbitration hearing so he can have his back pay and benefits pay.
