SELMA, Ala. — The City of Selma is currently working with state and federal agencies to investigate an alleged gun mill authorities believe was operated by Andrian Canterbury, Richard Canterbury, and Candice Ledbetter Byrum. The alleged perpetrators of the ring were also past and present members of the local police department.
“With the cooperation of Selma Police Chief Spencer Collier, the Alabama Attorney General’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms are conducting a joint investigation of current and former employees of the Selma Police Department,” Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a press release. “The joint investigation will include an audit of the police department’s evidence room in the wake of recent reports of missing items from the department’s vault.”
Canterbury, who had been employed by Selma P.D. since November 2016, was first arrested on May 2 for allegedly stealing three handguns from the department’s evidence vault. One of the guns had been allegedly used in a homicide after it had gone missing. Her husband Richard and Byrum were arrested 10 days later.
After authorities obtained search warrants for the Canterbury home and a storage facility, they discovered 200 guns, many of which came from Selma P.D.’s evidence vault. A cross-referencing audit of the Selma P.D. manifest revealed that thousands of guns have gone missing.
“It’s one of the most unusual and probably one of the biggest internal cases I’ve ever seen,” Collier told the Selma Times-Journal.
Authorities believe Canterbury used her position as an evidence technician to gain access to the weapons. They theorize that Canterbury would steal two or three guns at a time, transfer them to her husband, and then had Byrum sell them on the black market.
According to the Times-Journal, Selma P.D. has not purged its evidence room in over 17 years. Collier said that will change going forward.
Because of the sheer scale of the operation, Collier believes that federal charges would be better suited. No federal charges have yet been filed.
