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MOUNDSVILLE -- The Moundsville Police Department received a check for $9,265 from the West Virginia Treasurer's office thanks to the recent firearms auction conducted by the state agency.
West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore presented Moundsville Police Chief Thomas Mitchell with the check during a short ceremony held outside of the police department on Friday afternoon.
Mitchell was thankful for receiving the money.
"I think it's a great thing, of course," Mitchell said. "We're going to put into our investigative fund and we use that to purchase items that we cannot otherwise obtain; some safety items and some things like that."
Moore said the guns are collected by departments from across the state and sold at auction to qualified buyers. The money is then distributed to the departments with the amounts varying depending on the number of guns collected by a department.
"We now have a record number of departments from around the state of West Virginia that are participating since I started doing it," Moore said. "People have to have a federal firearms license to bid on them."
Moore noted the guns, which were part of closed cases, would have been destroyed otherwise.
Mitchell said the department typically collects a certain number of guns over a period of years before turning them in for auction.
The firearms auction held Sept. 21 in Charleston garnered a total of $90,000 benefitting a total of 19 law enforcement agencies.
Moore noted some guns fetch more money than others at the auction, depending on their condition.
"Sometimes you get some unique weapons. For instance, there was a Kimber 9mm and it was gold plated. ... People were bidding like crazy on that thing because it was a unique firearm," he said.