Weapons Collected in South Gate Melted Down to Be Reborn as Rebar

Originally posted Aug. 13. Edited to clarify the two methods the police agencies acquired the weapons.

Nearly 5,000 weapons collected from police agencies around Los Angeles County — including the South Gate Police Department — were melted to be recycled into construction materials, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced today.

A total of 4,661 weapons were destroyed, said Assistant Sheriff Todd Rogers. They were taken to Gerdau Steel Mill, located in Rancho Cucamonga, which donates its furnace, equipment and personnel for the job.

The weapons were both confiscated from criminals and acquired through the county’s “Gifts for Guns” exchange program, according to an LASD press release. They will be melted into steel reinforcing bar, AKA rebar, and ultimately transformed into elements of construction for upgrades in freeways and bridges in Arizona, California and Nevada.

This year, a dozen law enforcement agencies contributed confiscated weapons to this program. These agencies include Downey Police Department, Long Beach Police Department, South Gate Police Department, Beverly Hills Police Department, El Monte Police Department, West Covina Police Department, Gardena Police Department, South Pasadena Police Department, Manhattan Beach Police Department, UCLA Police Department, Department of Motor Vehicles Police Department and Pasadena Police Department.

“The continuous partnership with Gerdau Steel Mill has allowed law enforcement to destroy thousands of weapons that will never be used again to commit crimes on the streets of Los Angeles County,” Rogers said in a prepared statement. “Since the inception of the gun melt program, we have destroyed a total of 178,167 weapons.”

PHOTO Courtesy of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.