Top cop challenges Laffer gun story

Suffolk Police Commissioner Richard Dormer defended his agency Friday and criticized Newsday following revelations that a detective urged the department's pistol licensing bureau to take guns from Medford pharmacy killer David Laffer five months before his shooting spree.

"Newsday's story recklessly trashes the reputations of officers in the Pistol License Bureau who followed each and every procedure required under the police department's procedures and New York State and federal law," Dormer said in a written statement.

In a story in Friday's newspaper, Newsday reported that Det. Kenneth Ripp and another detective visited Laffer's house in Medford on Jan. 12 to investigate a complaint from Laffer's mother that $8,220 had been taken from her bank account.

Ripp questioned Laffer and learned that he and his mother had registered guns in their home, secured in a safe as the law requires.

Newsday reported that Ripp then called the Pistol Licensing Bureau and said the guns should be removed. A report that Ripp wrote states that an officer in the licensing bureau told him that the weapons could remain in the home and that the bureau would "follow-up with their own investigation in the future."

It's unclear whether an investigation took place. Among the firearms left in Laffer's home was the .45 pistol that he used to kill four people during a Father's Day drugstore robbery.

Ripp's lawyer, Jeffrey Goldberg of Lake Success, said the story is accurate and charged Dormer with trying to undercut his client, a "respected member of the police department."

Goldberg said Ripp's call and written report were a clear warning and that in his statement Dormer failed to address that the licensing bureau had indicated that it would conduct a follow-up investigation.

"Detective Ripp's hands were tied in this case because the pistol license bureau told him that he couldn't take the guns and that they would conduct an investigation," Goldberg said.

"The story is accurate," Goldberg said. "Where is the investigation?"

Debby Krenek, Newsday editor-in-chief and executive vice president, digital media, said, "We stand by our coverage of the David Laffer story."

The pistol bureau can take guns for a variety of reasons, including, according to its handbook, behavior that would cause "a normal, rational person to be fearful or threatened."

In his statement Dormer said the Newsday story did not identify any "legal basis" for confiscating Laffer's guns and that a review "indicated that there was no basis under the law to seize his weapons."

Under the department's procedures, Dormer said, had Laffer been violent, threatening or displayed evidence of illegal drug use during the Jan. 12 visit to his house, "the detective should have immediately confiscated his guns." With Sandra Peddie