Democracy In Albany

-The Albany Police Department either destroyed records or failed to document its internal investigation of the illegal purchase of machine guns by dozens of Albany police officers and at least one civilian.

The gap in record-keeping was revealed recently when the city was forced by a judge's order to release its files on the machine guns to the Times Union under a freedom of information request made more than two years ago.

City attorneys turned over dozens of pages of documents that included invoices, copies of money orders, canceled personal checks and correspondence with the Vermont arms dealer that provided the guns.

The records indicate there were more purchases than previously estimated by Chief James W. Tuffey, who had pegged the total number of weapons at 48 with six missing.

But the documents show there were apparently 52 machine guns purchased, and that at least nine are missing.

Tuffey said the department destroyed 42 of the machine guns last year. In an interview last week, he said confirming the total number of guns has been difficult because the department had almost "no records" related to the purchases.

"He stated to us that they had all been recovered and destroyed," recalls Councilman James Scalzo, chairman of the Public Safety Committee.

"Any inference that we're hiding something is not true," Tuffey said, adding that he wasn't aware of the issue before this month. "Let's not jump to a conclusion because a newspaper article was written."

"I never lie and I never will lie. ... I said to you that all the guns we had in our possession were destroyed," Tuffey said. "I don't know how many guns were purchased. ... I don't know. There's no records, guys."