Culpeper sheriff can't or won't explain powerful pricey gun found in Dallas wreck

As Dallas firefighters pulled John Guandolo from the driver’s seat of his tangled pickup on a rainy afternoon last October, he told them he was an off-duty law enforcement officer from Virginia. He also told them he had a handgun and a rifle in the truck.

That may not be terribly out of the ordinary in Texas, but when the News4 I-Team found out Guandolo was driving in Dallas with a pricey assault rifle owned by the people of Culpeper County, it led to questions the Culpeper County Sheriff’s Office and indicted Sheriff Scott Jenkins still can’t or won’t answer.

The I-Team reported on Guandolo before. He is one of the dozens of people sworn in as an auxiliary deputy in Culpeper. For years he also ran Understanding the Threat, a Dallas-based group that trained law enforcement personnel around the country. The Southern Poverty Law Center designated his organization a hate group and his training “Islamophobic.”

When asked earlier this year about Guandolo getting an auxiliary deputy badge, the SPLC’s Caleb Keiffer told the I-Team, “I really hope that these associations would be maybe thought through a little more and maybe reconsidered."

When told Guandolo had a Virginia-owned gun in Dallas, Will Pelfrey, a criminologist at Virginia Commonwealth University, called it “an egregious example of bad judgement (and) bad decision making.”

It is just the latest controversy surrounding Jenkins. He is currently facing the potential of years in prison after being accused of accepting campaign donations and personal bribes to give donors auxiliary deputy badges. The sheriff and three auxiliary deputies also named in the indictment all pleaded not guilty. Guandolo is not mentioned in the indictment.

The I-Team asked Jenkins why Guandolo had the gun but didn’t get a response.

Neither did the I-Team hear from the sheriff’s office, the county or Guandolo himself.

Trying to figure out how many guns were issued to the volunteer auxiliaries, the I-Team used Virginia’s FOIA to demand documents showing gun distributions to auxiliary deputies. While the sheriff’s office did turn over documents detailing the issuance of some gear, including a T-shirt, a baseball hat and some holsters, the office did not turn over any records of auxiliary deputies who received guns. County policy says auxiliaries get the same gear full-time officers do.

It leaves open the question of how many other county-owned guns are out there in Culpeper, Dallas or anywhere else.  There may not be any, but without records, that remains unclear.

“Any law enforcement agency should carefully record and track any equipment they issue, particularly those involved in lethal force, Pelfrey said.

When asked for records of the purchase or issuance of the gun found in Dallas, the Culpeper County Sheriff’s Office said, “Those records could not be found or do not exist.”

The gun, a semiautomatic FN Scar 5.56, retails for more than $3,000.

"This is not just a single gun,” Pelfrey told the I-Team. “This is a very dangerous gun. The assault rifles issued to public safety officials are very serious weapons. They're designed to be used in tactical situations.”

Dallas authorities did not file any charges related to the gun. Despite Guandolo’s emailed hope “they may release the weapons to me,” emails show they shipped it back to Culpeper. It is not clear where the weapon is now.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.