Tracking the 'Baby Glock' that killed Cmdr. Bauer: A Wisconsin shop, a gun club and a shadowy sale on the internet
CHICAGO - The handgun used to kill Chicago police Cmdr. Paul Bauer began its tragic path in December 2011 at a small shop in central Wisconsin.
The 9 mm Glock passed through several owners over the next six years - first through a private transaction at a rustic gun club, then peddled over the internet to a Milwaukee man with an arrest record, a law enforcement source told the Chicago Tribune. It finally surfaced in Chicago, allegedly winding up in the hands of Shomari Legghette, a four-time felon now charged with murder in Bauer's slaying.
The familiar but disastrous storyline has emerged amid a sprawling gun trace investigation by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Federal authorities raided the Wisconsin homes of two of the gun's sellers and found dozens of firearms at each, as well as evidence of a Chicago connection, the source said.
The gun's trail was facilitated by looser Wisconsin regulations that allow private sales with no background checks and a controversial online gun marketplace that critics say makes it easy for felons to acquire weapons illegally, according to evidence uncovered in the probe.
It has also revealed that Bauer's killing likely wasn't the first time the Glock was used in downtown violence. Ballistics evidence shows that seven months before Bauer's slaying, the source said, the same Glock pistol appeared to have been used in a shooting on Lower Wacker Place, not far from where the police chase of Legghette began Feb. 13.
In the wake of the tragic slayings of 17 people inside a Florida high school,
