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New York teen 3D prints ‘ghost guns’, gets arrested after police raid
Mayor Eric Adams deplored the incident and called it "a heartbreaking scenario".
A New York teenager allegedly used 3D printers to make "ghost guns". According to a report by the New York Post, NYPD officials informed on Wednesday about seizing 3D printed weapons and firearm parts from an East Harlem day care run by the teenager's mother.
The NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism, Rebecca Weiner informed at a press conference that Karon Jamal Coley and two other suspects, both minors, were arrested on Tuesday following the raid on East 117th Street near Madison Avenue.
Weiner further informed that during the raid, two completed 3D-printed weapons and one nearly-finished assault pistol, a 3D printer, 3D printing tools and plastic filament were found in the home where Coley’s mom runs a licensed childcare facility.
In the raid, a single 3D-printed lower receiver which is a central part of assault weapons, was also found.
Mayor Eric Adams deplored the incident and called it "a heartbreaking scenario".
“This is a heartbreaking scenario of thinking that you’re dropping your child off to a place of safe haven, just to find out that it was a dangerous environment where someone was making a gun inside,” said Adams on Wednesday.
“These folks are preying on our children. We have an 18-year-old in his room with a 3D printer. He’s not making little robotic toys, he’s making guns. That should be scary to everyone. That is extremely frightening,” said Adams.
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Investigators were lead on to the crime scene when they began a probe after learning “a group of individuals, including some minors … were purchasing ghost gun parts from online retailers,” as well as the materials “required to print 3D firearm components,” Weiner told reporters.
Coley has been charged with multiple crimes including criminal possession of a loaded firearm, manufacturing a machine gun, manufacturing a rapid fire modification device, manufacturing a dangerous instrument etc.
There has been significant increase in the recovery of "ghost guns" in New York City, in recent years. Such privately made weapons are not easily traceable as they don't have serial numbers.
