Photo by Elvert Barnes

A handful of D.C. Police officers couldn’t seem to keep track of their guns last year. WUSA9 reported on the disappearance of D.C. police officers’ weapons, finding that some officers’ department-issued guns were stolen, while others were just plain lost.

According to an MPD spokesperson, two weapons were reported stolen and three were reported lost in 2015.

In cases of robberies, officers’ weapons were stolen from locked safes, parked cars, and inside homes, according to WUSA9.

Yesterday, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced a taskforce to target offenders after robberies across the city saw a five percent increase in 2015. The group will include the Metropolitan Police Department, Metro Police, the Office of the Attorney General, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Police Chief Cathy Lanier explained at a public meeting in October that the nature of criminality in the District has changed over time. “We used to say that violence was neighborhood-based, so it was pretty easy to identify. About six years ago, the gangs stop forming around neighborhoods and open-market drug dealing. Now, criminal street gangs are organized around armed robberies. They’re involved in a high number of robberies and they don’t just do it in one neighborhood.”

In addition to robberies involving civilians and D.C. police officers, a secret service agent’s gun, badge, and other equipment were stolen from his car that was parked right outside of the agency’s downtown headquarters.

But we can’t blame the missing guns solely on thieves. In one case, WUSA9 reports that an MPD officer’s glock was lost with 17 rounds at a Clinton, Md. restaurant. Another officer’s weapon disappeared after he “left it on top of his car and drove off,”—a detail that wasn’t in the public report.

Penalties do exist for officers who lose their guns, Police Chief Cathy Lanier told WUSA9, but there’s a difference in punishment if an officer is burglarized or “if you were careless,” she said.