Seven D.C. officers have been removed from the Metropolitan Police Department’s specialized crime-suppression team and placed on administrative leave or desk duty due to alleged misconduct, Chief Robert J. Contee III announced Friday evening. Contee says the department’s internal affairs investigators learned that the seven individuals, which include two sergeants, had stopped people at various times and seized their guns without arresting them or pursuing a warrant.

“We have a responsibility to make the community safer and that includes taking bad guys to jail,” the police chief said during a press conference. “That does not make the community safer when we allow people in some instances, potentially armed felons, to go on about their business and just recover the firearm. It’s only a short amount of time before they are in possession of another firearm and I’m sure of that.”

The seven officers all work in the Seventh District, which includes the neighborhoods of Anacostia, Barry Farm, Naylor Gardens and Washington Highlands and sees some of the city’s highest number of violent crimes. After reviewing three months of officers’ body camera footage, investigators discovered the cases where officers’ reports were inconsistent with the video.

“The firearms were reported. They were turned into evidence. They were accounted for. The suspects are the ones unaccounted for,” Contee said. “The suspects were allowed to go free and they should have been placed under arrest or at the minimum an arrest warrant.”

The announcement comes at a time when D.C. is struggling to address decade-high violent crime. Contee and Mayor Muriel Bowser have often chided the lack of accountability for people with illegal firearms, particularly from federal prosecutors who they’ve accused of failing to pursue many cases. Meanwhile, the city’s specialized units responsible for removing illegal firearms and drugs are a point of pride for city officials. The police department publishes data on firearm recoveries weekly, including the names of suspects, most recently between Sept. 19-26 when 53 illegal firearms were recovered.

Contee declined to speculate why the seven officers would not make arrests, only saying that is “not the way we train.”

“I want to reassure all members of our community that we are coordinating with the United State’s Attorneys Office and additional partners to ensure that this investigation is done completely, expeditiously, and thoroughly and in a way to maintain community trust,” he added.

DC police union has pushed back. The union’s chairman Gregg Pemberton said to the Washington Post that “This is exactly what [Contee] and MPD supervisors told the officers to do — get the guns off the street and obtain direct evidence linking the gun to the person.” Pemberton did not immediately respond to DCist’s request for further clarification on officers’ training.

The police department first became aware of the alleged misconduct after hearing an unrelated complaint against officers from the Seventh District. Following up on this complaint, internal affairs investigators initially learned of two officers who made no arrest after seizing an illegal semiautomatic handgun from a suspect on Sept. 11. After investigators combed several months of body camera footage, they identified five more individuals who acted similarly in other instances. The department’s investigation is ongoing, and federal partners have not been called on to step in.

The Washington Post reports that the remaining members of Seventh District’s crime suppression team have been reassigned as precautionary step. Contee says that department resources have been rearranged so the district is taken care of.  The Metropolitan Police Department has not immediately responded to DCist’s request for comment.