NEW YORK — A pistol used to kill a New York City police officer was originally sold by a Virginia gun shop notorious for putting weapons into the hands of criminals.
Investigators still don’t know when or how the .45-caliber semiautomatic was acquired by the man charged with using it to ambush Officer Russel Timoshenko during a July 9 traffic stop in Brooklyn.
The gun’s initial owner, who bought it legally in 1999, died several years ago. Authorities are trying to determine what happened to the pistol next.
But records showed that the handgun’s initial source was R&B Guns, a store in Hampton, Va., that was criticized by gun-control advocates for what they said were careless sales practices.
R&B Guns was shuttered for good in 2001, a year after owner Richard Norad was arrested by Virginia State Police for violating firearms laws.
Norad pleaded guilty to ignoring rules requiring firearms dealers to ask buyers for two forms of identification. He was sentenced to two years’ probation and a $1,720 fine. He also surrendered his federal license to deal firearms.
Records kept by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives show that R&B Guns was once among the country’s leading sellers of guns later used by criminals.
From 1996 to 2000, ATF investigators traced 1,116 firearms linked to crime back to the store, making it the fifth-largest supplier of such guns in the country.
By comparison, most of the country’s nearly 100,000 gun shops had zero such traces during that period. Only 35 had more than 500, according to an analysis of ATF trace data prepared by the group Americans for Gun Safety.
New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has campaigned to bring attention to the small number of gun shops that sell a disproportionate number of weapons later used by criminals.
The city sued 27 gun stores in five states last year, including some in Virginia, accusing them of irresponsible sales practices that made it easy for gun traffickers to acquire weapons.
Details about the .45-caliber pistol used in the Brooklyn shooting were revealed by prosecutors Wednesday after the three men charged with killing Officer Timoshenko and wounding his partner, Officer Herman Yan, were arraigned on murder charges.
Dexter Bostic and Robert Ellis, both 34, and Lee Woods, 29, face life in prison if convicted. Investigators think Mr. Bostic wielded the gun that fired the fatal shot. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
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