WREG.com

Men accused of stealing 366 guns from Memphis UPS facility sentenced

Eryn Taylor

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The two men accused of stealing 366 guns from the United Parcel Services facility on East Brooks Road a year ago have been sentenced to time in a federal prison.

The Department of Justice said Roland Jackson and Taveyon Turnbo of Chicago were both sentenced to nine years behind bars after pleading guilty to  transporting and possessing the weapons. Jackson also pleaded guilty to being a convicted felon in possession of firearms.

After serving that time, both men will be supervised for three years.

According to reporting done by WREG a year ago, the UPS facility received a shipment from the Ruger factory in North Carolina on Sept. 28. The 16 pallets of firearms were scheduled to leave two days later for Dallas, Texas.

Before they could be shipped, two men entered the Brooks Road facility in Memphis, loaded three pallets into a U-Haul van and sped away.

Authorities said there were roughly 367 guns in those pallets. All of the weapons were either .22 caliber or .380 caliber firearms, authorities said.

On Sunday, law enforcement in Midlothian, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, were called to a store after someone reported suspicious activity in a Walgreens parking lot.

When they arrived, responding officers noticed a U-Haul parked in the lot and two men inside the van. The driver was identified as Jackson and the passenger was Turnbo, police said.

WBBM in Chicago reported that police smashed the passenger window after the suspects refused to get out of the car and locked themselves inside. Officers  with guns drawn pursued the suspects through neighborhoods in Midlothian.

Both men were eventually captured.