One year to the day after he broke into a Baltimore County, Maryland gun store, a Gwynn Oak man was sentenced to eight years in prison on federal firearms charges.
Byron Keith Goines, 25, pleaded guilty in August to stealing firearms from a Halethorpe, Maryland, gun dealer.
Prosecutors said Goines broke into the store on Hollins Ferry Road on Jan. 21, 2019 by sawing a hole in the roof and dropping into the vault where the firearms were stored.
Goines stuffed a white trash bag with guns, but he was unable to get out with the bag full.
So, he took only what he could stash on his person before scrambling to the roof to escape, prosecutors said.
Police found six firearms scattered on the ground behind the store. A K-9 unit tracked Goines to a nearby warehouse, where he was hiding.
Goines had disabled cameras outside the store, but cameras at nearby businesses and inside the vault caught images of the break-in.
Some of the surveillance footage recovered showed a person with a tattoo on the wrist trying to cut the camera’s wires. The tattoo matched a tattoo on Goines’ wrist.
Along with the 8 years in prison, Goines will have to complete three years of supervised release.
On Tuesday, the Baltimore County Council took steps to ramp up security at gun stores and gun shows by passing the Secure All Firearms Effectively, or SAFE Act.
County Executive Johnny Olszewski announced the bill’s passage, which would require gun sellers to install “responsible security measures” to protect against potential burglaries before they can get a license to sell firearms, CBS Baltimore reported.
Tonight, a bipartisan group of Councilmembers voted for safer communities across Baltimore County and throughout our region.
My statement on the passage of the SAFE Act: pic.twitter.com/a6bbslS8Qz
— County Executive Johnny Olszewski (@BaltCoExec) January 22, 2020
