Assault Weapons Seized From Former Interim LAPD Chief

Federal agents Friday seized four assault weapons and three World War II-era machine guns belonging to Bayan Lewis, onetime interim chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Lewis, now head of the county’s security force, said all the weapons are legally owned and he invited agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to inspect them after they became involved in a quarrel between him and his estranged wife. He called the ATF, he said, after his wife told him she was going to report that he had the weapons.

An ATF spokesman confirmed that seizures had taken place and that agents were investigating the legality of the weapons.

Lewis said the assault weapons, all types that have been illegal to buy in California since 1989, were purchased prior to the ban and are registered with the state as the law requires for continued ownership. The machine guns, he said, are collectors’ items that have been rendered inoperable by welding.

“I don’t have anything that’s illegal,” Lewis said. “I’m estranged from my wife right now, and she is doing whatever she can to [get] me the best she can.”

The weapons were taken from the home Lewis formerly shared with his wife, Debra, and from a rented storage locker in Agoura Hills, he said. Also in the locker were boxes containing hundreds of rounds of ammunition that Lewis said were empty hulls.

Lewis, 56, said he once used the assault rifles for target shooting, although he has not done so for the last 10 or 12 years.

John D’Angelo, a spokesman for the ATF in Los Angeles, said agents took military training devices, including grenade hulls from a storage locker in Agoura Hills but described no other weapons.

Lewis confirmed that the weapons were his and said the assault weapons and machine guns had also been taken.

Debra Lewis, who filed for divorce in February, said she contacted several law enforcement agencies about her husband’s weapons. She and her sister, Pam Stringer, called Times reporters repeatedly.

Lewis denied her husband’s charge that she was out to get him. “I’m trying to be a responsible person and not jeopardize the lives of many others,” she said, saying she was worried about the safety risks of the weapons cache.

Lewis retired from the LAPD last year, after serving as interim chief from May to August 1997.