Julie Erfle, whose husband Nick Erfle was killed in the line of duty in 2007, recently learned that the Phoenix Police Department still has the handgun used in his death and is suing to prevent the city from auctioning it. She also urged lawmakers at the Arizona State Capitol to change a state rule that generally requires agencies to resell seized firearms, but the effort stalled this week, leaving the weapon in police evidence with its future unresolved.
Erfle filed the lawsuit after what she describes as a shock: discovering that Phoenix still possessed the gun. She has been adamant that it be destroyed. As reported by Phoenix New Times, Erfle told reporters, "I want it destroyed," when she went public last fall. Hoodline also covered her original complaint in October 2025.
Arizona law currently blocks most local destruction of seized firearms and instead directs agencies to sell them to licensed dealers, a policy critics say can put murder weapons back into circulation. That statutory framework, and the limits it places on city ordinances, has been explained by the Arizona Capitol Times, and the Arizona Supreme Court reinforced that preemption in a 2017 ruling. That legal tangle sits at the heart of Erfle's lawsuit and the parallel push in the Legislature to carve out exceptions.
How the Push Fell Apart
Representative Quang Nguyen, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, initially circulated language that supporters said would let victims or next of kin request destruction of firearms used in violent crimes. But on Wednesday, he pulled that proposal and replaced it with a "strike-everything" amendment dealing with postnuptial agreements instead, a procedural move that left the gun measure effectively dead for now. 12News reported the swap and the scheduling around it. Nguyen's legislative profile lists him as a third-term lawmaker; see his profile on BillTrack50.
Separately, Sen. John Kavanagh has backed a narrower fix that would allow courts to order destruction of firearms used in homicides, a proposal Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell has publicly supported as a way to keep murder weapons out of auctions. According to FOX 10 Phoenix, Kavanagh's effort has drawn broader bipartisan interest in carving exceptions from the state's "sell-all" rule.
Legal Hurdles and What Comes Next
Changing the resale mandate means amending several sections of state law and working around court precedent, and lawmakers have already dropped competing bills this session aimed at rewriting how seized guns are handled. One Senate bill would give victims or their families the option to have firearms destroyed after a conviction or in other specified circumstances, according to the bill text on LegiScan. The Arizona Attorney General's office has previously warned that state statutes constrain local efforts to destroy firearms, a reminder that any legislative fix will have to be drafted very carefully (Arizona Attorney General).
Erfle says she will keep pressing both her lawsuit and the legislative push until the gun is destroyed. As Phoenix New Times reported, she has framed the fight as about dignity for victims and preventing future harm, not just a single weapon.
