A St. Louis Park diver says one small patch of the shallow north end of Bde Maka Ska has turned into his own personal crime museum, after he pulled what he estimates to be 16 to 18 rusted pistols from the lake bottom. The weapons, mostly small revolvers, have been showing up in the same swath of silt for years, he says, a pattern that finally sent him digging through old newspaper archives for answers.
Jeff Withers told FOX 9 that he dives three to five times a week during warm weather, outfitted with scuba gear and a metal detector. Over the past decade, he and a friend have recovered "16 to 18" similar pistols from that same spot. Withers said he first figured they were gangster-era throwaways, but research he described to FOX 9 led him to a 1927 newspaper account that claimed then-Police Chief Frank Brunskill dumped a "bushel" of crime guns into what was then called Lake Calhoun. "I knew instantly that I had found the guns," Withers told FOX 9, adding that the age and tight cluster of the weapons convinced him the discovery and the old story match up.
Century-old policing, in print
Frank W. Brunskill served as Minneapolis police chief in the 1920s and was a prominent, polarizing figure in city politics and the press of that era, according to the Minnesota Historical Society's MNopedia. The history MNopedia outlines, including the legal fights that produced Near v. Minnesota, helps explain why a dramatic disposal of weapons would have made headlines in 1927. That backdrop does not by itself prove every detail of the old account, but it shows the find fits into a contentious period of policing and publicity in Minneapolis.
Why the find matters today
Bde Maka Ska is the largest lake in the city's Chain of Lakes and one of Minneapolis's busiest recreation hubs, according to the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board, which lists the park's official address as 3000 Bde Maka Ska Parkway. The discovery also throws a spotlight on how practices for handling retired department firearms have shifted over time. After reporting by WCCO/CBS, the Minneapolis Police Department moved to destroy retired duty weapons rather than sell them to dealers. Whether the recovered pistols wind up being treated as historically valuable artifacts or just curiosities, Withers says they appear badly corroded and clearly decades old.
Withers says he plans to keep diving, and each new find adds another tangible page to Bde Maka Ska's long story, a mix of forgotten objects, old headlines and the occasional curiosity that surfaces when you spend enough hours at the bottom of a city lake.
