Lynchburg police promise no penalty in gun-surrender program

It doesn’t look like a police cruiser.

It looks more like a cool ride, in Dreamsicle colors.

And winning this car by surrendering a gun won’t cost anybody a jail term.

That’s a double-insulated promise from the Lynchburg Police Department, which once rode the streets in this 2000 Chevrolet Impala.

The city police don’t own the car anymore. It’s being given away by Churches United for Service, which aims to curb street violence by taking guns out of circulation.

Right now, only four names are in the hat from which the next owner’s name will be drawn, because only four people have turned in firearms in the two “gun surrender” events held by the partnership of churches, the department and the Lynchburg Police Foundation.

The three groups are hoping to increase the number of possible winners Saturday when a new gun-surrender event will be held at the James Crossing apartments on Greenfield Drive, just off Florida Avenue. It starts at 11 a.m., and food also is on the program.

It’s the first time a gun-surrender event has been held in a neighborhood that wants to participate, instead of on city property, said the Rev. James Coleman, speaking for Churches United for Service.

The group of apartments is “a neighborhood at promise,” Coleman said, emphasizing that negative events that have occurred don’t mean negative things about the people who live there.

“We know the guns are there, because people have gotten in trouble from having guns in the apartments that they didn’t know were in them,” Coleman said.

People who might want to get rid of a gun may have been skeptical about the police department’s amnesty promise.

But actually, anyone who turns in a gun won’t be dealing with the department. When a person surrenders a gun, he or she can register with Churches United for the drawing to win the car.

The vehicle’s current owner is the Lynchburg Police Foundation, which is an independent group of business leaders and citizens who support the police department.

That means two groups stand between the winner and the car’s original owner.

“We ask no questions” about a gun’s origin or who turned it in, said Capt. Brandon Zuidema of the Lynchburg Police Department.

The department plans to hold at least one more gun-surrender weekend somewhere in the city, Zuidema said.

When the former police cruiser was retired, it wouldn’t move, either physically or financially. Its transmission didn’t work, and the city couldn’t sell it as a surplus item.

The vehicle became a gift to the police foundation, said its spokesman, Curtis Roberts.

The gun-surrender program “is about how an individual can undergo the same process and become someone of great value and service to the community,” Roberts said.

The car that was driven out for a news conference Monday had a transmission overhauled by Robert DeFilippo of Lynchburg Transmissions and wore colors designed to turn heads when it rolls through town.

“It’s a $2,800 paint job,” said Jeff Nichols, owner of the Maaco Collision and Repair shop on Kemper Street, which fixed the dents and did the painting for free.

The car has two coats of orange-crush paint on top and four coats of white paint tinted orange-pearl on its sides, Nichols said. Three layers of clear-coat top it off.

Black pin striping with a flame effect, provided by Russell Toler of Auto Trim Design, separates the two colors.

All it needs to be a fully tricked-out street rod is new chrome wheels, said Coleman, looking at the original police-equipment tires and rims.