Police: Firearms stolen from Bossier Parish found in Alexandria hospital parking garage

Melissa Gregory, Alexandria Town Talk
·2 min read

More than 60 guns stolen last year from a North Louisiana store were found in Alexandria on Thursday, months after two Rapides Parish residents were arrested in connection to the incident.

One of those arrested, 27-year-old Salih Romelo Reed of Pineville, also is accused in the theft of more firearms from the Lafayette area.

The Alexandria Police Department had arrested Reed and 41-year-old Jessica Leiloni Moore of Alexandria on Nov. 14 on multiple charges related to the case.

On Thursday afternoon, the department received a tip from Christus St. Frances Cabrini Hospital security about a vehicle left in a parking garage, according to police.

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Responding officers discovered the vehicle had been reported stolen from the Alexandria area, and they found 62 weapons inside it.

Some of the more than 60 guns stolen last year from a North Louisiana store found in Alexandria Thursday are displayed after they were found in a stolen vehicle left in the Christus St. Frances Cabrini parking garage.
Some of the more than 60 guns stolen last year from a North Louisiana store found in Alexandria Thursday are displayed after they were found in a stolen vehicle left in the Christus St. Frances Cabrini parking garage.

"A check of the serial numbers revealed they were from a Bossier Parish gun store burglary on Nov. 13, 2021," reads a news release.

None of the missing weapons were found when Reed and Moore were arrested at a Simmons Street apartment the day after the Benton burglary. They since have been indicted in federal court.

Alexandria detectives turned over the recovered weapons to the Bossier Parish Sheriff's Office and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms

The six-count indictment, filed in January, charges Reed and Moore with the theft of 62 firearms, mostly pistols, from Guns-N-Ammo in Benton, according to online court records.

The five remaining counts of the indictment charge Reed with the theft of more firearms and other offenses.

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It alleges that Reed stole 54 weapons — pistols, revolvers, silencers — from Sentry Defense shooting range in Youngsville in early September 2019. Another count accuses him of transporting 10 stolen pistols from Louisiana to California.

Two counts charge him with being a felon in possession of firearms, and another charges him with being in possession of unregistered firearms — 10 silencers.

Reed and Moore will be tried together over four days in Alexandria on Oct. 11, according to court records. The two remain in jail in Bossier Parish with bails set at $320,000, according to the Bossier Parish Sheriff's Office.

This article originally appeared on Alexandria Town Talk: Stolen guns found in parking garage traced to two Rapides residents