MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - A traffic stop in August led investigators to an unassuming house in Evergreen. What they say they found could be shocking to anyone who hasn’t been following the explosion of homemade machine guns on city streets across the country.
A sworn affidavit by a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent shows law enforcement officers found 74 metal and plastic devices designed to convert semi-automatic guns into fully automatic weapons. aluminum rod furnace
According to testimony in federal court, agents also found a 3D printer in the living room and a casting mold, furnace and forging equipment in the carport next to the bedroom of defendant Ishmell Jarah Williams. Prosecutors allege he used that equipment to manufacture the devices, which he is accused of selling.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Bradley Murray on Wednesday rejected a request by prosecutors to keep Williams locked up pending trial. The judge acknowledged the jeopardy posed by the machine gun conversion devices, sometimes called Glock switches or chips.
“They’re just dangerous, inherently,” he said.
But Murray said the law required him to release Williams if he could fashion conditions that would ensure he appears for court hearings and does not pose a danger to the public. Those conditions include a requirement that Williams not have drugs or guns.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Mobile has prosecuted 45 to 50 people on charges related to machine gun conversion devices since 2021. But Williams, 21, is the first accused of manufacturing the devices.
Experts say conversion devices from China have flooded America. But Acting U.S. Attorney Sean Costello told FOX01 News last year that authorities have suspected that people in southwest Alabama are producing homemade versions.
“The vast majority of them are actually 3D printed,” he said. “So as far as what the sources of those are, we’re still looking into it, but it appears that at least some of them are being manufactured locally.”
The ATF affidavit references illegally modified guns on the streets of Montgomery. The agent wrote that he began investigating after the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency stopped a car in August and found an AR-type gun with a “drop-in” auto sear device that converted it into a machine gun.
The affidavit states that information provided by the driver led investigators to Williams’ home on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Evergreen. After determining that Williams did not have a license for the devices, agents obtained a search warrant. In additional to the 3D printer and forging equipment, the criminal complaint states that agents found a gold AR-type device on the shelf in the defendant’s bedroom, 25 to 30 gold conversion devices in various stages of completion in the bedroom and 45 of the devices in the hallway outside of the bedroom, according to the criminal complaint.
The agent wrote that the 3D printer was loaded with gold filament, as well as additional 3D-printed and metal AR type devices in the bedroom. Agents also found a casting mold and casting sand for manufacturing metal products, according to the affidavit.
Testimony also indicates Williams sent the informant a picture in October 2023 of 25 to 30 gold devices designed for AR-type weapons. The message included a video of the defendant firing an AR gun that had been converted, according to the affidavit.
Court records show that Williams denied any knowledge of manufacturing or selling the conversion devices and also initially denied knowledge of any devices within the residence. The agent wrote that Williams admitted that the 3D printer located within the residence is his but first said that he had not used it in five years.
The ATF seized 5,454 machine gun parts throughout the United States from 2017 through 2021. That’s a 570 percent increase over the previous five-year period. Evergreen Police Chief Tristan Robinson said he could not comment about Williams’ arrest because it is a federal investigation. But he added that it is not just big cities that have seen illegally modified guns.
“They’re everywhere – Birmingham, Mobile, even in small towns,” he said.
That a 21-year-old from rural Conecuh County is accused of manufacturing the switches proves aligns with the view of some experts that the process is not particularly sophisticated. David Robinson, a firearms safety instructor with the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office, said during a demonstration Wednesday that it is even easier than trying to buy them online.
“At one time you buy ‘em off Etsy and Temu and things like that,” he said. “You know, a lot of this stuff has stopped. And a lot of people are just making them now.”
In an unsuccessful effort to keep Williams in jail, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Terrill argued he is both a risk to flee and poses a danger to the community. She noted that he pleaded guilty to a pair of misdemeanor charges in Florida and that a judge in that case revoked his bond after he failed to comply with the conditions of bail.
“It’s of concern that he has failed to follow the court’s rules and conditions,” the prosecutor said during a hearing Wednesday.
Terrill also pointed to the nature of the charges, themselves.
“We’re not talking about a guy with one switch,” she said. “We’re talking about someone with 75 of them. … And not only that but he had a 3D printer.”
Assistant Public Defender Colin Fitzpatrick told the judge that his client is presumed innocent and that is “plenty of fertile ground” to defend the charges.
“He’s very motivated to address this in the proper way,” he said. “He’s got strong family ties here. … He’ll have his day in court to address these charges in the proper manner.”
Firearms experts say that in addition to the sheer number of bullets that can be fired in a matter of seconds, the devices are dangerous because they are difficult to control. Authorities say switches played a role in a mass shooting at a birthday party in Dadeville, Alabama, last year and a shooting at a New Year’s Eve celebration in downtown Mobile in 2022.
Costello said his office prosecutions all Glock switch cases that prosecutors believe they can prove.
“We hope that we can, that we can cut off the source of supply – that we can identify those and dissuade anybody else from getting into this,” he said last year.
FOX10 News reporter Daeshen Smith contributed to this report.
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