TONAWANDA, N.Y. — Justice for one family in Western New York brought to light an increasing threat to the entire region.
The Erie County Court sentenced Tonawanda’s Matthew Gerwitz to 65 years to life in prison for murder, attempted murder, and criminal possession of a weapon.
In 2020, Gerwitz shot and killed 32-year-old Joseph Marasco and later shot at six police officers with an AR-style weapon while they were investigating the murder outside his Tonawanda home.
Authorities recovered five firearms from his apartment, and each one was a ghost gun.
“He had materials in his home to make ghost guns,” Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said. “He admitted basically that he made the assault weapon.”
A ghost gun is a gun that can be purchased online in pieces and assembled. They allow buyers to bypass critical background check laws.
Jeff Rinaldo, the former captain of the Buffalo Police Department, said the use of ghost guns has been on the rise in recent years.
“That is the problem,” Rinaldo said. “They're not really selling a gun. They're selling bits and pieces of a gun. It's not a functioning weapon that you buy from them, so that's what allows it to skirt the federal firearms laws.”
In 2017, ghost guns were tied to about 1,600 crime scenes, according to The New York Times. In 2021, they were recovered at the scene of nearly 20,000.
“When you go to the website to order the components, they're not doing a background check on you,” Rinaldo said. “They're not doing any of the necessary steps to make sure that you are who you say you are and that you're allowed to have these types of weapons.”
A bill was passed in New York last year to make it illegal to possess a ghost gun or sell parts, which security experts say was a key step toward preventing these weapons from continuously popping up at crime scenes. However, they say it won’t be an issue resolved overnight.
While investigators put to rest a years-old case, Monday’s sentencing brought notice to an emerging issue they hope the community will now be conscious of.