Prosecutor warns Brockton about 'Glock switches' that turn pistols into machine guns

BROCKTON — As an Army veteran, Erik Martin can tell gunfire from fireworks. Starting on Friday nights and going through the weekend, he says his neighborhood rings with bullets.

"It's like a gun war going off around Campello Station," Martin said to a panel of police and prosecutors.

Martin was among about 50 people who came to a "Safe Streets Task Force" forum at the Arnone School on Wednesday, June 12. The office of Plymouth County's top law enforcement official, District Attorney Tim Cruz, organized the meeting. The panel included a Brockton Police lieutenant, a state trooper, a U.S. attorney plus agents for the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Kevin McCarthy, an assistant district attorney for Plymouth County, emceed the session. Among the updates he gave was that authorities are increasingly concerned with "Glock switches." These devices turn pistols into machine guns.

"We're seeing this more and more out in the community, we're seeing this more and more with illegal firearms," McCarthy said. "It's extremely dangerous. It allows a semi-automatic firearm which is fired once, you have to wait and fire again, to simply be fully automatic. It's just incredibly dangerous."

How violent is Brockton? We compared it to 8 other cities to get the real answer.

See how much faster pistols can fire with a Glock switch

This video from the Enterprise's sister paper in Indianapolis shows how much faster a pistol can fire with one.

McCarthy said that under federal law, pistols with Glock switches are considered machine guns. In Massachusetts, however, the switches aren't illegal if they aren't on the gun, he said. People can make the switches at home on a 3-D printer. A gun reform bill that would outlaw the mechanisms is stuck on Beacon Hill, the Boston Herald reported.

A Brockton man is in state prison after a jury convicted him of possession of a .40 caliber Glock pistol with a switch to make it a machine gun, the District Attorney's office said. A judge threw out the machine gun charge but Erik Teixeira was sent to prison for other gun charges. He was 26 at the time he was found guilty in 2021.

Untraceable 'Ghost guns' increasing at 'alarming rate' in Brockton

New license plate readers to be deployed

In response to Martin's question about gunfire near Campello Station, Brockton Police Lt. David Farrell said the department is getting 20 new license plate readers which should help identify cars involved in shootings. The readers take a high-quality photo as opposed to video.

Violent crime down in Brockton, but burglaries up

McCarthy said statistics show violent crime is down in Brockton. A slide from his presentation showed that robbery is down 58% from 2017 to 2023 and aggravated assaults are off 23% over that period. Burglaries, which are not considered violent crimes, are up 17%, however.

Criminals get help re-entering society

While most of the discussion was about law enforcement, one panelist detailed his work helping criminals rehabilitate. James Frazier, an outreach re-entry specialist for the Plymouth County Sheriff's Office, said he holds office hours three days a week at Brockton City Hall. People who have completed their prison sentences can get help from him like getting a birth certificate or driver's license, the kind of documents one needs to get a straight job. In the last four years, he said, he's helped about 500 people obtain such documents.

The Safe Streets Task Force, which met with the public regularly before COVID, plans to hold another meeting in September. The date has not been set.

Send your news tips to reporter Chris Helms by email at CHelms@enterprisenews.com or connect on X at @HelmsNews.

This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Prosecutor warns Brockton about 'incredibly dangerous' Glock switches