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In May 1991, the bad guys that Chicago police chased were gang members. In the last three months, the Gang Crimes Section had seized about 1,500 weapons. So, on May 3, 1991, when police raided a Marina City apartment and seized 285 guns, the largest single seizure of weapons in Chicago, they may have thought they were up against gang members.

Police said one of the bedrooms in the two-bedroom apartment had been turned into a weapons bunker. The walls were lined with heavy steel lockers and safes that contained guns and ammunition, protected by an electronic alarm system. The weapons seized included handguns and assault weapons.

“Thank God they didn’t decide to stand us off,” Commander Robert Dart told the Chicago Tribune.

Police used the seizure as a backdrop at a news conference two days later – a Sunday – to show support for a new package of state gun control laws. Police superintendent LeRoy Martin said at the news conference it was only a matter of time before similar assault weapons were turned on police officers.

But the owner of the apartment on the 44th floor of the east tower was a licensed gun collector, Francis Samp. An honorably discharged Korean War veteran, Samp owned four condominium units at Marina City, an insurance company, and a small parking lot on West Kinzie Street. He had lived at Marina City for 25 years without incident. (Left) Francis Samp and unidentified friend in early 1970s. Photo by Paul Huebl.

He was charged with failure to register weapons. Also arrested was Charles Baumer, a former police officer who sublet from Samp. The previous month, police had found 71 weapons in another apartment Samp owned at Marina City.

According to Paul Huebl, a former Chicago police officer who was a friend of Samp’s, the search warrant police used was “based on bogus information that was provided by, unfortunately, corrupt police officers.”

Huebl, himself a former resident of Marina City, says Samp was exempt from registering the guns under a law that was new at the time.

“He did everything he was supposed to do,” insists Huebl. After eight years of prosecution, Samp was not convicted and every weapon that had been seized, according to Huebl, was returned. One gun that the police first thought was stolen turned out to be rightfully owned by Samp. It was listed as stolen, Huebl says, due to a clerical error.

Samp kept a World War I era cannon on his balcony pointed toward the Chicago River. He later became a probation officer for Cook County and died in 2021 at the age of 88. (Right) Anna Marie Black-Hedekin formally surrenders to a World War I era cannon that defended an east tower balcony in the 1970s. The cannon belonged to Marina City resident Francis Samp (1933-2021). Photo by Paul Huebl.

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