My father worked for IBM in Essex Junction for many years and he recounted this story about the Police Chief. I don't know the year this happened but likely sometime in the 1970's or very early 80's.
I was curious if anyone here remembers this event or has heard something similar.

The story goes like this:

Back in the day, IBM used to have armed security because they worked on classified/sensitive items for DoD. Armed security was a DoD requirement. At some point these contracts ended or were moved elsewhere and there was no longer any need for armed security guards. In those days the security guards were employed by IBM. They were not contracted out. Their pistols were also company property. This posed a problem of what to do with the guns. It was decided that the best thing to do would be to donate them to the local police, since all the pistols were practically unused.  This would prevent them from falling into the wrong hands and a small police force would benefit from getting extra equipment for free.  The company wouldn't need to worry about legalities or liabilities and they probably got a tax write-off as well. Everybody wins, right?

Apparently the police chief was super anti. He made a big presentation for the media where he had his officers destroy all the guns (not sure how, probably with sledge hammers). He was grabbing headlines saying that they were keeping the community safe and taking guns "off the street". He implied that these were crime guns, which they weren't. It was a slap in the face that IBM tried to do something for the Police Dept. and the Chief turned it into a moment of grandstanding. No good deed goes unpunished.

Can anyone remember this actually happening? Other than going to a library and looking through archives of the Free Press, I am not sure where I would find details. I almost can't believe the stupidity of it all, so it would be fascinating if anyone could provide details.

I don’t have access to the whole article but newspapers.com has the whole free press archive (for a fee).

Saturday March 17th 1973, page 11.
“Village officials have destroyed eight handguns donated to the police department by IBM...”

Thanks for sharing. That is a very helpful research tool.