Actually the story did not state that the gun was taken for evidence but a poster suggested that was the cause, the story itself only stated that the police took the weapon.
As the shotgun was not fired in the incident there was no cause for the police to take the weapon in to evidence. Most likely it is the policy of the department to take any weapon in view when they arrive on the scene of a crime “in to custody”.
In my experience of reading about these cases it then becomes a legal tug of war between the police department and the owner of the weapon for position of the weapon. Most often the owner of the weapon gives up because the cost of recovery becomes more than the weapon is worth. The police then have defacto ownership of the weapon and it is eventually an unclaimed weapon that is part of a gun replacement deal or less often these days an auction.
It is my experience that what is written in a news story has little to zero to do with what really happened but my experience in being at crime scenes involving felony assaults involving weapons is that everything which is evidence supporting or disproving all persons’ s involved stories...witnesses victims and suspect...get thrown into evidence.
That’s just been my experience...and to read a “ news story” and try to take the lack of reality based info in the news piece and make assumptions claiming theft of property for financial gain or other reasons is just silly.
When I read a news story related to gun or conservatives or religion I say to myself “wow...if that was true it would be amazing” because the media rarely get it right on thise topics.