Waterloo Man Sentenced to Prison after Being Caught with “Ghost Gun” at High School Football Game

A Waterloo man who possessed a loaded privately made firearm, also known as a “ghost gun,” and ammunition at a Waterloo high school football game was sentenced yesterday to nearly four years in prison. 

Dayton Amaru Shakur Bruce, age 20, from Waterloo, Iowa, received the prison term after an April 4, 2024, guilty plea to possession of ammunition by a drug user.

Information disclosed during the plea and sentencing hearings revealed that, in August 2023, Waterloo police officers responded to Waterloo East High School after a fight broke out.  Officers observed Bruce in the crowd and attempted to contact him after learning he may be involved in the fight.  Bruce ran and officers chased him throughout the parking lot.  Along the way, Bruce threw a fully loaded “ghost gun” in the back of a pickup truck.  Bruce did not know the owner of the pickup truck.  Officers took Bruce into custody and located the gun in the pickup truck.  Bruce was under the influence of marijuana at the time and was a regular user of marijuana.  “Ghost guns” are guns which are often assembled from kits, do not contain serial numbers, and are sold without background checks, making them difficult to trace and easy to acquire by criminals.

At sentencing, the court also found that Bruce was involved in a shooting in June 2023.  During that incident, Bruce shot into a car hitting the victim in the back of the head.  The victim survived that incident. Bruce was later located by police and the gun used in that shooting was found nearby.

Bruce was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by Chief United States District Court Judge C.J. Williams.  Bruce was sentenced to 46 months’ imprisonment.  He must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term.  There is no parole in the federal system.

This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Ashley Corkery and investigated by the Waterloo Police Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations.  

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.

The case file number is 24gv-CR-2010.

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