SCARBOROUGH – The gun used by accused Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a shootout with police was purchased at Cabela’s in Scarborough, according to a Los Angeles Times story published Tuesday.

The story quotes federal law enforcement, which ordered a trace of the 9-millimeter Ruger P95 handgun used in the shootout. After a week of trying to “raise” serial numbers that had been filed down on the gun, authorities identified the weapon as one that had been purchased Nov. 27, 2011, “as part of a multiple handgun sale” at the Scarborough Cabela’s, the newspaper reports. The article identified the initial buyer as Danny Sun Jr., a Los Angeles native living in South Portland at the time.

The Ruger was used by Tsarnaev and his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as they attempted to flee Boston two days after the bombings took place. According to the newspaper, the gun was used by Tamarlan Tsarnaev to injure Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officer Richard Donohue during the shootout with police, in which Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was killed and his brother fled, to be found later hiding in a boat in the back yard of a Watertown residence. Sean Collier, the MIT security officer, was killed with the gun earlier that night. The story also recounts how, out of bullets, Tamarlan Tsarnaev threw the gun at authorities in a last act of defiance.

The story says Tamarlan Tsarnaev was involved in drug trafficking and worked with a Portland-based gang. The story says he likely was given the gun by an immigrant from Eritrea, 26-year-old Biniam Tsegai, who has since been incarcerated at Cumberland County Jail and is refusing to cooperate with investigators on the origins of the gun, which may have been used in other homicides and drug-related violence by Tamarlan Tsarnaev. Tsegai, the story said, originally got the gun from Danny Sun Jr. After passing it to Tsegai, “the trail goes cold,” the LA Times reported. “Precisely how Tsarnaev got the gun is still unclear.”

–Staff reports