Police Stop -- Reaction to Gun

[Guntalk]

I'd like to get the thoughts and the experiences of the folks on THR about something that came up during the radio show yesterday.

Long story, but a man (with witnesses) was carrying openly in Missouri. The Springfield Police Department officers who stopped him, he was on a bicycle, kept him for two hours on the side of the road, asking everything from where he was going and why he had a gun, to information about his taxes, to finally saying he would never get a CCW in Missouri because they were calling the sheriff of his country, and they telling him that if they ever saw him carrying openly again, they would force him into involuntary commitment in a mental institution for evaluation, and then he would never be able to get a carry license or buy a gun.

All with with a witness. I talked with the man and the witness.

Following that, I got calls and then emails from people all over the country who have had similar treatment from police who stopped them and saw a (LEGAL) gun in the car (for instance, a shotgun on the back seat). Questions such as why the person has a shotgun ("None of your business, officer" would be the comment I would like to make), where was he going, etc. Officers drew guns at the mere sight of an unloaded shotgun on a back seat.

Another caller said some Portland, OR, officers now carry thorazine they can administer. Can this be correct?

What experiences have the folks here had with police reaction to legal open carry, or to traffic stops where you had a legal firearm with you?

 

[clange]

From what i've heard from a couple college students there (springfield), most of the police there are nazis. Dont have any stories about carry, but that story doesnt surprise me at all.

 

[AZRickD]

Tom, I was listening to your show yesterday (headphones during yard work).

I can say that police harassment even happens in Arizona on ocassion (college town Tempe, to me personally for carrying openly down Mill Avenue or the Glendale protest we did back in 2000). Unlike others, however, I welcome the "contact" to educate the police and the masses.

I'm sure the thread is archived at TFLine or GlockTalk but my searches won't find it.

Here is the Glendale activism
http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=29600&highlight=Glendale

I have a hard time believing that cops are allowed to administer Thorazine.

I suspect that is highly regulated and required a medical background to use.

Rick

 

[geekWithA.45]

officers now carry thorazine they can administer. Can this be correct?

That is EXTREMELY UNLIKELY.

Thorazine is a major tranquilizer, pretty high up on the controlled substance list, requiring a prescription, dose calibration, drug interactions, and so on.


Dosing a person, who may have ingested uncounted and unknown other substances with thorazine would be massively irresponsible.

 

[Don Gwinn]

I dunno. I do know about 30 TFLers carried openly in Springfield a few years ago at the End of Summer meet at Gunslinger's. I myself carried a SIG P220 (first time I'd ever carried a firearm in public) openly on my right hip. I even carried it into a local gas station to buy my gas, and nobody batted an eye. I never got any grief from anybody.

 

[Smoke]

No open carry here....but,

I often carry long arms, loaded, in my vehicle in plain view. Most officer's I've encountered have pretty much been indifferent to them. At most they simply wanted to know what kind of gun I had.

I suspect guns are so common in vehicles in TX that to the police it's just no big deal.

I smell a bigtime lawsuit if Plice are allowed to administer Prescription Medications at their own descretion. Surely this is a rumor. If not, I'd run like hell from Portland. Matter of fact, I think I'd leave the northwest entirely.

Smoke

 

[Art Eatman]

Even in Texas: A minority of LEOs aren't conversant with the various laws about firearms. Although not common, some people have had an inordinate amount of hassle due to the possession of a handgun in their vehicles.

Even before our CHL law was enacted, court precedent had it that when one was a "traveller"--defined as being out of one's home county overnight--the possession of a means of self-defense was appropriate. Not all LEOs were aware of this, although most were.

I'm dubious about the thorazine claim. Sounds like a bluff. The liability aspects would strike terror into any municipality's insurance company.

Seems to me that this is another of those instances where queries to the Top Cop and the Mayor or County Judge might be appropriate. Certainly about the thorazine and commitment comments.

"Two bad apples" of LEOs, maybe? Or, excess boredom? Quien sabe?

Art

 

[sch40]

I just had a friend come back to St. Louis from Springfield (where he got his degree). He could tell quite a few stories about the egos and harrassment the people of Springfield have to endure from the police there. They sound like quite a bunch of para-military JBTs.

Aside from second hand stories, some of the police and populace of Missouri are getting all willy-nilly about the concealed-carry weapons law that was just passed (er... it was passed months ago, but the injunction was just cleared by the MO Supreme Court... ). There are outright lies and fearful slander flying around the op-ed pages, the word "loophole" is being thrown around very ... er, liberally. Some local police chiefs have even said publicly that if they catch anyone who is carrying a firearm concealed, their officers' policy is to handcuff the detainee for the duration of the stop, and confiscate the firearm (to do ballistics/serial checking -- to determine if the firearm has been used in a crime). Chilling scare tactic, but I doubt that it will happen (and if it does, I doubt it will happen more than once!) Hopefully the people and police who are "concerned" by the "implications" of this law will realize that about 35 other states have right-to-carry, and crime rates usually decrease a little when they are adopted.

Take care, all,
sch40

 

[VNgo]

Another caller said some Portland, OR, officers now carry thorazine they can administer. Can this be correct?

I strongly doubt it -- they don't even let EMTs administer thorazine, and EMTs have a lot more medical training than cops do.

 

[Gillster]

Here is my story of the only time I've been pulled over with guns in the car. I just left the range following a steel challenge type match. I drive a small truck and had my range bag, gun case and holster layed out on the passenger seat. I had 3 guns in the case and my 1911 carry gun in the glove compartment. I had put my wallet in the range bag and forgot to put it back in my pocket before I left for home and it was buried under a pile of moonclips with empties. Anyway, DPS pulls me over for expired tag (which I knew about and was trying to remedy) and comes up to the truck. I kept my hand on the wheel when he asked for License and insurance and explained my license and CHL were in the shooting bag and I had multiple guns and lots of ammo in the truck and asked how he wanted to procede. The trooper stated "you have a CHL"? yes sir I replied. Then he said go ahead and dig the wallet out and let me check them. Moved the pile of moons, handed over the license and CHL, he checked them over asked what I carried, what kind of match I was shooting and gave me a warning to get the tags renewed. He was a young guy and very proffesional. I was very impressed and not just because he gave me a warning. Maybe that's just Texas though.


Chris

 

[Brett Bellmore]

Heck, I know somebody who got shot full of the stuff by a cop twenty years ago in Georgia. I've got doubts about whether it was legal for him to do it, since when he checked later, all records of the encounter, including the several days he spent in the mental institution, were missing.

And it's not just a BS story, I was along for the trip when we got him out of the psyco ward... His family got tipped off by somebody at the joint, or they'd never have known where he disappeared to.

 

[armoredman]

I have had many contacts with LE while carrying openly here in the Tucson area, and have never had a bad experiance with any officer. In fact, some have asked about loads or weapon types, and one ended up with the addy for czforum.com . The only people who have given me grief about open carry are either out of business or have changed policy. I don't go to the malls, either, since that's a defensless zone.



BTW, Tucson people - Macy's has a sign up. No Handguns. I warned them when they were a client that some one was going to walk in with a rifle, and there wasn't anything they could do about it!!!! Someone try it.....

 

[Mr. Kook]

If the police are not legally authorized to administer thorazine I would think their possession of it, having it out and attempting to inject someone with it would constitute an unlawful assault giving the victim the right to fight back by any means (including lethal) available to them.

Suddenly it seems like a good idea to keep a tape recorder in the car.

 

[VNgo]

Hell yes. Any attempt by unqualified personnell to administer a drug like thorazine is potentially deadly; do you really think Officer Joe Friday knows all of the contraindications for thorazine, much less how to calculate the dosage required for your age and weight? I would *definitely* go to the DA and demand that he prosecute the officer for practicing medicine without a license, as well as gross negligence, then get a lawyer and file a civil lawsuit for the same.

 

[Cosmoline]

I often keep rifles in open sight in my pickup, since a swing by the range is always a possibility schedule permitting. Been pulled over a few times, and while I object strongly to the size of the fines for registration issues, no mention was made of the rifle in the passenger seat.

Didn't the Mayor of St. Louis declare war on all gun owners recently? Something to the effect that anyone carrying concealed, legal or not, would be cuffed and smacked around.

I wish some cowboy would shoot me up with Thorazine. The size of the verdict in my favor would be enough to get me into early retirement--in HIS house! Section 1984 allows direct suits against the government agent in such circumstances.

 

[moa]

I think the threat to having the subject involutarily committed to a mental institution for evaluation is a crock too.

I think for that to happen, it would take a court order, or a doctor/s to authorized that, and I do not think legal open carry of a firearm rises to that occasion.

Holding somebody on the side of the road for two hours when no obvious crime has been committed might be considered false arrest under the color of the law. That is Federal violation under 18 USC.

I wonder if in police academies they cover 18 United States Code and enforcing the law and various violations under color of the law? Penalities can include up to death.

 

[VNgo]

I think the threat to having the subject involutarily committed to a mental institution for evaluation is a crock too.

I think for that to happen, it would take a court order, or a doctor/s to authorized that, and I do not think legal open carry of a firearm rises to that occasion.

Police and psychologists can place a patient under a 5150, which is a 72-hour psych hold. That's a temporary psychiatric detention at hospital for people who are a danger to themselves or others; it can be extended beyond 72 hours if necessary, but only by court order.

 

[gunsmith]

a friend got committed to the looney bin by cops

I think it's called 5150,back in NY in the 1980's.
He didn't have ID and getting him released was a real chore,he was saying things like "you have no right to arrest me" and challenging their authority to question him,only crazy people did that in NY in those days.

I know a SF cop who thinks it's "crazy" to want to carry a gun (if your not a cop)

Alot of liberals think we are crazy,hence the term "gun nut".
The leeeetle voices assure me it's the liberals that are crazy

 

[Bacchus]

Police and psychologists can place a patient under a 5150, which is a 72-hour psych hold. That's a temporary psychiatric detention at hospital for people who are a danger to themselves or others; it can be extended beyond 72 hours if necessary, but only by court order.

The police CANNOT put a 72 hour hold on a person at a psychiatric hospital. The most that they can do is detain the person and drop them off at the hospital. The people who work at the hospital will evaluate the individual and make the determination if s/he should be admitted.

 

[VNgo]

The police CANNOT put a 72 hour hold on a person at a psychiatric hospital. The most that they can do is detain the person and drop them off at the hospital. The people who work at the hospital will evaluate the individual and make the determination if s/he should be admitted.

Not at a psychiatric hospital, at a regular hospital. It's clearly spelled out in my EMT textbooks, and we had three 5150 patients brought in by the Glendale PD when I was in the ER for my clinical rotations during EMT training.

 

[moa]

I would think employing the 5150 option for someone peacefully engaged in lawful activity would be stretch. Sounds like lawsuit city.

If some LEO was threatening me with 5150 option for doing something perfectly legal, I would encourage them to go ahead. I always wanted to be rich man.

 

[LoneStranger]

Methinks that a conversation with the person on the bicycle and the witnesses should seriously happen.
I would be surprised that a hungry lawyer hasn't started working this. Would look like an easy judgement against police.

Being in KS we are not allowed to defend ourselves against the Friends of Law Enforcement, aka Criminals, so I could not offer any other comments.

 

[VNgo]

I would think employing the 5150 option for someone peacefully engaged in lawful activity would be stretch. Sounds like lawsuit city.

If some LEO was threatening me with 5150 option for doing something perfectly legal, I would encourage them to go ahead. I always wanted to be rich man.

The 5150 is supposed to be used only when a person is a danger to himself or others. Some police departments won't touch them with a six-foot pole; others issue them willy-nilly.

 

[Gray Peterson]

Long story, but a man (with witnesses) was carrying openly in Missouri. The Springfield Police Department officers who stopped him, he was on a bicycle, kept him for two hours on the side of the road, asking everything from where he was going and why he had a gun, to information about his taxes, to finally saying he would never get a CCW in Missouri because they were calling the sheriff of his country, and they telling him that if they ever saw him carrying openly again, they would force him into involuntary commitment in a mental institution for evaluation, and then he would never be able to get a carry license or buy a gun.

Then he needs to file a 18USC1983 lawsuit against the officers involved.

 

[Cosmoline]

The 5150 is supposed to be used only when a person is a danger to himself or others. Some police departments won't touch them with a six-foot pole; others issue them willy-nilly.

My guess is the latter group just hasn't been sued yet, while the former group has.