(RI) State: No cause to charge Portsmouth officers who took guns

[twency]

Cellar Dweller: I'm not completely convinced, but I think you have a good line of reasoning there. I'm going to stop arguing this because even though we may disagree on some elements, I generally agree with what you are saying.

cropwcirclewalker:

If I was a garbage man and found an M1 or a .22 pistol in somebody's trash on the curb and put it in my trunk after work, I would still be liable for prosecution. I don't know if it would be for failing to file a 4473 or violation of the Brady Law or something.

Well, the gun in the news story we're discussing here was a longarm, which doesn't require a 4473 for a private transfer here in PA, I think. (I've never been involved in a private transfer outside of inheriting one, so I've never checked to be sure.) If it was a .22 rifle, I don't think there's a crime they could make stick. Now a pistol, sadly, is another matter, and you might be right about that.
_________________
-twency

 

[cropcirclewalker]

Mr. benewton, Crop here:

Hey, two ships in the night. I worked at Raytheon in Portsmouth back in '69-'70.

Ocean systems.

Yes, I agree, RI, (prior to NOLA) hadda be the most corrupt state in the Union.

If you never lived there, you would never believe it.

That is why I understand the chief's position.

No harm, no foul.

Except, If I could speak Latin, I would say...........

Who is to watch the watchers?

edited because I got the wrong poster

 

[Wastemore]

I don't have time to read the whole thread, so if someone already mentioned this forgive me.

What if *I* walked by and decided I need a new coyote rig and took the 22lr (that had little or no value) out of the open box inside the trunk of the cop car?

No victim, no crime.. right?

 

[DRZinn]

No victim, no crime.. right?

Well, I don't think it should be a crime, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't get slammed. And the cop who left his trunk open as well.

 

[insidious_calm]

So if I get drunk and drive home I've committed no crime, right? Nobody got hurt = no victim right? That's great Doc, maybe I'll take up drinking.....


In this situation the public is the victim. The guns would have been melted down and sold for scrap metal. Thus the public lost the amount of what that scrap would have been worth. Enough for a misdemeanor, screw the thieving crooks!


I.C.

 

[DRZinn]

So if I get drunk and drive home I've committed no crime, right? Nobody got hurt = no victim right?

Pretty much. But even that's not the same because you still put a lot of people in danger.

Thus the public lost the amount of what that scrap would have been worth.

Since the beginning, I've been waiting for someone to say that. It's the only flaw in my argument, and it's a tiny one. So if they were charged with theft of the value of that amount of scrap metal, I guess I wouldn't complain.

 

[Baba Louie]

circlecrop... Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who watches the watchmen?)
It appears that someone does watch the watchers or sheepdogs of our society. Caught. Reported. Penance of a sort. And once again, for the majority, no problems. Good men and women doing a nasty, hard job.

Guns slated for destruction... skim a couple of choice ones off the top. Got caught after the fact, wrists slapped... I'm sure it is carefully written up in their "PERMANENT RECORD"... (yeah right) that they turned themselves in, got fined, went back to doing a nasty, hard job, and probably doing it well.
Next time (and there will be a next time) maybe things can be on the level up front, paperwork, requisitions for scrap wood and metal prior to trip to foundry.

We DO expect and hold our lawdogs to a higher standard than the run-o'-the-mill citizen... and maybe we shouldn't. They are people who put their pants on one leg at a time like me.

But then again... maybe we should...Trust. And Verify.

I can only judge them by my own standards... and I'd probably want to see what was in the pile slated for destruction... and see if there was any way (legally) I could... ya know... save & adopt one or two of the poor little guys... wouldn't you? And if there was no way legally... what's that phrase, ethical dilemna (who's watching me now? No one? Cost vs. Risk? Breaking THE LAW or breaking administrative policy?

 

[svtruth]

I'm a victim

+1 Baba Louie
I live in RI and would have loved an opportunity to pick over the pile. But because I'm just a citizen, I did not get an opportunity to.
Seems to me if I am not allowed to skim off a firearm, the LEO should not be either.
JMHO.

 

[justashooter]

Cellar Dweller:

cropwcirclewalker:Well, the gun in the news story we're discussing here was a longarm, which doesn't require a 4473 for a private transfer here in PA, I think. (I've never been involved in a private transfer outside of inheriting one, so I've never checked to be sure.) If it was a .22 rifle, I don't think there's a crime they could make stick. Now a pistol, sadly, is another matter, and you might be right about that.
_________________
-twency

interestingly enough, if the recipient has a ccw, there is no requirement for a transfer process under the 6100 series statutes.

 

[antarti]

Just how inadvertent?

The case might never have come to light had it not been for the circumstances surrounding one of the missing five guns.

That weapon, an Armsport 12-gauge shotgun, had been seized from a drunk driver. When it was later determined that the man was a hunter and that there was no reason to keep his gun, he was told he could retrieve it.

Except that by then it was nowhere to be found.

Believing the gun must inadvertently have been destroyed with the nearly 100 others that had just been "purged" from the evidence room — some dating back 20 years, the chief was about to tell the gun owner that the gun had been destroyed.

But before he could do so, the chief said that Det. Hoetzel came in and admitted that he had seen the gun among the others about to be driven off to the foundry and had asked for permission to take it.

Sounds to me like the 12-guage wasn't supposed to be destroyed. Also sounds like the chief "assumed" it had been unintentionally destroyed when it couldn't be found.

The whole issue of how would the Chief have made the owner "whole" after that notwithstanding, doesn't anybody see anything fishy here?

How much you wanna bet it only made it into the "destroy" box because somebody wanted to skim it off later? Sorry, I don't buy the premise that this was "somebody gun-loving saving firearms from a bad fate" or "it sure seems a waste to toss these guns when we LEOs can use them" or "hey, that was Hank's gun, and I'm a friend of his".

I (personally) think there's more to the story. I worked in a grocery when very young. And some employees used to stuff cases of beer into empty boxes and put them out with the trash, to retreive later... same tactic I would wager.

Who did they ask permission from then? Ostensibly the chief right? He seems to know nothing about it. Gimme a break.

Then wagons got circled and the discovery got cut off, and "just in time" (for the Chief as much as the officers sake) too... sure they "admitted to stealing" what amounts to garbage from the pail, as opposed to putting it there and then stealing it.

Slap on the wrist? Check! Everybody happy? Case closed!