UPDATE:Seized By Manchester PD For Carry - 911 & Dispatch Transcript

[flatrock]

The 911 transcript makes things sound like they handled things pretty well.

However, the original story tells a considerable different story in my opinion.

The police used force to apprehend someone who was doing nothing illegal. He was doing nothing suspicious other than possessing a gun in a legal manner. He had been in the area for a considerable amount of time and had done nothing suspicious.

The dispatcher had this information. They also knew that the manager of the store, which is private property, had checked things out and hadn't been concerned. Did they call the manager of the store, or have the responding officers talk to the manager before taking aggressive action against someone who had been hanging out in the store shopping for a considerable amount of time before they arrived?

The officers apparently didn't get all the information they needed, and then went in way too aggressively for the situation. There wasn't any evidence of a threat, and definately not an immediate one. They should have taken a moment to assess the situation, rather than rushing in to confiscate the legally carrier gun first.

They followed that up by a number of officers giving him crap about carrying a gun, acting rudely. Not a good public relations effort when you just screwed up.

Personally, I still wouldn't have contacted a lawyer at this point, and neight did he.

Those are mistakes they should admit to, and take efforts to make sure they don't happen again. He wrote the police department giving them his side of the story. Rather than start by sueing, he gave the police a chance to address the problem, and make an appology.

Did they appologize? Did they say that they would look into their procedures and train the officers and dispatchers to handle situations like this better?

No, they stonewalled him, and even originally ignored his legal requests for public records. They added insult to injury.

The officers need to be told that they handled the situation wrong. The dispatcher needs to be told that they need to get the officers more of the important information, although it's possible that they did, since it appears that the 911 recording they were given is shorter than the actual time.

This guy also deserves an appology, and since they forced him to hire a lawyer to get them to address the issue, they need to pay his legal fees.

Should he get a huge settlement? I'm inclined to say no.

 

[1911Tuner]

1945

Henry Bowman...No argument there. It's largely a matter of where you are.
I remember a time when blacks had to take their meals "out back" too...
and about the same time, there was a little family-owned restaurant
in my area that treated everybody the same...black or white...and it was in the south. Mixed race patrons often ate together or shared tables and whiled away a few minutes in conversation before getting back to their daily routine. Status Quo for the diner. An hour down the road at another spot, it would've caused a stir...or worse.

Times have also changed in inverse order on the practice of going armed.
I can remember carrying openly into the Hall of Justice to apply for a pistol permit not so many years ago...and having the county Sheriff engage me in
convresation about my choice in sidearms, and even offer me his for inspection. I wouldn't try that in the same building now...even without the
metal detectors.

A family restaurant in Paulden, Arizona probably has a hlaf-dozen open carriers take breakfast or lunch there every day...but Atlanta might produce different results. Again...there are some places that it's acceptable, but others that aren't.

 

[Deavis]

I was thinking about the LEO view of a situation like this. The general feel I get, from reading their posts, is that a LEO is walking into this situation blind, ie he doesn't know if it is a badguy carrying a weapon or a good guy.

Now, at first I said, "yeah, how could he. I'd be worried too." That doesn't mean I agree with their actions while disarming mvpel. Then I thought about it a bit and it made me wonder, how many bad guys carry openly? I mean, seriously, I'm curious to know.

How many criminals have ever carried a weapon openly in public before committing a crime. I'm not talking about getting out of a car, grabbing a shotty, and charging the bank. I mean, they are going to rob the local Stop'n'Shop. So they strap on their piece, drop off the mail at the PO, grab the latest Maxim at the bookstop, walk over to the Stop'n'Shop, rob them, hit the liqour store for a bottle, and then go to the park to lay low with their 9 still strapped on?

A little farfetched, but seriously, by their very nature a criminal wouldn't be open carrying. It would remove all advantages to committing a crime, ie surprise, force, intimidation, and stealth. So, LEOs, chime in here and tell me, how many open carrying criminals have you arrested in your career?

I am willing to bet that none can say that they actually nailed a BG that was open carrying while not committing a crime. Thus, once again, it is the people who follow the laws that are punished by those who chose to enforce as they see fit, ie hassling a guy who was following the law.

The issue that makes me upset is this. If I am stopped by a LEO and I don't know the law, I can still be convicted for it. Ignorance of the law is not a defense to prosecution. If you are stopped by a LEO, arrested/detained/harrassed/etc because he is ignorant of the law you can not prosecute him for it. The very people who arrest us for not knowing the law are exempted from any penalties by law except under a very narrow set of circumstances. I'm not saying they should be thrown in jail, but a little something to bring home the point that you cannot exercise your power blindly would help.

Do you see how that can make people upset? LEOs say, "we are only human we made a mistake. sorry about arresting/harrasing/etc you" Yet, their is no punishment for their wrong doing that could have cost a person their life, job, money, or a plethora of other things.

LEO says sorry, they go home or get suspended with pay. We say sorry, judge says too bad, and we go to jail. Is that not injustice for a man who prides himself on knowing and following the law?

 

[Aguila Blanca]

You've got to be kidding. Shield, do you even know what the Lethal Force Institute is? Talking about graduating LFI is bragging about your "lethal training?" LFI training is all about the prudent, judicious use of force only when it is necessary AND in accordance with law. You might have heard of the guy who runs it--Massad Ayoob. He's the police officer who writes all those gun rag articles on the topic of NOT being Rambo and understanding the use of lethal force in terms of the damage everyone involved sustains afterward. I mean absolutely no offense by this, but it sounds like you're referring to police department training, maybe in addition to academy training. If you've had that, and MVPel has had LFI, he's probably ahead of you in his knowledge of lethal force and all the wonderful reasons not to resort to it. Maybe not, or maybe you've had more advanced training than you let on above, but the way you characterize LFI and concealed carry courses as encouraging reckless application of lethal force doesn't give that impression. Frankly, it makes it appear that you're commenting on matters in which your understanding is the exact opposite of reality.

Pardon me for piling on if this has already been mentioned and I skipped over it, but MVPel was accosted in the Manchester, New Hampshire, Barnes and Noble bookstore. Massaad Ayoob and his Lethal Force Institute are located right up the road from there, in New Hampshire. Mass Ayoob is an annual competitor in inter-departmental shooting competitions and has won several New Hampshire state championships. If the officers who were harrassing MVPel had not heard of Ayoob and/or the Institute, shame on them.

To summarize: The "harm" was not that officers responded to the idiotic phone complaint. We all understand that they are required to do so. The "harm" is that they physically accosted an innocent person who was not engaged in threatening activity. What uif he were a martial arts expert? We might now be reading about an officer who dies from receiving a lethal karate chop, and a civilian who was shot by the backup officer for "resisting an officer" (who did not identify himself as an officer before accosting MVPel). Secondly, the "harm" was the ridiculous round of lectures about non-LEOs carrying handguns. There is no way anything of that nature wass justified. The national and state constitutions guarantee the man's RIGHT to carry. He chose to exercise that right. WHY he chose to do so is none of their business. End of story.

 

[Gunsnrovers]

We don't have the right to open carry in the PRK. I see it regularly when I visit my folks in Arizona.

I have absolutely NO problem with open carry. I would choose not to as I don't like to draw attention. However, if I CCW and print or my shirt gets lifted, ext., I would like to think I wouldn't find myself beneath the floodlights of a ghetto bird, surrounded by half the freakin' squad cars in the area, face down felony prone. BTDT wearing only my shorts on a cold January night outside my own home. No thanks. Not again. Different story for a different day.

I think it's outrageous what happened to Mvpel, but I don't know the answer. It's almost a no win for the PD. If they don't respond or don't respond "forecfully" enough, they get slammed. If they go to far, they get slammed. Until the government comes out and actually makes a stand on the 2nd amendment, we're going to have to deal with this crap. As long as it's uncertain, the responses for the public and the LEO community will be as well. LEO's are just folks. Some are great guys. Some are complete morons. Wish people wore tags so you could tell which was which before you start talking. :banghead:

 

[DigitalWarrior]

AND WHY I AM SO TICKED OFF

New Hampshire was chosen by the Free State Project as a place for lovers of Liberty to gather. Open carry is one of those RIGHTS that the citizens have not had stolen from them.

When I goto NH, I will open carry or CCW as I see fit. The police should not detain me "just for walking around", nor should they detain me for "just walking around with a pistol in my holster".

I understand that Police Officer's are often put in a bad position. The must try to keep people happy, and the criminal element at bay. I often feel sorry that a police officer has to walk that line. But then I stop saying "Well if they didn't want to, they would be used-car salesmen."

Cops must treat all people as potentially armed, and hostile until proven otherwise. If they don't, they leave behind a widow and two kids. But the Cops that I know seem to know that and still not frisk every man woman and child they see.

Partaking in a PERFECTLY LEGAL act is not PC for detainment. If I am ever detained for eating ice cream (cause you know terrorists eat ice cream too), I will be saddened.

 

[DigitalWarrior]

BTW Shield, do you open carry ever?

Or is it differrent because you are a police officer?

 

[Sindawe]

Folks, no cop-bashing please...

Lets try to keep this thread civil and not get it shut down. DigitalWarrior, you sound like you're starting down that path, I can hear the sarcasum dripping off your last post. I'm not a mod, just a fellow member who growing a tad weary of the needless flamefests that sometimes occur.

Sheild529: I don't concur with your assesment at all, but thank you for posting it. flatrock and Deavis have stated what *I* see wrong here. Yes the police have an obligation to check out calls, its their job after all. We don't pay cops to sit in shiny patrol cars, drink java and look heroic after all. Checking out the situation, no problem. Contacting the individual in question/root of the call, no problem. The issue as far as I'm concerned is the manner of the contact between mvpel and the police here. It strikes me that the officers in this debacle did not take a few seconds to observe and assess the situation before acting. 5 or 10 seconds should have been sufficent to deterime that mvpel was minding his own buisness, peacefully, and not acting in an irrational or threatening manner at the moment. There should have been no need to approch from behind, grap & push mvpel unawares and assume an additude about fellow civialans carrying weapons in public. Verbal contact, yes, by one officer while the other one stands at ready out of the line of sight.

If mvpel HAD been behaiving in a erratic, aggitated or threatening manner when the police arrived, THEN the actions they took in this situation would have been justified. I listened to and read the transcript of the 911 calls, nothing there gives me cause to believe that somebody was running amuk with a gun. I rather wish the police report were available to read, since then we would have BOTH sides of the story. (If it is avaliable, any body got a URL for it?)

 

[DigitalWarrior]

There was a high degree of sarcasm in the last post, but I do not think that it was terribly inappropriate. Perhaps then I should rephrase it into a direct and Honest question:

Shield - why is it OK for you to protect your life with open carry and not OK for me to protect my life with open carry. And I do not believe that anyone would find the answer "because I am a cop" acceptable.

 

[ojibweindian]

Shield, its a losing battle trying to explain the LEO perspective on this incident around here, on AR15.com where this was beat to death, etc. They'll never understand.

And neither will you.

 

[tcsd1236]

Shield - why is it OK for you to protect your life with open carry and not OK for me to protect my life with open carry. And I do not believe that anyone would find the answer "because I am a cop" acceptable.

I can't speak for Shield, but I don't know any officer who "open carries" outside of plainclothes officers with their tins on their belt while on duty.

And neither will you.

I understand perfectly well that non-LEO's don't understand the LEO perspective or how we operate other than what they see on TV, and based on that they usually post from a position of ignorance when they comment on LE issues.

 

[ojibweindian]

I understand that there seems to be a goodly number of "police officers" who are okay with abusing their authority in order to "come home safely" each night.

As far as a "position of ignorance" is concerend, I would assume that you operate with some ignorance as to the general reputation of LE at this time, because your statements and position on this issue re-inforces a part of this reputation, i. e. circling the waggons around LEOs who have exhibited bad behavior.

It's simple, when your profession loses its JBT mentality, you will see fewer "cop-bashing" threads.

 

[SRYnidan]

I have followed this thread since its inception and have said nothing but there are something’s I would like to touch on without my asbestos suit if possible.

I live and work in a state where open carry is legal. I have a CCW and carry when ever I am not at work (I work on a federal military reservation were even local LEO’s are guests).
I used to carry openly on rare occasions before the CCW requirements were changed from arbitrary and capricious (I quote the then under sheriff) to shall issue. I never liked the idea but it was the law at the time. Most of the people I shoot with and interact with in my martial arts are military of LEO of some capacity.
I have been stopped and asked about my motives by the police on three occasions. I understood their requirements and two of the encounters were both brief and professional. The third occasion was a different experience altogether after being stopped and questioned as to my motives and intentions I was subjected to a twenty minute monolog / debate on why civilians (I was active duty military at the time and had so identified myself) should not own / carry guns.

The above having been said I do agree with the concept of “COP bashingâ€.
However if someone who had not identified themselves attempted to physically restrain or assault me there would have probably been injured folks on both sides (I am both a defensive tactics and armed and unarmed combat instructor).

The last comment I would like to make is why is it that in my instance, as well as the one posted, the law enforcement officers most convinced that their personal safety trumps my rights and safety insist on lecturing us that our rights either do not exist or are subject to their interpretation.

The guy in the post may have exhibited poor judgment but I see nothing that justified a physical assault ( and all of you LEO types ask yourself what the law would classify this behavior if it was done by anyone else) and there is no call to lecture anyone.

 

[Deavis]

tcsd1236 -

how we operate other than what they see on TV

Come on, there are quite a few educated people here who know the difference between TV and real life. If you don't think we non-LEO do not understand it, then explain it to us so that we can learn. This is about education, for both sides. I'm explaining how I see it and trying to understand your (LEO) side. Unlike some, when I consider an issue I don't just say,

"I thought about what you said and it must be nice not to live in reality"

i.e. I didn't read it because I don't care, here is my opinion. Everyone knows that is how post flamers operate.

So if there is something missing, explain how you would have handled it and why. I'm curious to know.

 

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

I understand perfectly well that non-LEO's don't understand the LEO perspective or how we operate other than what they see on TV, and based on that they usually post from a position of ignorance when they comment on LE issues.

No I understand your and Shield's LEO perspective perfectly.

1. You have contempt for the law on open carry

2. You think that your low opinion of open carry supercedes the law

3. You have a very low opinion of citizens in general

4. You think that perspectives 1-3 entitle you to violate the civil rights of law abiding gun owners any time you please

5. You haven't a clue as to the concept of probable cause

I am relieved to see from Shield's profile that this "police officer" is not any closer than 500 miles to my home.

 

[OF]

As usual, alot of static in this thread coupled with the usual questions about cop-behavior which are followed (like night follows day) with the 'cop-basher! cop-hater!' BS. Address the issue for once!

It doesn't make one iota of difference whether anyone in here or on the Manchester PD thinks open carry is a 'bad idea'.

It's legal. End of story.

You don't like it? Try to get it outlawed if you're so against it (then we'll see who's on the side of freedom and gun-rights). But don't project your personal opinions about what is or is not a 'good idea' onto this situation.

Your 'feelings' about open carry are irrelevant. The law states it is legal, therefore the cops have no authority to lay a hand on the man.

NO AUTHORITY.

- Gabe

 

[liliysdad]

If I had been on that call. the man would have been disarmed, no doubt about that. I would not have approached hm from behind, and placed a hand on his weapon, however.....just not a real smart idea. i woul dhave had him get the gun out, and hand it over for the duration of our visit...then if everything was in order, he would have gotten it back, unloaded.

Truth be told, I have a pretty good feeling we are seeing but one side of this story, the side of the "victim" ( very loosely used), and not one of us here can judge the actions of either party, because we were not there.

The ONLY problems I see in ths scenario are the facts that he was disarmed in a way unsafe for the oficers, and that these officers felt some need to express their political views......but no the fact that they have those views, as that is their right.

 

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

If I had been on that call. the man would have been disarmed, no doubt about that

Given the fact pattern in this case, you'd have absolutely no probable cause to even question the man, let alone disarm and detain him.

One nice thing about living in the D.C. area is the high concentration of lawyers. It acts as a very strong deterrent to police who begin to put themselves above the law as you indicate that you would in this situation.

The man was in the bookstore for 30 minutes, reading a magazine, sitting on the arm of an easy chair chatting with his wife, no silent alarm, no call from the manager, ... and you consider yourself to have probable cause to disarm, detain and question this fellow?

 

[liliysdad]

Yeah..I do..there was a complaint from a citizen....no PC for an arrest, but enough to talk to the guy, and I would pat him down for officer safety, removing the handgun in process, run him for warrants, and cut him loose.

 

[DigitalWarrior]

Please understand the content of my post. If I sound abusive, it is because I am offended by the rampant disregard for my rights.

If I called in a police complaint that a fella had "darker skin" than I thought a person in the neigborhood should have(This is a nice white town I say), would you:

1: Detain the man, search him, and run warrants.
2: Tell me (the idiot issueing the complaint) that there is nothing illegal about being black, and that you will not harass a man who is doing nothing wrong.

If you choose option 1, I hate you (not all cops). I do not want to violate the ethics of the high road, but this is essential that I make clear. Option 1 is not acceptable. 1 is evil beyond measure.

 

[Shield529]

"BTW Shield, do you open carry ever?

Or is it differrent because you are a police officer?"

I will respond to this, Yes it is diffrent my Dept. policy forbids my wearing of and open weapon when not in uniform.

Termination offence.

 

[liliysdad]

I do not make the connection betwen being black, and having a firearm. You cannt do harm by simply being black, but you have the potential to do so with a firearm.

Yes, it is a right, however, with that right come responsibilities. One MUST ascertain the intentions of the person being complained against , since the firearm posessed lends a whole new plethora of consequences. You may not like it, but its the truth....just because YOU say you are a stad up guy, and have no ill wishes..I dont know it to be fact. What makes your statement any more valid thean the one made by the complaintant? Nothing, thats what.

Again, this is prrof positive that open carry is a terrible thing to do , whether right or wrong, 99% of the time.

 

[ctdonath]

And therein lies the problem:

MVPEL did something absolutely legal, moral and acceptable, causing zero harm beyond inadvertantly triggering a stranger's holoplophobia. There is nothing in the situation to warrant even questioning him.

Shield529 would be punished severely for doing exactly the same thing.

That explains a lot in this thread.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

However if someone who had not identified themselves attempted to physically restrain or assault me there would have probably been injured folks on both sides (I am both a defensive tactics and armed and unarmed combat instructor).

This is precisely the point I am trying to make here, and in this even Lilysdad (who seems never to agree with me) seems to be in agreement. I can understand a responding LEO wanting to secure the other guy's weapon while the initial review of his identification and crednetials is being carried out. But as with virtually everything, there is a right way and a wrong way to accomplish this. Sneaking up behind an armed individual and laying hands on him WITHOUT letting his see you and WITHOUT first identifying yourself as a police officer isn't just dumb and probably illegal, it is INVITING a physical retaliation -- which could range from simply attempting to retain possession of the handgun, to a martial arts expert incapacitating the officer with a single well-placed chop to the neck. And, of course, if that had happened the backup officer(s) would then have felt justified to use force to restrain the "offender," whose only offense was to defend himself against an attack by person or persons UNKNOWN.

What would have been wrong with having one officer positioned at the 3:00 (or 9:00, take your pick) o'clock position while the other officer walked up to the subject, identified himself, explained that they received a complaint, and asked if they could secure the weapon while they discussed the matter? MVPel could then have agreed to let the officer hold the weapon while he (MVPel) explained that he forgot he was carrying when he decided to leave his jacket in the car, but that (a) open carry is legal anyway and (b) he had a concealed carry permit. That should have been the end of the discussion.

 

[ojibweindian]

Circle them waggons, guys.

Never admit your fellow brothers may be wrong; it's ALWAYS the "civilian" who is at fault.

How many of you think that these "LEOs" would willingly take part in a gun confiscation program because it was "the law"?