Thanks to Say Uncle.
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No charges for TV reporter who was arrested carrying loaded gun near Florida high school
MIAMI - Prosecutors have dropped the case against a TV reporter who was arrested carrying a loaded gun near a high school while working on a story on school violence, authorities said Tuesday.
Jeffrey Weinsier of WPLG, an ABC network affiliate, was arrested last month after police said he carried a weapon onto the grounds of Miami Central High School and refused to cross the street when asked by an officer.
A cameraman caught the encounter on videotape, which the state attorney's office used in deciding not to pursue the charges, Assistant State Attorney Maggie Gerson wrote in a memo released Tuesday.
Weinsier had been charged with armed trespass on school property, possession of a weapon, violation of carrying a concealed weapon and resisting arrest without violence. But he was not on school grounds when police approached him and ordered him to leave, Gerson said.
"Since the defendant was not trespassing, anything that was found on the defendant after he was arrested will be suppressed as a matter of law," Gerson wrote.
Weinsier's actions did not appear disruptive and students had been dismissed from classes when he was arrested, Gerson said.
The reporter began carrying a gun after he received death threats stemming from a series he did about unsanitary conditions at restaurants, according to the station. Weinsier has a concealed weapons permit, police had said.
"From day one, I knew that I had been on the public sidewalk outside the school," Weinsier said Tuesday. "I knew the law clearly. This is false arrest."
The reporter said he has filed a formal complaint with the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department and is considering legal action.
WPLG is owned by The Washington Post Co.
