A funny thing happened on the way out of the Wal-mart...

Gun owner receives apology from police chief

Chief's letter, more training follow officer's confusion, threat of arrest

By Matt Lakin (Contact)
Saturday, September 22, 2007

Michael Patrick

Trevor Putnam, who was stopped while he legally carried his gun inside a Wal-Mart by an officer who was mistaken about the state’s gun permit laws, received an apology from Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV.

Trevor Putnam knew the gun laws. The officer who stopped him didn’t.

“When I told him that I hadn’t done anything, he said he’d find a reason to put me in jail,” said Putnam, 24, who works with guns every day as vice president of Coal Creek Armory in West Knoxville.

“It’s not that I have a problem with police officers. I deal with police officers nationwide from Arizona to Maine every day. But I lost my confidence in a legal right that I knew I had.”

Knoxville police officers will get a refresher course on the state’s gun permit laws after an officer who didn’t know the law stopped, frisked and threatened to arrest Putnam for legally carrying a gun inside a Wal-Mart this summer.

Officer Glenn Todd Greene’s actions June 21 at the store on Walbrook Drive in West Knoxville earned him a written reprimand and remedial training for rudeness and not knowing the law, Internal Affairs records show. He’s worked for the Knoxville Police Department for about seven years.

Putnam got a written apology from Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV.

“The officer was wrong I want to personally apologize to you for any embarrassment or inconvenience you may have suffered as a result of this incident,” the chief wrote.

“The Knoxville Police Department takes pride in the training offered to its officers, and the training provided far exceeds state requirements. Unfortunately, officers aren’t perfect, and sometimes mistakes are made. As you can see from the remedial measures taken, we want to learn from our mistakes so they won’t be repeated in the future.”

The trouble started when Putnam and his girlfriend, Samantha Williams, stopped at the store to buy groceries around 10 p.m. Putnam, who holds a gun permit, carried his Colt handgun inside with him, holstered on his right hip.

“It’s like a seat belt or a fire extinguisher,” he said. “It goes everywhere with me. It was warm that night, so I left my jacket in the car.”

State law allows gun permit holders to carry their guns openly or concealed. Putnam said he usually tucks his shirt over the gun but forgot to that night.

As they walked out, Greene, who’d gone to the store to investigate a shoplifting call, told Putnam to stop. Greene asked for Putnam’s identification, grabbed his arm when he reached for his wallet and then asked why he carried a gun in public, records show.

Putnam ended up against a concrete wall being frisked as Greene took his gun.

“It’s called a concealed carry permit. State law says you carry it concealed, not in plain view (with the) hammer back,” Greene said. “I’ve been doing this for 12 years. I can put you in jail for something. It’s called inducing a panic.”

Greene ultimately let Putnam go after talking with another officer but told him to pull his shirt over the gun. He told Internal Affairs investigators he thought Tennessee and Ohio, where he previously served as a police officer, prohibited open carrying. Neither state does.

“There’s an issue there where there could be panic,” he said in a recorded statement. “I’m thinking the law is a concealed law. I’m not going to deal with a guy that has a loaded gun until I secure a weapon.”

Greene said he asked other officers about the law and that they didn’t know, either.

Investigators reviewed video from Greene’s in-car camera and found him in violation of KPD policy. They sustained part of Putnam’s complaint but ruled Greene hadn’t used excessive force in putting him against the wall.

Putnam questions that decision.

“On the one hand, I’m glad they didn’t ignore it,” he said. “On the other, I don’t feel it was a wholly appropriate response to everything the officer threatened to do.”

The department trains all recruits on the state’s gun permit laws, said KPD Lt. Jeff Stiles, who oversees training for the department. All officers will get another dose of training during the next annual session, he said.

“We don’t get that many questions about it over here,” Stiles said. “But we cover that aspect. We go straight to the experts to teach the law. We don’t guess, and we don’t speculate.”

Matt Lakin may be reached at 865-342-6306.

News from Norfolk...

Gun-rights advocates stage protest at Norfolk council meeting

Chet Szymecki, who was arrested in June at Harborfest, was joined Tuesday by his daughter Kiersten, 13, and his wife, Deborah. JOHN H. SHEALLY II | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

By HARRY MINIUM, The Virginian-Pilot
© August 29, 2007

NORFOLK

More than 100 gun-rights advocates, most carrying handguns on their hips and wearing buttons saying "Guns Save Lives," came to the City Council on Tuesday night to protest what they called harassment of law-abiding gun owners by city officials.

The protest was called by the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun-rights group, after Chet Szymecki of Yorktown was arrested in June at Harborfest for carrying a gun.

Szymecki was arrested for violating a city ordinance banning guns at Harborfest - an ordinance that officials now acknowledge violates state law. City Attorney Bernard A. Pishko said city officials were unaware of a state law prohibiting localities from banning guns.

Carrying a weapon openly is legal in Virginia, even at a large gathering such as Harborfest. Once city officials realized their error, the charges against Szymecki were dropped.

"We made a mistake," Councilman Barclay C. Winn said. "It was unintentional."

Most who came to protest didn't appear to believe it was an innocent mistake.

"You know it was illegal," said Dave Vann, who drove from Falls Church to speak. "You arrested someone, and now it's going to cost you dearly."

Szymecki, a Navy veteran, said he was manhandled and hurt and that his wife, Deborah, his three children and two other children who accompanied them were traumatized. He said he has hired Norfolk attorney Stephen Merrill.

An emotional Deborah Szymecki told the council that after several police officers were done handcuffing her husband, she was left without money or the keys to the family car.

Others rose to describe incidents in which they said they were questioned and often handcuffed by police for simply carrying a firearm openly.

"Apparently you have some officers who don't understand the law," said the president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Philip Van Cleave of Midlothian.

The meeting drew more rowdy as it continued, with speakers receiving thunderous applause and some expressing disgust for the council. Some used unsavory terms to describe the police.

Councilman Paul R. Riddick left the meeting as gun-rights advocates began speaking, he said, in protest of their protest.

Kim Barton, who would not say where she lives, tried to speak but was told by Mayor Paul Fraim that she couldn't because she had not signed up to speak.

"I want to hear what she has to say," Vann said.

Fraim replied, "I'm running this meeting " and informed Vann his time to speak had expired.

Harry Minium, (757) 446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com

Thanks to The Geek with a .45.

Is Open Carry Legal in New Hampshire?

A lawfully Open Carrying citizen in NH gets stopped by the police. Let's watch...



A right that isn't exercised is soon lost.

Thanks to The Rifleman's Journal for the link.

The rest of the story...

Norfolk and visitor with a holstered .45 are tangled in a Catch-22

By MATTHEW ROY, The Virginian-Pilot
© July 22, 2007

NORFOLK

Chester Szymecki Jr. was waiting for some music to start at Harborfest when a sheriff's deputy approached.

It was a warm June afternoon, and thousands of people wandered on and off the tall ships moored around Town Point Park. Szymecki had come from Yorktown with his wife, their three children and two children from their neighborhood.

Szymecki had brought along something else, too - a .45-caliber handgun in a holster on his belt.

The deputy asked Szymecki whether he was a police officer. He said no. And then, he said, uniformed city police began closing in. They gave him a choice, he said: Leave the event or face arrest. When he tried to say that there must be a mistake, he was disarmed and led away, handcuffed, he recalled.

Szymecki was charged with violating a local ordinance that the City Council had passed in May, which set up rules to govern Harborfest. Among them was a provision banning handguns and other weapons.

There's just one problem: A few years ago, the General Assembly barred localities from enforcing laws governing the carrying of firearms. That meant state law prevailed. And in Virginia, "open carry" is legal.

Localities today generally do not have the authority to restrict guns, said Mark Flynn, director of legal services for the Virginia Municipal League. A state law last amended in 2004 says localities cannot adopt or enforce laws regarding the purchase, carrying, possession, storage, or sale of firearms.

Szymecki was given a summons and released. When he showed up for court June 22, the case was withdrawn at the request of an assistant city attorney.

The case has enraged the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights group that has successfully challenged local gun restrictions around the commonwealth. Szymecki is a member. In the past the group has protested Norfolk's attempts to prevent the carrying of weapons in city parks.

Philip Van Cleave, the president of the league, says members plan to crowd the City Council chambers in protest at a future date.

The ordinance, he said, was "a huge mistake."

City Attorney Bernard Pishko said the city is not attempting to challenge the state law by imposing restrictions on handguns.

Pishko described the gun ban in the Harborfest ordinance as an oversight, a "housekeeping" issue. "This is one that we missed," he said. An ordinance governing Afr'Am Fest in May contained the same restrictions on weapons. Both ordinances were in effect only for the few days the events ran.

Pishko said his office has since advised police that "the only gun laws in effect for Norfolk are those in effect for Virginia."

Szymecki said the incident has changed the way he views the police. He said he plans to file a lawsuit and have a "neutral court" decide whether police violated his rights.

Matthew Roy, (757) 446-2540, matthew.roy@pilotonline.com

You wouldn't want to scare the Sheeple...

Found at The War on Guns

*shakes head in disgust*

"It turns out the Goshen man in his 20s, whom police didn’t identify, is on leave from the Army Rangers and was training for his physical fitness test. The “rifle” was made of rubber...

Before starting his cross-town jog, the man called Goshen Town Police and told them what he would be doing, Jakubczyk said. But once he crossed into Blooming Grove, the calls started coming in and police had no answers for frightened residents."

So the automatic assumption is the guy was up to no good. When did the mere sight of a gun in public start to send the sheeple into a panic and give them a case of the dry heaves? There was a time in this country where people saw guns everyday, and noone thought they were in any danger.

Could it be that the only time people see a gun anymore, is in a movie or on TV, and the person holding it is a criminal or a cop? Somehow, without it actually being declared so, in spirit, we've already disarmed the population.

After all, why would anyone want a gun, unless they were a criminal, a hunter or a cop? Right?

*sigh*

I suppose the only reason noone has called the cops on me yet is because they can't see my gun. I carry it concealed all the time. If I didn't I wonder how different the people I interact with everyday would react?

Unfortunately, I think I already know the answer.