Wow this story is really pissing me off!
Police surrounded a man’s home with sharpshooters and armed troopers and demanded his surrender through a megaphone after someone saw a tattoo of a gun on his stomach.
Michael Smith works the night shift and sleeps during the day. On the morning of March 18th, he was disturbed when he heard a loud racket in his front yard. It was a tree removal service backing into his driveway preparing to chopping branches around power lines.
Mr. Smith groggily stepped outside in his pajama pants to tell the tree trimmers to come back another time. They told him it was not a problem, reported the Morning Sentinel.
The only problem was that one of the workers saw Smith’s stomach tattoo and perceived it to be a real gun. Even though no threats had been made, the worker called police to report a “man with a gun.”
It should be noted that it is not a crime openly wear a handgun in the waistband in Maine. At home or in public; shirtless or clothed; quiet or shouting; open carry is a recognized right in that state and no justification for police intervention.
I’ll add to this. Back in the 90s a man took his family to a public festival in Portland. He was openly carrying a pistol. An officer confronted him about the pistol, and the man pointed out he had every right to carry it. The officer then requested the man disarm and stow the gun in his vehicle. The man refused. IIRC the Chief of Portland Police was also at the Festival, one “Media” Mike “Shitwood” Chitwood (the first nickname was coined by himself for his love of doing TV liveshots rather than actual REAL police work, the latter was given to him by the recipients of many of the prosecuted excessive force cases, and the number of people who got their liquor licenses suspended because Portland’s bar district turned into the wild west at night because Chitwood didn’t seem to think that an area filled with bars and drunks needed a police presence, and instead just needed less lawful commerce). Chitwood seized the man’s pistol and told him to pick it up the next day at Portland PD. The man did, wearing a different pistol this time, and later served Portland PD with a lawsuit for illegal seizure of property. He won and Portland paid a hefty sum in the judgement.
Since then Maine has been VERY friendly to Open carry because its very painful to the public coffers to harass law abiding citizens.
Now let’s go a little further, this town of Norridgewock is just outside of Skowhegan Maine. Back when I was freshly graduated I interviewed for a biology position at a local fish hatchery. This town is WAYYY off the beaten path. After the formal interview I was taking a tour of the facility and was asking my guide what it was like to live there. His response was “If you like hunting and fishing, you’ll love it here!”
I’m still kind of bummed I didn’t get the job, it would have been rough on my relationship with Mrs. Weer’d who was just my girlfriend at the time, but it was PRETTY up there, and I do like hunting and fishing!
Still this is rural Maine, EVERYBODY here has a gun. This call to the police should have gone like this:
“I saw a man with a gun!”
“Was he pointing it at you or acting threateningly?
“No he just had it stuck in the front of his pants?”
“Oh, well grow up, Cupcake!” **CLICK**
I mean there’s nothing even RESEMBLING a crime in the report.
Turns out this guy has a LOT of unfortunate tattoos, looks like a cheezy flame-job on his right forearm, and a bunch of Nazi Eagles and Iron Crosses on his left upper arm, but he also has what appears to be a Beretta 92 tattooed in an appendix carry position. He also looks like Larry Correia’s long-lost Nazi-Brother. (BTW if any of you do the twitter thing, tweet that picture to Larry, I bet he’ll get a kick out of it)
Still why all the hoopla? It wasn’t the gun, EVERYBODY in that town owns at least one. I’m not sure how often people open carry there, but I guarantee people open carry there, plus with all the hunting, its probably not uncommon to see hunters carrying their rifles and shotguns during appropriate seasons.
If he was making threats or acting in a threatening way, I could see that, but wouldn’t the sheriff want to let the media know about that part?? Its possible with his Nazi tattoos he’s pissed off a few cops before. There’s always a nut in every town, and sometimes the cops roust them just to let them know they won’t take any shit. Still I think the big reason why is this:
In rural Maine they can’t get much call to break out the rifles and the ninja-gear, and LOOK at all the expensive shit hanging off that M4!
This strikes me as a budget justification, and an unarmed, nonthreatening man got REAL guns pointed at him because he has a dumb tattoo!
SWAT teams are the standing armies our founding fathers warned us about!
It looks like the AR equivalent of a JC Whitney catalog exploded all over that man’s rifle. And what’s up with that shooting stance? Is that the latest fashion in mall ninja gun poses?
One of my pet peeves over these SWAT guys (and there are many) is how you routinely see them holding firearms like they don’t have the slightest clue about what they’re doing. And THESE are the people who are blessed to carry guns anywhere they want.
The STANCE isn’t too bad, its a standard Jackass position like talked about in Jeff Cooper’s great book The Art of the Rifle, he’s compromising his stock position so he can keep the best footing on that snowbank while still keeping his head low.
Still he has a HORRIBLE grip on that rifle, hand low and loose on the pistol grip, and support hand on the mag well/magazine when they paid good money for that VFG.
Oddly enough the jackass position is the hardest to master while holding the rifle is the easiest. Probably means the shooting position was just dumb luck.
Also supports my theory that they don’t get to break out the ninja-garb much, and this is a well-needed exercise at the expense of the safety of a man who had broken no laws.
The STANCE isn’t too bad, its a standard Jackass position like talked about in Jeff Cooper’s great book The Art of the Rifle, he’s compromising his stock position so he can keep the best footing on that snowbank while still keeping his head low.
Still he has a HORRIBLE grip on that rifle, hand low and loose on the pistol grip, and support hand on the mag well/magazine when they paid good money for that VFG.
Oddly enough the jackass position is the hardest to master while holding the rifle is the easiest. Probably means the shooting position was just dumb luck.
Also supports my theory that they don’t get to break out the ninja-garb much, and this is a well-needed exercise at the expense of the safety of a man who had broken no laws.
It’s been brought up elsewhere, but here it is:
It’s likely a local tree crew would be aware of the local laws. It’s also likely they were aware it wasn’t a real gun – just a tattooed picture of one – but called the police on this guy anyway for interrupting their work.
If the above are true, where the Hell are the charges for filing a false police report?
A good possibility, and if so I can see why the police would ignore that wrinkle. If the crew claimed he was waving his tattoo around, or made threats its his word against the caller’s word. Pretty hard case to prosecute in court, so maybe the cops decided that was a battle not worth the effort.
I think it’s a HK416.
H&K, because you suck and we hate you. 😀
Can they eat from P-mags like he has?
If it is an HK then that’s a LOT of money in that dude’s hand, and BUDGETS MUST BE JUSTIFIED!!!111!!
Its either a EMAG or a PMAG GEN 3 they’re designed for tighter mag wells, like the 416
But I think its a 416 due to the iron sights and the goofy looking gas block
http://www.shootingillustrated.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/W7567_SI_0063.jpg
I am not good at spotting AR variants. You’re probably right.
WTF would that department requisition those rifles??
They probably got them when they traded in their MP5s
😀