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BamaD -> RE: N C home invasion shows that NC is civilized state (1/26/2014 3:03:07 PM)
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FR
In a only marginally related story we have an example of Maryland's hostility toward gun owners.
Related because the similar incident with the anti gun prosecutor was in Maryland.
Unarmed Florida Gun Owner Harassed By Maryland Police
By Robert Gehl on January 15, 2014 Subscribe to Robert Gehl's Feed
There’s a story out of Florida that every gun owner should be aware of. It’s not being covered by the mainstream media, but it certainly should be.
A law-abiding gun owner, and CCW holder, was harassed and intimidated while traveling through Maryland – and he was unarmed.
John Filippidis, a Florida resident, gun owner (a Kel-Tec .380) and concealed-carry card holder, was traveling with his family to a wedding in New Jersey in their Ford Expedition. Knowing many states along the way don’t recognize the Second Amendment, he left his pistol at home – locked in his safe.
Traveling south on Interstate 95, just across the Maryland border, Filippidis was followed by a Maryland Transportation Authority Police car. He wasn’t speeding.
Finally the patrol car’s emergency lights come on, and it’s almost a relief. Whatever was going on, they’d be able to get it over with now. The officer — from the Transportation Authority Police (MTA), as it turns out, Maryland’s version of the New York-New Jersey Port Authority — strolls up, does the license and registration bit, and returns to his car.
According to Filippidis and his wife, after checking their license and registration, the officer returned and told Filippidis to step out of the vehicle.
Retreating to the space between the SUV and the unmarked car, the officer orders John to hook his thumbs behind his back and spread his feet. “You own a gun,” the officer says. “Where is it?”
“At home in my safe,” John answers.
“Don’t move,” says the officer.
He then goes to Filippidis’ wife, Kally. “Your husband owns a gun, where is it?”
Kally, unnerved by the stop and her husband’s detention, first says “I don’t know.” Then said “Maybe in the glove [box]. Maybe in the console. I’m scared of it. I don’t want to have anything to do with it. I might shoot right through my foot.” She later said she should have stopped with “I don’t know.” But one can understand her nervousness.
But that was enough, apparently, for the officer. He returned to John and said he was lying.
“You’re a liar. You’re lying to me. Your family says you have it. Where is the gun? Tell me where it is and we can resolve this right now.”
Of course, John couldn’t show him what didn’t exist, but Kally’s failure to corroborate John’s account, the officer would tell them later, was the probable cause that allowed him to summon backup — three marked cars joined the lineup along the I-95 shoulder — and empty the Expedition of riders, luggage, Christmas gifts, laundry bags; to pat down Kally and [one of Filippides' daughters]; to explore the engine compartment and probe inside door panels; and to separate and isolate the Filippidises in the back seats of the patrol cars.
A long time later – 90 minutes or two hours – they were let go with a traffic warning. He’s received apologies from the MTA, whi claims they’re investigating. But it’s a shocking display of hostility toward gun owners.
“All that time, he’s humiliating me in front of my family, making me feel like a criminal,” John says. “I’ve never been to prison, never declared bankruptcy, I pay my taxes, support my 20 employees’ families; I’ve never been in any kind of trouble.”
Face red, eyes shining, John pounds his knees. “And he wants to put me in jail. He wants to put me in jail. For no reason. He wants to take my wife and children away and put me in jail. In America, how does such a thing happen? … And after all that, he didn’t even write me a ticket.”
What might be most unnerving about this story is that it was published as a column three days ago in the Tampa Tribune. A Google News search shows no other media coverage of this incident. Not in the local Maryland papers, no national coverage, nothing.
Anybody who thinks this is an isolated incident is sorely mistaken. It takes a climate of hostility toward the Second Amendment that leads an officer to act this way.
PHOTO CREDIT: THE TAMPA TRIBUNE
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