Sunday, July 17, 2005

There's Something Rotten In Atascadero

Here's an update to the story about police seizing weapons from a citizen after it was determined the "suspicious circumstances" causing them to investigate him in the first place "were determined to be unfounded."

Now they say it looks like they're going to arrest the man, and that he's "undergoing a medical evaluation."

So far, the items described seem to be legal. The one issue it looks like police are trying to hang their hats on:
"Robinson said Friday that while the grenades weren't charged, there was material in the house that could charge them."

What does that mean? Did the citizen have reloading supplies?

Let's all keep an eye on this one. We don't know enough about this to make a judgment, but we do know blindly trusting "media" and police accounts can be--what's a nice way of saying this?-- problematic.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I believe that the "suspicious circumstances" for stealing *ahem* "confiscating" those weapons were that he had weapons in the first place. The "mental evaluation" is just an excuse and a cover-up.

Publicola said...

The ATFU for a while was doing that. If they couldn't find anything else they'd claim someone was inending tomanufacture grenades. If you had an inert grenade, primers & gunpowder (block or smokeless) that was all they needed.

Course if they went there for one thing & that proved to be a non-issue then it's very questionable that they would legally be able to do what it seesm they did. After all, isn't there a line about search warrants describing what specifically is to be sieed? granted, courts have said that if you're looking for one illegal thing & int he course of that search find another illegal thing it's justifiable, but I don't think they'd say the same if you found legal things. Well least if those legal things weren't guns.

But it sound slike some trumped up BS to either save face or get someone they really wanted to get in the first place. If that's all they have (he had th epotential to make explosive devices) then the whole lot of them should be switched by their parents or a close relative.