The Only Ones who don't need to know the law

On the evening of Jan. 13 a group of men went to Tony's' Pizza in Manassas, VA. Each of the men were wearing legally concealed handguns. Upon entering the restaurant, which served alcohol, the men switched to open carry as required by Virginia law.

One of the other patrons in the restaurant* expressed disapproval of the openly carried handguns saying that they made him feel "uncomfortable". The men attempted to explain to him that Virginia law not only permitted legally armed citizens to carry openly in that circumstance, but actually required it. The offended patron, who identified himself as an ex-Marine (whatever that had to do with anything) refused to be mollified. After finishing his meal he left the restaurant and made a 911 call from the parking lot.

In his conversation with the 911 dispatcher he complained about how uncomfortable the sight of armed men had made him, although he did acknowledge that they were most likely in compliance with the law. The dispatcher attempted to reassure him that based on his description of the events that indeed no law was being broken.

He continued to whine however and the dispatcher agreed to send a radio car to look into the matter. Recordings of the police radio communications then show that all of the other eight Manassas PD officers who were on duty at the time indicated that they were also responding to the call.

At this point I will quote directly from the statement of Curtis Stone, one of the men who was carrying in the restaurant:

Soon, these officers began arriving at the restaurant. The first one came in, demanded to see ID, explained that open carry was illegal, and told us we had to carry concealed. This is, of course, completely wrong and we politely tried to explain the law to this officer, but the officer became increasingly agitated. Within a minute or so, we were surrounded by over half a dozen officers and were now attracting the attention of other patrons, who had mostly ignored us.

At this point, an older, calmer officer interrupted his agitated colleague and suggested we finish up and leave, despite having no basis for making such a request. Several officers went up front and got the owner, who then came back and said some of his customers were distressed and asked us to leave. We did so immediately.

Once outside, one of our party had a copy of the ABC letter explaining the legality of open carry and a copy of the VA State Police web page. When approached, one of the group of officers said, "don't come over here and fight us" and that he "didn't need to see our damn letters".

His supervisor, wasn't interested in talking either. Moments later we all departed, never having shown any ID as demanded by the first officer on the scene, as that officer either became distracted or realized he had no probable cause to demand it.

Mr. Stone filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the 911 tapes and the Manassas PD's internal communications on the incident. What he got back is a case study in exactly how much contempt Manassas police officers have for law abiding citizens who choose to exercise their constitutionally recognized right to go armed. You can see his report here and follow the links to the actual PDF and sound files.

Here are some of the highlights:

In response to one of the Officers actually taking the time to read the law and undeniably identifying that they were wrong, one Officer had this to say:

"My guess is the over-compensating assclowns at Tony's were hyper-aware of all this, and that's why they started crying like little babies when their event got spoiled by the whole 'let's get the owner to tell them to get the f**k out' thing."

There's more, but that statement pretty much details the respect with which Manassas' finest regards their fellow citizens. They don't understand the law and, when a citizen obviously understands it better than they do, the citizens are "over-compensating assclowns".

[. . .]

Just to add fuel to the fire, next are the transcripts of the radio calls from that night.

If anyone knows how to decipher the coding used for the message traffic, please let me know. I think I've figured it out, but just in case I'm wrong, I don't want to accuse the wrong officers of saying particular things, so I'll leave off my speculation about who said what.

Bouncing the 911 dispatch logs against the message traffic, the call was initially placed at 8:11 pm.

At 8:13pm, someone transmitted "they technically can do that". So apparently the officers knew or should have known that the members were breaking no laws by carrying openly before they ever arrived on scene.

The first officer arrived at the scene at 8:16pm and all officers were reported as "available" by 8:25pm.

At 8:31pm someone identified the exact section of the Code of Virginia pertaining to this issue: "18.2-308 for carry conceal & where." So, not only did they know BEFORE the incident that there were no laws being broken, shortly after the incident, they knew the exact section of code that the members were...um...not violating.

At 8:44pm this gem was offered:

"thanks for the help with those tards. I was at a loss for words when they wanted to start debating the code."

It is unclear whether he was at a loss for words because the members knew the code better than he did, or because of the fact that MERE CITIZENS had the AUDACITY to challenge the authority of "the only ones". Probably the latter.

Then, at 8:46pm, the classic response:

"Dude, those guys are f'ing retards, you said it...bobby ovaile's!"

I have no idea who Bobby Ovaile is but the respect with which Manassas' finest regards their fellow citizens was obvious and enlightening. I wonder if Bobby Ovaile's family knows that their local Police Department uses him as exemplary of your typical Manassas "f'ing retard".

The content of the remaining messages were redacted. I can't imagine why.

This is fascinating. The cops go into the situation knowing that no law has been broken and still they proceed to treat the law abiding citizens like criminals.

When a supervisor at Manassas PD contacted other area departments to find out if anything similar had happened in their jurisdictions one response he got back was this:

"This group in years past attempted the same type of act in the Fredericksburg area. They are lawsuit shopping. This might warrant a quick reminder to the troops about state law." --Capt Brent Taylor, Fredericksburg PD

Mr. Stone observes, "I guess it isn't important for "troops" to understand state law unless there is a threat of a lawsuit."

Mr. Stone denies that they were lawsuit shopping, but my advice to him and his group is to do exactly that. Go armed wherever the law allows. Conceal where the law says to conceal and carry openly where the law says to do that. Always carry a small tape recorder wherever you go and switch it on whenever you are approached by the police. If in a group have one member go unarmed and sit separately with a small digital video camera and record any encounter with the police.

Always be polite and respectful to the cops. Attempt to explain the law to them and have documentation of the law on your persons but always comply with their instructions unless doing so would place you in violation of the law (like switching to concealed carry in a restaurant where alcohol is served). After any encounter such as this use FOIA to obtain all department internal documentation and recordings of all pertinent radio traffic. Bring all of this to a lawyer in another state that the one in which the incident happened (but one who is licensed to practice in that state) so that he will not be worried about souring relations with cops, city officials and others with whom he has to deal regularly.

If the lawyer feels that you have grounds to sue then sue for every dime you can. The law indemnifies police from lawsuits stemming from good faith actions they take in the performance of their duty. In this case evidence exists that the cops knew that no law was being broken. This could be enough to cause the city's lawyers to rule that their actions were not "good faith" and that the liability belongs to the individual officers not to the city or its insurance carrier.

In that case these "assclown" cops can watch as their lives crumble around them as their wives divorce them to protect their share of the equity in their houses and they have to explain to their children why their college funds are going to pay off the men whose rights daddy violated because daddy is a king-sized arrogant a**hole who's finally getting what he has coming to him.

Hat Tip: Shooting the Messenger