{"id":431,"date":"2010-01-31T04:04:14","date_gmt":"2010-01-31T11:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/?p=431"},"modified":"2010-02-01T17:07:41","modified_gmt":"2010-02-02T00:07:41","slug":"ccw-a-license-to-be-handcuffed-and-disarmed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/?p=431","title":{"rendered":"CCW: A license to be handcuffed and disarmed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charlie Mitchener, the Las Vegas business owner who was handcuffed and disarmed after presenting a concealed weapons permit along with his drivers license to a police officer responding to a burglary call at his place of business Jan. 3 (see my column of Jan. 10<\/a>), has provided me with his Jan. 19 follow-up letter to the Metro Police Department.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mitchener says he decided to write lest his \u201csilence may put someone else at risk. …<\/p>\n

\u201cShortly before 5 a.m. Jan 3, the alarms in my office sounded and notified TSI, our security provider, that a break-in had occurred,\u201d Charlie Mitchener writes. \u201cThey … dispatched a security guard.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife, Peggy, and I arrived at the office about 5:15 a.m.; the security officer had arrived just before us. … The security officer informed us that he had called Metro and they told him not to enter the building. …<\/p>\n

\u201cThe security officer said \u2018I don\u2019t want to tell you what to do, but I\u2019m familiar with situations where the bad guys will come busting out and your vehicle may provide them cover, so I suggest you move it away from the building.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mitcheners moved their vehicle.<\/p>\n

\u201cApproximately 5:30 a.m. the Metro officer arrived. My wife and I … were still in the vehicle which was marked with the name of my company identically to how it is marked on the entrance door. … The officer exited her vehicle, the four of us walked to the broken window; the security officer identified himself, and introduced me to officer Rogers. She informed us that she had called for backup to clear the office. The officer asked, in the meantime, for my identification. (Please note she never asked for my wife\u2019s identification or an introduction.) …\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Mitchener handed over his drivers license and a concealed carry permit.<\/p>\n

\u201cOfficer Rogers immediately asked if I had a weapon on me to which I replied yes. She asked me to turn around, spread my legs and place my hands behind my back, to which I complied. As she attempted to handcuff me, she said that she was doing this because she \u2018wanted everyone to be safe.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this time, we are standing approximately 30 feet (away), with our backs to the place where the office was broken into,\u201d from which the security guard had warned them \u201cbad guys could burst out firing weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy thought at the time, beyond what a surreal event this was, was what a foolish place to handcuff me. I wondered, and still wonder, how on earth is everyone safe. My conclusion is that officer Rogers … did not give a damn about my life; she was willing to sacrifice me,\u201d Mr. Mitchener\u2019s Jan. 19 letter to Metro continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwice, officer Rogers asked me to bend at the knees … (my arms were already extended downward, and my legs were spread), because she could not reach high enough to put the handcuffs on. Peggy noted that officer Rogers was having real difficulty working the handcuffs and fumbled about. Thank God for officer Rogers\u2019 sake I was a law-abiding citizen, because otherwise the handcuffing would not have occurred.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the handcuffing experience, it was time for the trained officer to disarm me. … I feel Officer Rogers begin to grab my weapon by the handle grip. I am wearing an excellent inside-the-waistband holster secured to an operator\u2019s belt. Incidentally, in addition to an IWB holster, I am wearing … a longer than normal sweatshirt concealing my weapon. I am 100 percent confident that had I not volunteered my CCW, my weapon would never have been exposed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I feel officer Rogers on the handle of my weapon, I tell her not to remove the weapon in that manner because it is \u2018ready to go.\u2019 In other words, there is a round chambered. … I told her to remove the holster with the weapon in it so that the trigger was not exposed; I was concerned that the officer did not know what she was doing. …<\/p>\n

\u201cThankfully the officer listened to me; unfortunately she then had difficulty figuring out how to remove the holster. …<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing that the officer was struggling to remove the holster and weapon, my wife, Peggy, volunteered to help. Remember, officer Rogers had never asked who Peggy was, what she was doing there or if she had a weapon. … It is one of those situations that, if it were not so serious, we would fall on our face laughing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe weapon, with the assistance of Peggy … is removed and taken by the officer Rogers to her patrol car. She returns and removes the handcuffs. … The two officers clear the office and the backup officer leaves. … A CSI officer arrives and very professionally begins looking for fingerprints, etc. …<\/p>\n

\u201cOfficer Rogers sees Peggy and gives her my driver\u2019s license and CCW card. I would think that the correct protocol would be to hand me directly my license and CCW. But at this point, why should we think that anything would be done correctly or professionally? Officer Rogers also informs me that she has secretly placed my weapon in the second drawer on the left side of the receptionist desk. …\u201d<\/p>\n

It would be hard to come up with a better test case to demonstrate the absurdity of any one-size-fits-all police doctrine that \u201cEverybody out there is presumed to be a \u2018bad guy\u2019 till proven otherwise\u201d — or of the inappropriateness of placing on patrol duty women so small they have trouble handcuffing even a cooperating \u201csuspect,\u201d and who feel threatened by calm, law-abiding citizens whose only offense is to be \u201ctall.\u201d Why wasn\u2019t the armed security guard \u201cID\u2019d,\u201d handcuffed, and disarmed? Couldn\u2019t a \u201cbad guy\u201d steal a security guard uniform?<\/p>\n

Many readers have asked the obvious questions:<\/p>\n

Metro backs up the officer, saying she has \u201cdiscretion\u201d to do what she did. Given that this is the way a law-abiding citizen can now expect to be treated in this clear-cut a situation, after \u201cdoing everything right,\u201d should we \u201ccall in\u201d such crimes to police, at all?<\/p>\n

And if you DO find yourself dealing with a police officer, might it not be wiser NOT to mention you have a permit or a weapon, as many readers have suggested? Officer Rogers never patted down or handcuffed or demanded the ID of Mr. Mitchener\u2019s wife or of the security guard.<\/p>\n

Sheriff Doug Gillespie called me back Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not standard procedure, Vin. A young officer went out on that particular call, we\u2019ve taken a look at it and her captain has spoken to her and they\u2019re dealing with it from a training standpoint,\u201d the sheriff said. \u201cBut our officers also have discretion.”<\/p>\n

\u201cFor it to be thought that our policy is that every time we encounter someone with a CCW we disarm you and handcuff you, there\u2019s many people that that doesn\u2019t happen to. …<\/p>\n

\u201cI had concerns when I read your (Jan. 10) article, Vin. My direction was take a look at it. … Your questions are valid; I\u2019m not going to say that they\u2019re not. … As far as a written reprimand, no, but they\u2019re dealing with it through a training component. …<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not a change, Vin. … There\u2019s no policy here that\u2019s that what we do, that if you tell Officer Doug Gillespie that you have a CCW that I immediately put you in handcuffs and disarm you. You can\u2019t policy-ize everything so everybody does everything exactly the same.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charlie Mitchener, the Las Vegas business owner who was handcuffed and disarmed after presenting a concealed weapons permit along with his drivers license to a police officer responding to a burglary call at his place of business Jan. 3 (see my column of Jan. 10), has provided me with his Jan. 19 follow-up letter to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2nd-amendment"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pWqFl-6X","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":435,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions\/435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}