Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!
Posted on 05/06/2009 4:20:49 AM PDT by marktwain
STEVENSVILLE-Brook Blakeley knows what it’s like to be looking down the business end of an assault rifle.
He didn’t much like it.
Two Saturdays back, Blakeley and his wife had just finished walking their usual three-mile loop around Three Mile Road on the east side of the Bitterroot Valley just north of Stevensville.
Like usual, Blakeley was carrying his pellet rifle on his shoulder. *
“My neighbor has given me permission to shoot starlings on his property and so I take my pellet gun along,” he said. “I’m also an avid hunter. I think it is good practice to carry it with me.”
The couple returned home which is located across the street from the little Three Mile Store. His wife went inside while Blakeley lingered on the porch with his rifle still on his shoulder.
“I saw a squad car coming down the road about that time,” he remembered. “It went by my house and then flipped a u-ey in the store’s parking lot. Dirt was flying everywhere. I thought the store was being robbed.”
Then, much to his surprise, the car pulled off Three Mile Road and onto his lot. Another squad car from the Stevensville City Police blocked the road he lives on.
Blakeley said he watched in amazement as officers began to deploy in front of his home. One carrying a tactical assault rifle took cover behind a trailer on his property. Another officer came directly at him with his pistol drawn. The officer was yelling at him to drop his weapon.
“I’ve watched a lot of cop shows,” Blakeley said. “I could tell that guy was on an adrenaline rush. I thought I was going to get killed.”
Blakeley said he took the gun off his shoulder, leaned it against the house and put his hands in the air. He started telling the officers: “This is my home. I live here. This is a pellet gun.”
From inside his home, Blakeley could hear his wife screaming at him to come inside.
“She was very afraid and eventually ran to the back of the house,” Blakeley said.
In the next few minutes, the officers had Blakeley kneel in his front yard. He was handcuffed in front of his neighbors. They then led him to one of the squad cars where he was questioned.
The officers told Blakeley there had been two reports of him screaming at people and acting oddly.
He told them: “I can guarantee you that I haven’t taken this rifle off my shoulder and I haven’t spoken to a single person. Someone is lying to you.”
According to Blakeley, it took about 10 minutes for the officers to realize they had made a mistake. They released him.
“I couldn’t believe that this had just happened to me on my own front porch,” Blakeley said. “I don’t have anything against the officers. They were professional and courteous to me. I appreciate the fact that their job is sometimes dangerous, but someone lied to them and it put both me and my family in danger.”
Blakeley is asking the Ravalli County Sheriff’s Office to complete a full investigation on the matter. Last week, he asked for copies of the police report, transcripts from the 911 call, names of the callers and other information.
On Monday, Blakeley said he hadn’t received any of it.
“I kind of feel like this is being swept under the rug,” he said. “This whole incident was totally embarrassing for me. I was mortified and completely humiliated. I’ve never had handcuffs on in my life.”
Ravalli County Sheriff Chris Hoffman said the officers responded appropriately considering the information they had received.
Hoffman said 911 dispatch received two calls about Blakeley that evening. The first reported a man walking around with a rifle over his shoulder. The second call had the man yelling at cars.
When the first call came in, a deputy was dispatched to the area. At that point, Hoffman said there wouldn’t be much reason for the officer to be apprehensive. The second call that had a man with a rifle yelling at cars was a different matter.
“That would escalate it a little bit,” Hoffman said. “An officer would start thinking that maybe there’s a potential situation.”
Officers from Stevensville were called for backup.
Somewhere along the route, someone flagged down the sheriff’s deputy and told him that Blakeley was pointing his rifle in the officer’s direction, Hoffman said.
“We have that conversation on tape,” he said.
At the point, the incident escalated.
“The call went from nothing but a drive-by to check it out to what in essence was a felony take-down of an individual,” Hoffman said. “When that happens, officers have their weapons out. No fingers are on the trigger, but it is serious.”
Hoffman is confident the officers reacted correctly.
“Given the information the officers had at the time, I am very confident that their response was absolutely appropriate,” he said.
Hoffman said he plans on providing Blakeley with the information he requested “within reason” as soon as possible.
“We’ll go out of our way to comply with Mr. Blakeley’s request and make sure that he has all the information that we can provide him,” Hoffman said. “We’ll do whatever we can to help him understand this situation.”
Blakeley said he’s looking forward to putting this incident behind him, but it’s not going to be easy.
His wife isn’t sure she want to stay in the home they recently built.
“She told me that she doesn’t feel safe here anymore,” Blakeley said. “She hasn’t been sleeping very well since this happened. She says she doesn’t want to be here anymore.”
Blakeley said all he wants is some assurance that the incident is being taken seriously.
“I just want an explanation on why this happened,” he said. “I wouldn’t want anyone else to have to go through something like this.”
Editor Perry Backus can be reached at 363-3300 or editor@ravallirepublic.com.
Too late.
Had this happened to me, just as related?
The LEOs hierarchy and government directly above would be given 2 choices:
1) GIVE me the name or names of the complainants
-or-
2) A massive lawsuit for violating any number of my rights forthcoming immediately, all the way to the federal level if need be.
Period.
BTW mark, perhaps you could list the state this happened. I've no idea where this place is located.
Sound like transplants. What is his point of shooting starling birds and killing them with his pellet gun? He wasn’t going to eat the starlings he just wanted to kill them? What an idiot the guy is.
It’s in the brackets at the top of the headline on this thread.
[Montana]
The guy is lucky he wasn’t shot 15 times(out of 162,799 shots fired).
Great story.
Timing's everything. :^)
I got a gun question for the Freepers... I was talking to my next door neighbor (an older woman in her 70s) yesterday... and she "happened" to mention that she has a 38...
I asked her a couple of questions about it because we share a common wall... and apparently, she hasn't fired it for several years. It is loaded because she is afraid of creeps.
And that is all fine and good... but I'm not too sure if it is a good idea to keep the gun loaded over the years and not test fire it or at least clean the gun out once in a while. So is my concerns valid and how do I broach this subject without offending her?
She is a good person... but dammit... she actually voted for OBAMA! believe it or not.
Bump!
A smart owner would (1) learn how to use a firearm, first and then (2) clean it at least 1-2 times a year.
Solution, invite your neighbor to the range, after offering to show her how to clean her pistol.
Everyone wins.
She gets (1) a safe gun, (2) learns how to protect herself and (3) probably has some fun.
You/we get one more person who better understands firearms for personal protection.
If you can’t do I’m sure there’s someone from a local gun club/range who’d be happy to help.
My friend, your neighbor is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
I did that when I was young.
Dad and I would go out around the sheds and spotlight them with a flashlight and shoot them with .22 pellets. Mostly I shot though - he held the light.
First off they are damaging type birds. Not “clean” birds like Robbins and the like. They make a mess (starlings, barn swallows in particular), they damage the overhangs on the sheds as well by pecking at the wood while nest building, they would often get into the grain bags if they were stored inside and try to peck them open to get the seed out and they are a general pain in the butt when it comes to breeding as once they establish in the area its hard to get them to stop coming back.
They also tend to run off the “clean” birds that you might find in the old barns like the Robbins as well as they will try to harm Owls if they are in a significant number. We liked Owls, beyond being very nice to look at they kept the mice down. So theres plenty of reasons for the removal of what really amounts to “pests”. People do the same with rodents all the time, its no different. I doubt many people would consider eating a mouse either. Its just not practical.
Anyway, the point is, theres plenty of reasons to remove them from the area. They don’t scare to easy though so shooting them is about the best solution one has.
We did have a cat though. Several actually over the years - their job was to keep the mice out. But there were no mice really (probably because of the Owls) - however with the bird removal once a week they were very well fed cats: so the starlings didn’t go to waste in most cases in our instance.
I’m sure the rational was the same for the MT guy above. Damage prevention, population control, possible neighbor or owner cats to eat the byproduct of the removals.
I wouldn’t assume the worst in other words.
Starlings are an invasive species in the U.S. -- brought here in the 1890s by a group that thought it would be a good idea to introduce in this country all the birds mentioned by Shakespeare.
A few years ago here in the Charlotte NC area, we had a cop kill a telephone maintenance worker who was in an equipment room just doing his job. It was caused when an idiot homeowner called police and told them a suspicious vehicle was at the equipment house and it shouldn't be there. The police apparently never bothered to ask this person how they know who should and should not be there. They just took their word for it. When the LE's got there, they went full out Rambo and entered the building (which only had one entrance). The worker couldn't hear anything because of the equipment noise but saw someone enter and drew his gun. The rest is history and the office, nor the homeowner, were ever charged. The worker was clearly murdered.
Considering it was a 12 year old who had been left alone in her house the parents need to answer something fierce, such as a nice fine of about $1,000 and restitution to my co-worker of another $1,000. That might lead to the parents taking control of their child. It seems she hs done this before.
Kid needs her ass beet with a willow switch.
great story.
Just explain that you are patriotic conservative refugees from California looking for a place where sanity reigns and that you never intend to vote the way a typical Californian votes. Oh, and don't offer any pointers on BBQ to anyone under ANY circumstances for about 10 years. ;)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.