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Gun buff charged in fatal shooting (WI open carry)
jsonline.com ^ | 13 May, 2010 | Bruce Vielmetti

Posted on 05/14/2010 7:15:00 AM PDT by marktwain

A Milwaukee man who filed a civil rights lawsuit over his arrests for openly carrying a gun into stores has been charged with fatally shooting one man and wounding another outside his south side home over the weekend.

After the shooting, Jesus C. Gonzalez immediately called 911 to report the incident. He was wearing his empty holster as he surrendered to police when they arrived moments later, according to a criminal complaint. His gun was sitting nearby.

Police found John lying on the sidewalk around the corner, at 3400 W. National Ave., in front of his black Honda Civic, which was idling and had gunshots to the windshield. A cell phone was outside the driver's door, ringing.

A relative told police she had been talking to John by phone around the time of the shooting when she heard him having an argument, telling someone to leave his windows alone. She said she heard the other voice say a repeated expletive and "I'm going to back up in there" before the call became muffled and then was disconnected.

Corn told police neither he nor John had guns that night and had not had an altercation with Gonzalez.

Police officials recovered seven casings they determined were likely fired from Gonzalez's gun, which his brother told police he always wears when he leaves the house.

Last year, Gonzalez filed a federal lawsuit challenging the common practice of police arresting people who openly carry holstered guns in public after his arrests on disorderly conduct charges at a Menard's in West Milwaukee in 2008 and at a Wal-Mart in Chilton in April 2009. Prosecutor declined to bring charges in both cases.

A week later, Attorney General J.B.Van Hollen issued an advisory stating that so-called open carry, by itself, was not cause for a charge of disorderly conduct, and in the year since, open carry advocates have held picnics and other public events around the state promoting the practice.

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn quickly responded to the Van Hollen advisory, saying Milwaukee officers would certainly still be questioning anyone seen openly carrying a gun in the city.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman dismissed Gonzalez's civil rights complaint, saying police officers indeed had probable cause to arrest him in each instance, and that even if they had not, the officers had qualified immunity from claims such as the one Gonzalez had filed. He had alleged privacy and due process violations.

Adelman also rejected Gonzalez's claim that because police in West Milwaukee and Chilton held his gun for months before returning it, they violated his rights against illegal search and seizure.

His order may likely anger open carry proponents.

"No reasonable person would dispute that walking into a retail store openly carrying a firearm is highly disruptive conduct which is virtually certain to create a disturbance.

"This is so because when employees and shoppers in retail stores see a person carrying a lethal weapon, they are likely to be frightened and possibly even panicky. Many employees and shoppers are likely to think that the person with the gun is either deranged or about to commit a felony or both.

"Further, it is almost certain that someone will call the police. And when police respond to a 'man with a gun' call, they have no idea what the armed individual's intentions are. The volatility inherent in such a situation could easily lead to someone being seriously injured or killed," Adelman wrote.

In January, two men and the group Wisconsin Carry, Inc., filed another federal lawsuit, challenging a Wisconsin law that restricts open carry within 1,000 feet of a school. That case is pending before Chief U.S. District Judge Charles N. Clevert Jr.

Gonzalez, 23, was charged Thursday with first-degree intentional homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide in the death of Danny John and the wounding of his nephew, Jered Corn. Gonzalez is being held at the Milwaukee County Jail on $100,000 bail, according to jail and court records.

Coincidentally, a federal judge had dismissed his civil suit Tuesday.

According to the criminal complaint:

Early Sunday, John, 29, and Corn, 21, were at Mamie's tavern at S. Shea and National avenues. They agreed to go to a friend's house near the bar. Corn began walking there, while John went to get his car parked nearby. They had agreed to meet at the friend's house.

Corn told police that as he left the parking lot he saw Gonzalez pointing a gun at him on the sidewalk. He said Gonzalez ordered him to back up, which he did for several feet before Gonzalez shot him. Corn said he recalled John's car had arrived in the parking lot, and then sped away, but he couldn't remember more. Corn was shot in the throat and paralyzed.

The complaint does not include a post-interrogation statement from Gonzalez but indicates that he called police about 12:30 a.m. to report that "I just had two individuals try to assault me when I was going outside to move my car." He tells the dispatcher that he shot out the window of a car, and one of the men fell down, but he wasn't sure whether he hit either or both of the men, and that he ran after firing the shots.

When the dispatcher asked if the men had a gun, Gonzalez replies, "I don't know what they had, but they must have thought that I was not armed."

Upon arrival, police found Gonzalez standing outside with his hands up, wearing a black nylon gun holster on his side. His 9mm semiautomatic was sitting on top of a stack of boxes inside his house, with the slide pulled back exposing the empty chamber.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; News/Current Events; US: Wisconsin
KEYWORDS: banglist; gun; opencarry; wi
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To: Repeat Offender

Well said!


61 posted on 05/14/2010 11:02:14 AM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: OneWingedShark
I suppose my plan to get arrested for exercising guaranteed rights

Let me know how that works out for you... Our ends are the same, our tactics differ.

Good luck, you'll probably need it.

Regards,
GtG

62 posted on 05/14/2010 12:52:19 PM PDT by Gandalf_The_Gray (I live in my own little world, I like it 'cuz they know me here.)
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To: Gandalf_The_Gray

The only way I can fail is if they emotionally disregard the Constitution in their prosecution, ignoring all logic; but in that case they [also] reject the very document that gives them judicial authority.


63 posted on 05/14/2010 12:57:53 PM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: OneWingedShark
It 's beginning to look like we share more then issues.

My results:
You are Green Lantern

Green Lantern
70%
Catwoman
70%
Robin
68%
Spider-Man
65%
Hulk
65%
Iron Man
65%
Superman
60%
Supergirl
53%
Batman
35%
The Flash
35%
Wonder Woman
33%

Hot-headed. You have strong
will power and a good imagination.
Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...

I can't explain that "Catwoman" thing...

Regards,
GtG

64 posted on 05/14/2010 1:06:46 PM PDT by Gandalf_The_Gray (I live in my own little world, I like it 'cuz they know me here.)
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To: Gandalf_The_Gray

LOL - That’s funny. / Meow.


65 posted on 05/14/2010 1:07:42 PM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: allmendream
"More of a situation where an owner/operator of such business sees an individual or a couple individuals entering his store with open firearms, vs some punk or punks pulling it out of their pants." Open carry is NOT equal to brandishing. I would suspect that a couple gang bangers wanting to hold up your place and kill some folk aren't going to walk in peacefully wearing weapons, but instead would either hide them until they start the operation or, if they come in guns drawn, would be BRANDISHING their weapons and not wearing them on their hips. There is a HUGE difference between this:

And THIS:


All you are doing by not allowing firearms is endangering your customers.

"I don't think that as I business owner I am going to count on armed citizens being there at the same place and time and willing to act on my behalf as the armed criminals."

They're not armed to act on your behalf, you selfish SOB, they're armed to protect THEMSELVES.

66 posted on 05/21/2010 9:46:45 AM PDT by wvdmc
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To: wvdmc
Well in Ozona Texas my father was arrested because some idiot traveling with him decided that pulling out a shotgun and repacking it or whatever was a good thing to do in the parking lot of a (frequently robbed) gas station near the highway.

The Texas Ranger who arrested them pointed his gun at my dad and said “Any one of you move and I'll shoot y'all”.

The charge was “rudely displaying a firearm”.

Although my sympathy is certainly with my dad on this one, I also understand that businesses that get robbed frequently may not want to see shotguns and pistols aplenty around their place of business.

And no need to get all crazy calling my mom a bitch, or myself selfish because of my opinion as to good business practices pertaining to customers with firearms in a business that gets frequently robbed.

If you owned a diamond store with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, would you want people walking into your store with open carry firearms or not?

Would you be “selfish” to say that the only person you want in the store with a firearm is yourself or your authorized employees?

67 posted on 05/21/2010 9:55:35 AM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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To: fightinbluhen51

Definitely hard to follow.


68 posted on 05/21/2010 9:59:21 AM PDT by FourPeas (God Bless America)
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To: Red Badger
This smells fishy............

Yep.

69 posted on 05/21/2010 10:20:56 AM PDT by FourPeas (God Bless America)
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To: Gandalf_The_Gray
Surprisingly (or not), I got the same results (Green Lantern).

You and I also appear to share a few things, given our screen names!

Sorry to butt in - couldn't resist!

70 posted on 05/21/2010 10:21:36 AM PDT by aragorn (We do indeed live in interesting times. NRA, GOA, SAF, CCRKBA. FUBO.)
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