Posted on 11/05/2002 3:31:42 AM PST by kattracks
Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - Prior to the capture of "Beltway Sniper" suspects John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, an unconfirmed number of Maryland gun owners received surprise visits from the FBI as part of the investigation. One such gun owner had a surprise of his own for the agents when they arrived at his home.
Jeff Brown of Gaithersburg, Md., was "a little nervous" when he heard the voicemail message from an FBI agent on the sniper task force who wanted to "visit" Brown at his home to check a .223 caliber semi-automatic rifle Brown purchased in 1993. Adding to that apprehension was the fact that Brown owns and drives a full-sized white panel van, the type of vehicle investigators believed the sniper was driving.
"I expected, actually, to be pulled over and spread-eagle on the street at some point," Brown told CNSNews.com Monday. "When he called, I knew their database had had a double hit. A white van and a .223 rifle? I knew they were coming."
In a subsequent telephone conversation, Metzger reportedly told Brown that agents merely wanted to verify the serial number of the rifle and confirm that it was, in fact, still physically in Brown's possession. The two scheduled an appointment to accomplish those goals.
But Brown later learned that the agents had tried at least once to make an unannounced visit, and only called because they were unable to catch him at home.
"Once I told some of my friends in the pro-gun community what was happening, they began to relate some stories to me about guys having their guns confiscated, for so-called 'ballistic fingerprinting,' and not getting their guns back," Brown explained. "I became alarmed."
Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said the attitude of the federal agents comes as a result of "years of accepting gun control as somehow useful for solving crimes."
"The [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms] went to the stores and got the lists of gun owners that had something that could fire a .223. But, it didn't solve the crime," Pratt noted. "The only reason we find that gun registration is 'useful' is for confiscation."
FBI Agents 'Were Not Happy'
Brown's apprehension prompted him to contact an attorney, who instructed him on preparing for the visit. So, when FBI Special Agent Greg Metzger and his partner arrived at Brown's home for their scheduled meeting, they were greeted by Brown and his wife, Mary, along with reporters and photographers from various media outlets.
As Brown described the situation, the agents were "a little bit miffed."
"They were not happy," he observed. "They just were not interested in being around any cameras."
The agents asked Brown to step outside the home, away from the television crew, to talk.
"Can we, uh ... come here," one of the agents said to Brown. Obliging, Brown stepped away from the door to speak with the agents, but still within view of the camera.
Brown began recapping the agreement he had made with Special Agent Metzger. But when one of the agents realized Brown was wearing a wireless microphone, he stopped the conversation short.
"Do you have a microphone on?" the agent asked as he reached toward the microphone clipped to Brown's shirt. Brown backed away and continued talking, but the agent interrupted him again.
"Can you do me a favor?" the agent asked. "Can you take the apparatus off that you have on? I'd like to speak to you privately."
Brown complied, but only after summoning his wife to serve as a witness to the conversation with the agents. Out of the camera's view, and believing they could not be heard, the agents challenged Brown about the presence of the media.
"They were belligerent, at that point, with me. They weren't threatening me or pushing me around or touching me or anything like that, but their mannerisms and attitude quickly became offended and belligerent," Brown recalled. "I was thinking to myself, 'See, this is what I was afraid would happen if you guys came into my house, especially if I was alone.'"
'Don't You Know People Are Dying?'
Parts of the conversation picked up by the camera's long-range microphone confirm Brown's account of what happened next.
"Why didn't you give us a chance to do what we said we were going to do instead of ambushing us with the media? Why didn't you trust us?" one agent asked.
Brown said it was not so much the words the agents used, as their attitude and body language that made him uncomfortable.
"There was some lecturing about it," he said recalling one comment that did unnerve him.
"One thing they said was, 'Don't you know people are dying and we're just trying to do our job?'" Brown recalled, "Of course, the inference was that I didn't care that there were people dying and I was trying to interfere with them doing their job."
During that conversation, the agents reportedly admitted that they had seized other rifles, allegedly with permission, to compare them to the ballistic evidence gathered from the crime scenes.
"They said, from some people, they do 'request' to take the gun with them and do 'ballistic fingerprinting,' as they call it," Brown recalled. "I just did not want to have my gun disappear."
Pratt believes the agents "developed an attitude," because Brown challenged their attempts to violate his constitutional rights.
"The FBI is trying to put this guy on a guilt trip because he's 'not cooperating' with the system but it's a totally useless system," Pratt argued. "They just assume that gun owners [are] all a bunch of suspects just for being gun owners and they should behave accordingly."
'They Were Doing It On Purpose'
At the request of Special Agent Metzger, Brown instructed the media to stay outside his home, where they could see what was happening through a plate glass window. Brown had the unloaded weapon displayed in plain sight for the inspection.
The agents followed Brown and his wife inside and confirmed the serial number on the rifle as they had said they wanted to do. But that was not the end of the encounter.
"After they checked, they started [questioning Brown again], and that's when my wife stepped in and told them to leave," Brown said, noting that his wife formerly worked in law enforcement.
Mary Brown believed the agents were attempting to agitate her husband, hoping he would say or do something to justify their confiscation of his rifle.
"I could tell that they were doing it on purpose and I didn't like what they were doing to you," she told her husband. "So, I decided to just jump right in."
The agents left the couple's property, as they were ordered to do.
Jeff Brown does not believe the agents' reaction to the presence of the media, or their "brow-beating" tactics were justified.
"I'm not here to make them feel happy. I have to make sure my rights are not violated. I wanted to help, but this is not Nazi Germany," he explained. "I looked [Metzger] right in the eye and said ... 'I don't care whether you're upset about being ambushed by the media. I felt I needed some witnesses here with me.'"
Brown, a member of the National Rifle Association and former candidate for public office in Maryland, was also upset by what he perceived as a lack of honesty on the part of the FBI.
"[Metzger] wasn't upfront with me, and I didn't have any guilty feelings about [contacting the media]," Brown said. "They weren't truthful with me. They didn't tell me all the truth. They only told me the part they wanted to hear."
A Message to Gun Owners?
Debbie Weierman, a spokeswoman for the FBI, said the bureau would not respond to any questions about the encounter, because the probe into the multiple murders was still in progress.
"We're not going to be able to get into any kind of a dialogue with you regarding any aspect of our investigation," she said.
Pratt believes the response of the agents to the presence of the media shows that their main focus was not on finding the "Beltway Sniper," but rather on sending a message to gun owners.
"They know it's not about crime control because, if they were really interested in finding the perpetrator they would have kept moving. Obviously this guy wasn't the guy," Pratt concluded. "What it's really all about is showing that the feds are in control in a very totalitarian sense of the word."
E-mail a news tip to Jeff Johnson.
Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.
I'm not "toying" with or presuming anything!
I am simply stating that this delicate little A.H and his pathetic attorney "blind-sidded" officers who were trying to end a murderous and desperate situation by visiting everyone who had both a white van and a 223 rifle.
This jerk was having a good time in a truly desperate situation with the liberal media right there to add to his enjoyment.
A certified A$$ hole.
Whether or not one is convicted of the subject "crime," the trauma to one's self (not to mention one's family and friends) of being indicted, arrested, processed, arraigned, dealing with and being indebted to a lawyer, tried in a court of law, unemployed, publically labelled a criminal, etc. etc. is most likely to be quite substantial.
If you don't believe me, then you do and review a Google search of "Linda Tripp prosecution." Or simply use some common sense....
The charges against Tripp? They were dropped. They had NO real merit. It was a strictly 100% political persecution. They kind NO ONE, innocent or guilty, is exempt from.
You have made one argument: "Be afraid of the bogeyman!" Nothing more, no facts, nothing but fear.
Grow up.
You, son, can settle this in your own diminished and arrested mind by simply coming down here to Maryland and covertly taping someone. You no doubt have enough time on your hands and no career or anything material to lose.
Not surprisingly, your FR home page reads:
"Location: A location shown on the NJ State quarter.
"I can count to 100 and know all the vowels, if not most of the alphabet. I can walk up the stairs without using my hands and dress myself without anybody's help. I like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. For a living I am planning to sell dryer lint on eBay, or maybe I'll invent a edible toothpick. No, my mother does not wear army boots."
And you, Junior, have the gall to tell me to "grow up?"
If the agents really wanted to end a murderous and desperate situation, why were they wasting their time visiting non-criminals, rather than doing something useful like checking whether any vehicles were present at an implausible number of the roadblocks?
Unless you think it's a good thing that the government agents were using their government-paid time to harrass law-abiding gun owners rather than working usefully toward solving the case, I can't see why you would object to having the media expose such action?
Yeah, all those children were in the way! They deserved to be fried! </SARCASM>
Oh, I see...Your position is that the FBI did not want to end a murderous and desperate situation and that the agency was just spending its time tormenting people....Nice.
Clearly, if they had a probable cause to suspect he was involved in the sniper shootings they would have gotten a warrant. Warrants are issued on probable cause. If they thought this individual knew something about the sniper incidents then they would have asked him questions that did not have to do with a rifle purchased yaers ago.
The agents clearly were chasing a wild goose and the fact that they would go after people just because they happened to have purchased a firearm that fires the same round the shooter used in this case. Clearly their time would have been better spent checking out field reports from officers who stopped vehicles after some of these shootings and looking for the people seen in the vicinity of more than one shooting. That might have led them to John Mohammed and it was a valid police procedure. Checking out those kind of details is what led to the arrest of David Berkowitz. It is a tried and true methodology.
Further, unlike the sweep of Maryland gun owners, it does not damage the FBI's reputation for the future. It encourages cooperation in future cases. It does not leave the impression that the FBI is eager to violate the Right to keep and bear arms.
Of course, you may suggest what you wish.
However, as an avid hunter and gun owner (bow hunting as well),my suggestion is that this person got his jollies off by interferring with a legitamte and desperate (and I repeat-desperate)search effort to find the madmen who were terrorizing much of the greater Washington DC and Virginia/Maryland areas.
Other gun owners possessing both a white van and a 223 Bushmaster had no problem cooperating with the FBI. This a$$hole, his stooge lawyer, and their liberal media Peter Jennings wannabees had their fun getting press while interferring with a massive and well justified manhunt.
Pathetic.
If they were so desparate to solve the case why weren't they doing good police work instead of toeing the Sarah Brady line
I really do not care if you are a hunter or not. I point out for your reference the Second Amendment is not about hunting.
I also point out the vetran who was shot by his spouse who happened to have a white van anbd a .223 rifle in Baltimore who was in custody when another shooting happened in the Beltway series. You seem to not wish to have Federal Law enforcement agents do the actual work of investigation and want them instead to practice a law enforcement technique more like that employed by Captain Louis Renneault in Casablanca to wit Round up twice the usual number of suspects. You have alleged this line of inquiry was legitmate but have yet to substantiate that with any logic or reasoning. If it were a legitimate line of inquiry why were the agens not cooperative with teh News Media documenting a legitimate line of inquiry? Further, as far as I know the FBI has never objected to someone having an attorney present during any legitimate questioning. Why were they upset if this was a legitmate form of inquiry? Unless and until these questions are answered it is merely another instance of the FBI performing unprofessiuonally when they need to not only be professional but appear that way. I note this episode occurred after the tarot card had turned up. In short this was during the time when they already had info leading to the 5% connection and a possible Muslim connection based up the exact phrasing. They also had the records from several road bloack intercepts that the chevy caprice with NJ plates was in the area of more multiple attacks. Following up on that lead would have been as simple as sorting plate numbers and tracing the most frequent hits, a simple computer program would have given them that lead and probably Mohammed and Malvo probaly before they shot their last several victims.
You place great emphasis on the desparation of the search for the shooter. This is all the more reason why the limited police resources available should have been put to the best use possible. Further, FBI agents should be polite to people they interview most particularly when they do not have evidence of any crime committed by that individual. It costs them nothing. It builds up a good rapport with the public. It encourages future cooperation from the public. The FBI and BATF should have been scrupulous about returning any firearm that was not an exact match to the owner of that firearm. If that had been the reputation beforehand then I doubt there would have been the learyness of seeing these agents.
Once more if you appreciate the FBI one should focus on improving it. We as a nation were subjected to a major terrorist attack about 14 months ago. The FBI needs to have the maximum trust and cooperation of the American people. Anything which cuts that trust and cooperation without a real tangible benefit must be viewed as a bad management practice and dangerous to our nation.
While it is never a pleasant experience to meet police, exactly how many gun owners complained and what was the specific harm that they experienced?
That's a ridiculous question. "Exactly how many"! Oh boy .... there's no argument that a person willing to delude himself cannot declare himself the victor of. Well, HOORAY, you have won! No one of sanity and reason can make a hairs-width of headway with you!
Please go celebrate.
Your experience is far different than mine I have never once had a problem meeting police. When occaisionally someone has come to the door I have invariably invited them in and not had a problem but then again I have not had a problem with police trying to enforce some non law.
exactly how many gun owners complained and what was the specific harm that they experienced? More than six had complained of guns being volunteered for ballistic testing and not being returned to the owners after completion of the test. If you had read the above and been following RKBA news sites you would have been aware of this. Clearly property taken and not returned is a major problem especially when one is talking about a Constititionally protecte3d item like one's arms. The fact that at first many gun owners had volunteered their property and not been treated courteously when after sufficient time ( a day or less) to get the ballitic sample(s) for testing is the underlying problem and this was explained in the article.
When the FBI does things correctly I do praise them and I know several Agents who have my deepest respect but when the management allows them to behave as jack booted thugs they alienate the people they need the most that is the ordinary citizens who would normally cooperate.
You asked for specifics. Yu have been given specifics. Had a state or local Law Enforcement agency I would also criticise them but the FBI is supposed to be the best Law Enforcement operation in the nation. Given their history over the past couple of years one may reasonably state that they are FUBAR and need to get their act together. Obviously when an organization gets is not performing adequately the senior andf the middle management needs profound changes. I do not need to go into the litany of problems here. Will the current director who has been in his post only a little more than a year fix things. I certainly hope so.
What I do not like is seeing an us vs them attitude regarding Federal Law enforcement agents. We can not afford the non cooperation of the American people.
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