Posted on 10/19/2003 12:41:47 AM PDT by fire_eye
CARLTON - Federal firearms charges have been brought against Police Chief Lee Whalon and Sgt. Rick Noble, who make up two-thirds of the Carlton Police Department.
They were arraigned Wednesday before a federal magistrate in Medford, then released from custody on their own recognizance pending an April 29 trial. Each pleaded not guilty to all counts of the indictments brought against them, and each remains on the job in Carlton.
Whalon and Noble each stands charged with possession of an unregistered silencer, an unregistered sawed-off shotgun and unregistered semiautomatic rifles classified as machine guns under federal law. Each also was charged with transferring ownership of the rifles without first obtaining authorization through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
The criminal indictment was handed up by a federal grand jury Feb. 14, following a three-year investigation. It also charges Noble, the department's second-in-comand, with possession of a sawed-off rifle.
"It's a lot to have over your head," said Whalon, who has been a police officer for 12 years. "When you've gone all your life being the good guy, and all of a sudden you're the suspect, that can be draining,"
The charges are based on activities that took place shortly after the two left the force serving the small Southern Oregon town of Merrill and moved to Carlton.
Another longtime police officer, David Rott of Klamath Falls, was the first to be charged in connection with the case. Rott, who succeeded Whalon as police chief in Merrill, entered a guilty plea last year under terms of an agreement negotiated with federal prosecutors.
Whalon, who has long been aware he was the focus of a federal firearms investigation, said he has no intention of following suit.
"I truly believe, and have from the start, that we really didn't do anything wrong," he said. "I'm not going to back down and say I did."
Whalon is represented by Eugene attorney Richard Fredricks, who was appointed on his behalf by the court.
"I worry about my family," he said. "It's hard on them.
"But I'm not going to throw my career away. I have to do what's right."
Whalon started his law enforcement career as an unpaid reserve in McMinnville. He was serving as chief in Merlin when the Carlton chief job opened up in 1998.
Noble had been working for Whalon in Merrill. He joined Whalon in Carlton the following year.
The investigation began three years ago with a probe into restricted weapons owned by the Merrill Police Department. More than a year ago Whalon and Noble came under investigation individually by agents of the Department of Justice and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Rott pleaded guilty to a single count of official misconduct in January 2002 for his role in the arms transaction. He was sentenced to 20 days in the Klamath County Jail and three years probation.
As part of a negotiated agreement, Rott agreed to give up his police certification. By then, he already had switched to a different line of work.
"I'm sorry Carlton gets a black eye from this just by association," Whalon said. "I think in the end it's gong to work out.
"We have reasonable explanations, and we have a lot of support from the city and the community. We're banking on the truth here."
According to Whalon, buying and trading equipment from one another is common practice among small police departments. Sometimes it's the only way they can get what they need.
He said he and Noble entered into such weapons bartering with Rott in an effort to acquire needed equipment. "It's a public safety courtesy," he said.
He said the federal firearms investigation grew out of political infighting that erupted in Merrill after the mayor and several city councilors were replaced. He said Rott came under criticism from the new city leadership and was eventually fired.
Rott's dismissal came at a time when Whalon was trying to complete a transaction involving seven semiautomatic rifles being used by the Merrill department. A qualified rifle instructor, he said he thought Carlton's three full-time officers and seven reserves could make good use of them.
He said the rifles had been declared surplus by the British military and dumped on the market at bargain-basement prices. He said they were never fitted for fully automatic use, but were built on the same frame as the fully automatic version, so were classified as machine guns under ATF regulations.
Whalon said he did complete the required paperwork, but it wasn't until October 1999, by which time some of the weapons had already been shipped to Carlton. He said that's his only impropriety, as far as he can see.
"I tried to do the best for my police agency that I could," he said. "I wouldn't go back and change what I've done, but I could've done a better job with the paperwork."
Whalon said the silencer and the rest of the guns weren't sent to Carlton until Merrill received notice from the ATF that the trade had been approved under the National Firearms Act.
Not long after that, Whalon said, city officials conducted an inventory and discovered the firearms were gone. Rott, who had been the city's only police employee, was unable to explain the transaction to their satisfaction, triggering an investigation.
When the ATF first contacted him, Whalon said, he gathered up all of the firearms in question and voluntarily turned them over to investigators.
Forget about "when machineguns are outlawed, only governments will have machineguns" - it's degenerated to "only the FEDERAL government will have machineguns".
I'm sure some of you think that it's a good thing for the gun laws to get inflicted on the cops, and maybe you're right... but for the most part these small-town cops are just regular folks and are getting chewed up and spit out like the rest of us gun owners by Uncle Bug-Breath and the socialist gun-grabbers.
Yeah, they're supposed to obey the law like the rest of us. Yeah, they ought to know better. But if the Feds come out to Yamhill County and drive out in the middle of nowhere to harass some Randy Weaver in their fancy-pants SUV, and get themselves in some sort of trouble and need backup from the cops out here, my guess is their radio signals are going to be too weak to be heard by any police radio in this county...
1) Tactical: to prevent people from knowing that you are firing nearby, or at least to cloak your location while you are firing if you are using supersonic ammo (such as with a normal sniper rifle)
2) Noise Control: your neighbors don't like it when you fire your machinegun at 3am. This might not seem like a good reason to you, but in countries where suppressors are legal (Norway? Finland? It's one of those countries up there) it's as good a reason as any to use one. Why bother using ear protection when you can just slap on a suppressor?
3) Controlling muzzle blast: when agents raid meth labs, they don't want the whole place going up in flames because their muzzle blast interacted with some flammable chemicals
4) Fire control: suppressors can result in less jarring recoil. They generally work by slowing the rate at which the gas leaves the barrel (it's the supersonic movement of the gas that makes most of the firearm's noise). In doing so, they increase the time the recoil is felt, making it less severe.
5) Intimidation: when you have a firearm out, people pay attention to you. When you have a suppressor stuck on the end, people know you really mean business. A suppressor has value here, just like a heavy 12g pump shotgun has more intimidation value than a plastic 9mm. This can be an advantage if you don't particularly want to have to kill someone (which is usually the situation cops are in).
6) They're really, really cool.
For your licking enjoyment
Actually, you can legally own a silencer in most States. There is a $200 Federal tax/registration on them, in addition to the healthy prices.
Sounds like what happen is they brought police only restricted rifles the sold then to fellow officers.
The whole 1934, 1968 and more recent gun control laws should be declared unconsitutional.
The full article has more details. Although the guns themselves are semi-automatic, they are built on a "frame" that can be easily modified for full auto, and so are classified by the BATF as "machine guns", despite the fact that they are most definitively NOT.
All this is basically a paperwork infraction of the "tempest in teapot" type.
Might be L4A3 Sterling SMGs, though.
If so, is this payback?
Per seventh paragraf:
Another longtime police officer, David Rott of Klamath Falls, was the first to be charged in connection with the case. Rott, who succeeded Whalon as police chief in Merrill, entered a guilty plea last year under terms of an agreement negotiated with federal prosecutors.
They have brought such dishonor and ridicule to their own uniforms that they are trying to salvage their self-image by wrapping themselves in those of others.
The multiple rows of self-awarded enameled *ribbons* for *Medals of Valor* worn above or below the badge, particularly in the East, is another sign of their fixation.
-archy-/-
Not to mention all the shotguns in America that *could be* sawed off.
-archy-/-
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