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Carlton chief, sergeant face firearms charges (BATF now persecuting local police)
News-Register (McMinnville, OR) ^ | February 22, 2003 | STARLA POINTER

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.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: Oregon
KEYWORDS: 2amd; bang; banglist; batf; feddeathsquads; firearms; jackbootedthugs; leo; machineguns; police; rkba
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This is a current story despite the date - the trial is now scheduled for November (click here for details).

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 posted on 10/19/2003 12:41:48 AM PDT by fire_eye
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To: *bang_list
Thoroughly disgusted *Ping*...
2 posted on 10/19/2003 12:43:14 AM PDT by fire_eye
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To: fire_eye
I do not intend to flame and I am a gun owner but I need to ask the question: Why would even a police officer need a silencer? There is only one reason to use a silencer and it ain't noise control.
3 posted on 10/19/2003 12:52:12 AM PDT by dwilli
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To: dwilli
Who knows. I know somebody whose grandfather used to take him shooting rats at the town dump, using a .30-06 with a silencer made out of a lawnmower muffler. I know any number of cops out here who are gun nuts and would probably like to have a silencer just because it attaches to a gun.

Personally, I don't expect to get assassinated by a Carlton cop with a silenced gun... That kind of behavior can generally be expected only from the Feds, or the LAPD. Local cops will run anyone that crazy out of town - whether or not they're on the police force.
4 posted on 10/19/2003 1:02:27 AM PDT by fire_eye
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To: fire_eye
I think it's a bad idea when uniformed or undercover law enforcement and gun silencers are intertwined.

There is a very good reason silencer possession is a federal crime. It should apply to everyone.
5 posted on 10/19/2003 1:19:30 AM PDT by dwilli
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To: dwilli
There are many reasons to use noise suppressors:

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.

6 posted on 10/19/2003 1:21:02 AM PDT by xm177e2 (Stalinists, Maoists, Ba'athists, Pacifists: Why are they always on the same side?)
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To: fire_eye
Were either one of these LEO's involved in allowing the water to flow in Klamath falls? If I remember there was an officer who was extremely helpful to the townspeople's predictament and stood against the feds to keep the water flowing.

If so, is this payback?
7 posted on 10/19/2003 1:27:30 AM PDT by JoeSixPack1 (POW/MIA Bring 'em Home, Or Send us Back!! Semper Fi)
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To: dwilli

For your licking enjoyment

8 posted on 10/19/2003 1:50:41 AM PDT by agitator (Ok, mic check...line one...)
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To: dwilli
There is a very good reason silencer possession is a federal crime. It should apply to everyone.

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.

9 posted on 10/19/2003 2:00:40 AM PDT by PeaceBeWithYou (De Oppresso Liber!)
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To: fire_eye
The reason they are doing it is to instill the fear of the Feds into everybody. Don't mess with us. Something like this would make a good 2nd case to take up the courts.

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.

10 posted on 10/19/2003 3:18:17 AM PDT by riverrunner
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To: JoeSixPack1
I wouldn't think so. Carlton is S.W. of Portland, more than 200 miles N.W. of Klamath falls.
11 posted on 10/19/2003 3:46:15 AM PDT by jimtorr
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To: riverrunner
I'd be interested in knowing more about the "semi-automatic" machine guns.

My understanding has always been that if a rifle fires one round with one pull of the trigger, it is classified as "semi-auto" by the BATF. I've never heard of a "machine gun classification" that over-rides the true function of the weapon as it pertains to legality of posession.

While I generally don't care for cops, I certainly care even less for the JBTs. There's something more to this situation than is being reported.
12 posted on 10/19/2003 3:49:03 AM PDT by misanthrope
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To: misanthrope
"I'd be interested in knowing more about the "semi-automatic" machine guns."

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.

13 posted on 10/19/2003 4:06:51 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
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To: misanthrope
Sounds like the British L1A1 *SLR* version of the Belgian FAL, replaced by the L86 *Ibdividual Weapon* or SA-80. The Brit SLRs are semi-only based on the parts installed, but the feds consider them a MG because they have the machined milled cuts needed to install the full-auto components.

Might be L4A3 Sterling SMGs, though.

14 posted on 10/19/2003 4:13:56 AM PDT by archy (Angiloj! Mia kusenveturilo estas plena da angiloj!)
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To: fire_eye
Last year, here in make do Mass., a pair of teenagers shot the fourteen year old girl's mama (she wouldn't let them live together), using a head of lettuce as a silencer! Who said ingenuity was dead!
15 posted on 10/19/2003 4:19:32 AM PDT by hershey
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To: dwilli
All the sexy elite commando/Delta/ and the likes have them. Sooo, you can't be podunk out-in-the-woods-that's-a-mighty-fine-sheep-you-have police department and not have all the fashible toys. Have you ever noticed the strong fashion trends in various police depts? One gets a new type of roof lights, then another gets them. SUVs get popular, then every depts needs 4 or 5. The replacement of revolvers with autos. The SWAT team mania. Now they all want to have their own NBC units. Police depts with a platoon size population, yet the podunk chief has full general stars. In a word, police are vain, almost homo in their desires to keep up with the "fellas".
16 posted on 10/19/2003 4:19:46 AM PDT by Leisler (They let me online, but not off the hospital grounds.)
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To: JoeSixPack1; Jeff Head
Were either one of these LEO's involved in allowing the water to flow in Klamath falls? If I remember there was an officer who was extremely helpful to the townspeople's predictament and stood against the feds to keep the water flowing.

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.

17 posted on 10/19/2003 4:24:10 AM PDT by archy (Angiloj! Mia kusenveturilo estas plena da angiloj!)
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To: Leisler
Police depts with a platoon size population, yet the podunk chief has full general stars. In a word, police are vain, almost homo in their desires to keep up with the "fellas".

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-/-

18 posted on 10/19/2003 4:29:39 AM PDT by archy (Angiloj! Mia kusenveturilo estas plena da angiloj!)
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To: archy
I figgered the weapon in question was a L1A1 (or FAL), but I've never heard of the JBTs attempting to prosecute anyone (let alone LEOs) for posessing a rifle CAPABLE OF BEING CONVERTED TO FULL AUTO.

If thier new SOP is as mentioned, there's alot of us in trouble. Consider all the owners of L1A1s, M1As, Mini-14 & 30s, etc, etc, etc.
19 posted on 10/19/2003 4:31:50 AM PDT by misanthrope
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To: misanthrope
I figgered the weapon in question was a L1A1 (or FAL), but I've never heard of the JBTs attempting to prosecute anyone (let alone LEOs) for posessing a rifle CAPABLE OF BEING CONVERTED TO FULL AUTO.

Not to mention all the shotguns in America that *could be* sawed off.

-archy-/-

20 posted on 10/19/2003 4:49:14 AM PDT by archy (Angiloj! Mia kusenveturilo estas plena da angiloj!)
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