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.
I certainly did. Nevertheless, it was military tanks at Waco that injected CS gas into the buildings. If you tell enough lies and demonize the "enemy" you can get even well-meaning soldiers to support the wrong side.
It is in Finland. At some ranges, it's mandatory. The German military even has mufflers for artillery pieces. They are the size of largish storage shed, and I don't know how well they work, but I read about them in one of the European defense technology publications about 8 years ago.
It' a little more complicated than that. Their regulations (not the law, just their regulations) define any gun, which means any receiver, that was once a machine gun as a machine gun. That's the main reason all, well most the Navy still uses theirs, the M-14s haven't been distributed through the Civilian Marksmanship Program. They are select fire, and even with the select fire parts removed, even if "removed" means ground off the receiver, BATFE considers them to be machine guns, which the subjects are not allowed to possess. There is some RUMINT going aroudn that CMP and BATFE have come to some sort of agreement on that would allow the M-14s to have their recievers modified so that without welding and machine work, they could not be converted back to select fire, and thus sold through CMP. If so, and I stress it's RUMINT, I want one. All the CETMEs, FN/FALs, G-3s and any other "battle rifles" that have been imported must be fitted with a new receiver before the rest of the parts (a kit) can be assembled into a functioning semi-auto firearm. Even then they have to use a certain number of US made parts beside the reciever, due to the Bush I non-sporting purpose import ban and the subsequent codifying into law of the gist of that ban.
Actually not, they passed a $200 tax on a $15 (or thereabouts) suppressor because they didn't want thee or me to have one. $200 bucks was big money in 1934. They did it that way because they knew darn good and well they had no authority to ban such items, but they did have the power to tax, so they used it. Their model was the Harrison narcotics act, wherein they did the same to various herbs and plant extracts, again, knowing full well they had no power to ban them. (Since such keeping and using such herbs and plant extracts is not explictly protected by the Constitution, state governments may very well have had to the power to ban or severly regulate them, but not the feds, see the ninth amendment) Since then the Supreme Court has ruled that a constutionally protected right may not be singled out to be the object of such a tax, even one much less onorous than that laid out in the Federal Firearms Act. The particular case involved newsprint, IIRC. The same is true of keeping and bearing arms. The 1934 "tax" on machine guns, short barrelled shotguns, short rifles, suppressors, and other stuff was of course only the first slice of the salami, or if you prefer when the first turned on the flame, just a little one, under that pot of boiling water with the frog(s) in it.
The tanks belonged to the military, but the crews were FBI. There were however trained, poorly, by the military under the "war on drugs" exception to the posse commitatus act.
Well, it's actually $200 every time the thing changes hands. As I indicated earlier, in 1934, $200 might has well have been $2,000,000 for the vast majority of people.
Your post might as well have come from Handgun Control Inc. The 2nd Amendment states that the right to bear ARMS shall not be infringed. Rocket launchers and thermonuclear devices are not arms. Gun grabbers are very fond of using such scare tactic comarisons.
As for the rest of your points, if someone is too dangerousa to be trusted with a firearm, they should not be out on the streets, as if they really want to kill, they'll find a way.
You drug warriors have been showing your true colors quite a bit in the last few days.
I give up; what is it?
"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,"
Sucks when the shoe is on the other foot doesn't it officer ?
That something may be used for evil is hardly a reason to ban it. This sort of thinking leads to official paranoia: Government officials trying to track purchases of the two most common chemicals used in agriculture, fertilizer and diesel.
Tearing up a deadbold is going to make a lot of noise no matter what. Besides, firing at hardened steel may earn the invader more than he bargained for anway.
It all started with the matter of a little $200 excise tax that the government now in large part refuses to collect. That in itself is telling as to which party is acting in good faith and which is fraudulent.
My conclusions are that the JBTs initiated the firing at the Davidians and continued to fire into a building they knew contained women and children. The latter cannot be disputed, and I believe the former to be true since the gov't has not proven otherwise.
They could have arrested Koresh at any time they wanted. Instead, they wanted to launch a high-profile attack where they slammed women and children to the ground, and could brag afterwards about all the guns and ammo they seized, as Congressmen licked their boots and voted to give them more funding.
Vernon Wayne Howell had a death wish that he carried out. TO the detriment of those innocent people under his 'care' I might add.
I guess we'll never know since he was murdered by the feds. Or do you believe that he just happened to commit suicide and murder his followers at the exact instance that the tanks rolled in?
Furthermore, if the federales believed him to be that dangerous, why didn't they simply pick him up during one of his daily trips into town?
Either way, they screwed the pooch (commiting numerous crimes in the process), and got away with it.
You, sir, are 100% correct.
My understanding is that the military guys that were there got very pissed off once they found out the feds had lied to them. So only a few of them remained to make sure the feds didn't lose their equipment. I think the feds, not the military, operated the tanks. But I could be very wrong, as all of this is based on stuff I've read elsewhere.
I'm with you 100%.
My point was simply that should the 'enemies of the Constitution' issue an illegal edict and attempt to have the miltary unlawfully carry it out, the "latest and greatest" equipment won't be necessary to defeat them.
In many cases, grandpa's bolt action deer rifle would suffice.
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