good thing there wasn't a Jack Russel or something in the car cause God knows WHAT might have happened...
Posted on 01/14/2014 5:49:44 PM PST by servo1969
John Filippidis, silver-haired family man, business owner, employer and taxpayer, is also licensed to carry a concealed firearm.
He’d rather he didn’t feel the need, “but things aren’t like they used to be. The break-ins, the burglaries, all the crime. And I carry cash a lot of the time. I’m constantly going to the bank.
“I wanted to be able to defend my family, my household and the ground I’m standing on. But I’m not looking for any trouble.”
Filippidis keeps his gun — a palm-sized Kel-Tec .38 semiautomatic, barely larger than a smartphone in a protective case — in one of two places, always: in the right-hand pocket of his jeans, or in the safe at home.
“There are kids in the house,” Filippidis says, “and I don’t think they’d ever bother with it, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
He’s not looking for any trouble, after all.
Trouble, in fact, was the last thing on his mind a few weeks back as the Filippidises packed for Christmas and a family wedding in Woodridge, N.J., so he left the pistol locked in the safe. The state of Florida might have codified his Second Amendment rights, but he knew he’d be passing through states where recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions affirming the rights of individuals to keep and bear arms have been met by hostile legislatures and local officials.
“I know the laws and I know the rules,” Filippidis says. There are, after all, ways gun owners can travel legally with firearms through hostile states. “But I just think it’s a better idea to leave it home.”
So there the Filippidises were on New Year’s Eve eve, southbound on Interstate 95 — John; wife Kally (his Gulf High sweetheart); the 17-year-old twins Nasia and Yianni; and 13-year-old Gina in their 2012 Ford Expedition — just barely out of the Fort McHenry Tunnel into Maryland, blissfully unarmed and minding their own business when they noticed they were being bird-dogged by an unmarked patrol car. It flanked them a while, then pulled ahead of them, then fell in behind them.
“Ten minutes he’s behind us,” John says. “We weren’t speeding. In fact, lots of other cars were whizzing past.”
“You know you have a police car behind you, you don’t speed, right?” Kally adds.
Says John, “We keep wondering, is he going to do something?”
Finally the patrol car’s emergency lights come on, and it’s almost a relief. Whatever was going on, they’d be able to get it over with now. The officer — from the Transportation Authority Police, as it turns out, Maryland’s version of the New York-New Jersey Port Authority — strolls up, does the license and registration bit, and returns to his car.
According to Kally and John (but not MTAP, which, pending investigation, could not comment), what happened next went like this:
Ten minutes later he’s back, and he wants John out of the Expedition. Retreating to the space between the SUV and the unmarked car, the officer orders John to hook his thumbs behind his back and spread his feet. “You own a gun,” the officer says. “Where is it?”
“At home in my safe,” John answers.
“Don’t move,” says the officer.
Now he’s at the passenger’s window. “Your husband owns a gun,” he says. “Where is it?”
First Kally says, “I don’t know.” Retelling it later she says, “And that’s all I should have said.” Instead, attempting to be helpful, she added, “Maybe in the glove [box]. Maybe in the console. I’m scared of it. I don’t want to have anything to do with it. I might shoot right through my foot.”
The officer came back to John. “You’re a liar. You’re lying to me. Your family says you have it. Where is the gun? Tell me where it is and we can resolve this right now.”
Of course, John couldn’t show him what didn’t exist, but Kally’s failure to corroborate John’s account, the officer would tell them later, was the probable cause that allowed him to summon backup — three marked cars joined the lineup along the I-95 shoulder — and empty the Expedition of riders, luggage, Christmas gifts, laundry bags; to pat down Kally and Yianni; to explore the engine compartment and probe inside door panels; and to separate and isolate the Filippidises in the back seats of the patrol cars.
Ninety minutes later, or maybe it was two hours — “It felt like forever,” Kally says — no weapon found and their possessions repacked, the episode ended ... with the officer writing out a warning.
“All that time, he’s humiliating me in front of my family, making me feel like a criminal,” John says. “I’ve never been to prison, never declared bankruptcy, I pay my taxes, support my 20 employees’ families; I’ve never been in any kind of trouble.”
Face red, eyes shining, John pounds his knees. “And he wants to put me in jail. He wants to put me in jail. For no reason. He wants to take my wife and children away and put me in jail. In America, how does such a thing happen? ... And after all that, he didn’t even write me a ticket.”
Now, despite having fielded apologies from the officer’s captain as well as from a Maryland Transportation Authority Police internal affairs captain, John is wondering if he shouldn’t just cancel his CCW license.
For a guy who’s not looking for trouble, that’s not an unreasonable conclusion. And it would please fans of gun control by any means. But let’s hope John Filippidis, American family man, taxpayer and good guy, doesn’t cave, because it would be a sad statement about the brittleness of our guarantees — some would call them sacred — under the Constitution.
Maryland Transportation Authority: Mission Accomplished.
Tom Jackson Tampa Tribune-
“Warning was for speeding. That detail slipped through the cracks of the creative process. Sorry.”
“Warning” for what? Sue the bastards. I lost any respect I had for police years ago.
with the officer writing out a warning.
FOR WHAT???
This NAZI needs to be relieved of HIS gun, his car, his uniform AND his JOB!!!!
This guy should file charges against him for harassment and unlawful restraint.
The only good thing about maryland (THE Freak state) is that they don’t have razor wire barricades keeping you in that LIB asylum.
Sue the officer and demand that he go through an Internal Affairs investigation. Make sure that the “demand” is in written form and sent to the Chief of the Transit Authority.
Have a lawyer sign off on it too. Makes more of an impact and will “get attention”.
It will go into the officer’s permanent file and will haunt his career till he retires. More valid complaints and he is out on his ass.
Been there. Done that. By by to some aholes with badges.
PS> My son is a good police officer, unlike some of the other officers he has has to deal with over the years.
Keep the CCW permit. Crime is rising in Florida, and Maryland, and anywhere a Democrat runs a state.
The officer wrote out a warning for what? And his wife needs some basic education to stop talking and resist the urge to fill the silence before an interrogator. The urge to talk is one of the most powerful tools to get the undisciplined to trip themselves up, even if they have nothing to hide.
He should get an attorney and sue.
A lot of weirdness about this. I assume this “officer” has jurisdiction in the tunnel? Still a bit weird that the opening conversation with the officer is “Where’s the gun?” Maryland is a constitution free zone with extreme limits on gun possession and transport of even legal firearms.
All cops are scum. Period.
good thing there wasn't a Jack Russel or something in the car cause God knows WHAT might have happened...
I doubt that.
The only way this stops is if we force them to pay big both in money and the court of public opinion. We have to make things like this hurt the ones who are doing the damage in every legal way we can.
Yup, the wife was a real dummie
Nervous lips sink ships
Lucky they didn’t give her and the teenager a full body cavity search. must not have been attracted to them
But then what American minding their own business ever expects to be treated this way?
TSA isn’t humiliating middle Americans enough so now they go out on the highways and hunt people down?
The officer and his supervisor are traitors to their country and to their personal oaths of office. When the time comes they will be so treated and I hope to live to see the day.
This is and was nothing short of FELONY KIDNAPPING. See OJ in Vegas.
“He should get an attorney and sue.”
************************************************************
I’m temporarily trapped in the Peoples’ Democrat State of Maryland. I’d LOVE to be on the civil jury if he does so.
>> Finally the patrol car’s emergency lights come on, and it’s almost a relief. Whatever was going on, they’d be able to get it over with now. The officer — from the Transportation Authority Police, as it turns out, Maryland’s version of the New York-New Jersey Port Authority — strolls up, does the license and registration bit, and returns to his car.
>> According to Kally and John (but not MTAP, which, pending investigation, could not comment), what happened next went like this:
>> Ten minutes later he’s back, and he wants John out of the Expedition. Retreating to the space between the SUV and the unmarked car, the officer orders John to hook his thumbs behind his back and spread his feet. “You own a gun,” the officer says. “Where is it?”
And there you have it ...the tunnel cop thought he had an easy mark: an out of state car. When the tunnel cop ran his license, he learned that Filippidis has a FL CCW ... and went full retard. Everything after follows as predictably as night follows day. The tunnel cop is a thinly disguised thug, and went off in a fit of jealous rage.
BTW, I assume that any polizei that has seen my plates or driver license knows that I have a CHL ... and probably knows some other things as well. I avoid contact with them like the plague.
Don’t every hire someone in Maryland. The state sees small business owners as a unending stream of taxes, regardless of whether you still have anyone working in the state.
There is no good reason to go to that state.
I've heard that song and dance before.
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