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.
As a former LEO...no, not all of them.
In the future John, and anyone else reading this, get their name. It will lead to the head of the chain of command.
Then it will be necessary to put the officer and their family in jeopardy. Sad that it has come to this.
5.56mm
There is no good reason to go to that state.
Exactly. We never go to the Western Socialist states (Ca, Wa, Or) or East of the Mississippi .... nothing good ever happens in those places!
I wouldn’t quite yet say ‘all’, but with each passing day you’re getting closer and closer to the ballpark’s main entrance.
WHY does the state of Florida even let the permits holder info leave the state lines ???
Florida is partially at fault for providing such info when there is no Florida law being broken.
Secondly file a complaint against the officer, actually all the officers involved. Contact a lawyer re possibility of suing department over u unlawful detention and civil rights violations. Also look into going after initiating officer personally.
What about California, Colorado and Virginia? Nice places to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there.
If it were a rifle, could have been a .338 Laberdoodle.
EDUCATE YOUR WIFE!!!
Tell her YOU DON’T SPECULATE WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT!!!!!
Yes,
No,
I don’t know.
THAT IS ALL!!!!!
Just never return to Maryland and certainly never spend another dime in that shiitehole.
(Thanks, drug warriors)
>> WHY does the state of Florida even let the permits holder info leave the state lines ??? <<
I think that info is typically tied to your driver’s license. It might be time to think about changing that.
Amen!
Add in NY, NJ, IL, DE, CT, MA... I’m sure I missed a few blue hellholes.
I’m been stopped in NJ and NY with WV plates. Usually the first words out of their mouths is, “Do you have a firearm?” I always answer them truthfully. “No!”
Since when have states been making CCW info available to other jurisdictions. Sounds like maybe Florida needs to be sued too. The cop needs that so-called probable cause shoved up their ass.
Nice to live in a county where the sheriff doesn’t share his CCW files with ANYBODY.
The few times I’ve been traffic stopped, I’ve NEVER been asked if I’m packing.
Before we were married, wife got CCW in next county. She gets asked when she’s stopped.
His wife should have gotten a ticket and fine for sheer stupidity—for talking too much, for being frightened of a gun, and for thinking she might shoot herself through the foot. What an idiot.
In FL, if u have a ccw it does not come up during a tag check
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