Protesters showed up to a gun-rights
rally in Erie, Pa., with their firearms out in the open—purposely
defying a local ordinance that prohibits guns at city parks.
“We are American patriots, and we are a
force to be reckoned with!” yelled Pastor George Cook of North Bangor,
Pa. (350 miles away) at the Perry Square park gazebo Saturday, WSEE-TV reports.
Pastor George Cook (Credit: WSEE-TV)
“First, our constitution…says that the
right of people to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state
shall not be questioned,” said Cook. ”The preemption clause in our state
law…says that local towns like Erie can’t make other laws concerning
firearms.”
Cook was one of about 80 who showed up
to support “Open Carry Pennsylvania.” Erie police estimated there were
15 to 20 people carrying firearms in the crowd, and they issued
citations to some of them, noted the Erie Times-News.
(Credit: YouTube)
Rally organizers tried to get an injunction against the city ordinance, but failed.
More from the Erie Times-News:
Those at the rally carrying guns, both handguns and semiautomatic rifles, are subject to a fine of between $100 and $300 and up to 90 days in prison if they fail to pay the fines.Police walked around the crowd and noted license plate numbers of parked cars in an attempt to identify people carrying weapons. They said they would mail citations to people carrying weapons who were successfully identified.
“They’ve been going around writing
down everyone’s license plate number…” said attorney Joshua Prince, a
lawyer for Justin Dillon, the founder of Open Carry PA. “They said
they’re going to be querying the JNet [Justice Network] system to
basically try and do facial recognition…and then proceed from there in
issuing citations.”
may probably go on our side.”
(Credit: YouTube)
As for the police writing down license
plate numbers on vehicles parked near the rally, Cook described them as
“Mayor [Joe] Sinnott’s private Gestapo force,” according to the Erie Times-News.
Some interaction between police and observers was caught on camera.
“Without any reasonable suspicion you can run license plates?” one observer asked an officer. “Is that your statement?”
When the officer didn’t reply, the
observer asked, “You understand the [state] Supreme Court also just
recently said that your silence can be used against you.”
One off-camera voice can be heard
saying, “Just following orders,” to which one cameraman replied, “Yeah,
it didn’t work at Nuremburg, either.”
Other voices say, “This is what a police state looks like” and “Do they have ‘SS’ on them?”
Here’s video of the exchange between the officers and the observers:
And here’s the report from WSEE-TV:
No comments:
Post a Comment