Tense encounter between open-carry advocate and Kalamazoo police detailed in recordings, reports

MLive – by Alex Mitchell

KALAMAZOO, MI — Police reports and recordings of a sometimes tense 40-minute encounter with a belligerent, rifle-toting man offers insight into how officers tried to defuse a volatile situation without infringing on his right to openly the gun on a city street.

On May 4, Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety officers responded to multiple reports of a man, possibly intoxicated, carrying a rifle along East Cork Street in the city’s Milwood neighborhood. Joseph Houseman, 63, was eventually persuaded to hand over the gun, which was returned to him the next day. Police considered but ultimately decided against seeking a misdemeanor charge of brandishing a firearm.  

It is legal to openly carry a gun in Michigan but illegal to brandish one, which KDPS Assistant Chief Donald Webster described as essentially “waving or displaying the firearm in a threatening manner.”

Police reports and recordings from dash-mounted cameras in patrol cars and body microphones on officers, obtained by the Kalamazoo Gazette through the Michigan Freedom of Information Act, reveal how officers deliberated over how to enforce the law and protect public safety while respecting the man’s right to bear arms.

‘Why don’t you shoot me?’

Around 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 4, Kalamazoo Public Safety dispatchers begin getting calls from the public about a man carrying a rifle outside Cork Street Coin and Laundry, 823 E. Cork Street, on the city’s southeast side.

The first caller reports seeing a “Caucasian man with white hair and pajama pants walking with what looks like and AK-47.”

A second caller says he saw an older man walking down the street with what looked to be an assault rifle, although he admits it could also be a pellet or BB gun. He says the man had the gun up by his shoulder and “didn’t look dangerous or nothing.” The dispatcher asks if the gun is in the man’s hands, to which the caller replies it is not. “He’s an elderly man and I just want to make sure everything’s all right,” he says.

A third caller gives police more cause for alarm. “There’s an older gentleman carrying what looks like a large semi-automatic rifle through the streets,” the male caller says. “He does appear to be intoxicated; he’s stumbling around a little bit and kind of bumping into some stuff.”

KDPS Sgt. Sean Gordon is the first officer to arrive. From the dash cam footage from his patrol car, his vehicle can be seen pulling into the Cork Street Laundry at 4:09 p.m. as Houseman walks east on the sidewalk along Cork Street. Houseman crosses the street diagonally toward the Auto Zone parking lot, and Gordon engages him in conversation.

Gordon: Hey partner, how you doing? Can you set that down real quick and talk to me?

Houseman: I’m not setting it down.

Gordon: Well you can’t cross the street like that.

Houseman: Am I being detained?

Gordon: Yes, you are being detained right now. You crossed the street illegally. Place the weapon down on the ground please.

Houseman: I will not.                     

Gordon radios that it appears the man will not drop his rifle.

Gordon: “Look, you crossed the street illegally; I just want to talk to you. I just want to talk to you. You’re walking around here scaring people, man.

A second Public Safety vehicle arrives just after 4:11 p.m. About a minute later, Gordon asks Houseman for his name. Houseman says he is “Joe Schmoe.”

“Based on training and experience I know that this is a euphemism used as an alias and knew it was not correct,” Gordon would later write in his report.

Houseman: I am free to go?

Gordon: “No, you’re not free to go. Right now you’re committing a crime of resisting and obstructing (for failing to identify himself after being stopped for jaywalking). Now you’ve stepped up to a misdemeanor crime.

Houseman: Why don’t you (expletive) shoot me?

Gordon: I don’t want to shoot you; I’m not here to do that.

As the interaction continues, Houseman talks of a coming revolution, and calls police officers “gang members” with a “history of violence.” While the audio is scattered — Houseman was across the street from Gordon and it was a somewhat windy day — Houseman can also be seen grabbing his genitals and making lewd gestures toward Gordon.

‘Highly agitated’ and ‘does not like police’

By 4:22 p.m., 12 officers are on scene and Gordon turns over negotiations to Sgt. Andres Wells, a trained SWAT negotiator. Cork Street has been shut down in both directions and most officers have taken up defensive positions behind their vehicles, their weapons drawn.

KDPS Lt. Stacey Geik takes over as commanding officer and directs officer Jon Schipper to be the “use of force applier … if need be.” Houseman still refuses to provide his name or identification to officers and can be heard directing numerous expletives toward them.

Houseman has his gun in the “parade-arms” position throughout the encounter, though he can be seen switching it from hand to hand, Giek later noted in his report. Houseman can be seen fumbling with the gun while reaching for chewing tobacco from a tin in his pocket.

Geik tells a dispatcher Houseman is “highly agitated” and “does not like police.”

“He is exercising his open carry rights, however, he has certainly overextended them at this point,” Geik says.

The lieutenant asks officer Peter Hoyt if this is the same open-carry advocate he has dealt with before. Hoyt says it is.

About two minutes later, Houseman agrees to sit on the ground and place his gun down. He allows Geik to approach him and take the carbine rifle, which Geik discovers to be empty of ammunition.

Geik speaks briefly with Houseman then crosses the street, with Houseman’s rifle in hand, toward the other officers. Houseman follows, asking to have his rifle back.

‘That’s my First Amendment right’

Geik tells Houseman he can have his gun back if he submits to a breathalyzer test. He declines. Geik says his hostile behavior and 911 calls suggest he may be intoxicated, and therefore may not be legally allowed to carry a firearm.

In Michigan, a person openly carrying a firearm can be charged with being in possession of a firearm while intoxicated if found to have a blood alcohol content of .08 percent or more or if they appear to be visibly impaired. A person licensed to carry a concealed weapon can have a weapon confiscated and potentially lose their license if they have a BAC of .02 or higher.

Geik later notes in his report that Houseman was found to be a CCW license holder, but that didn’t factor in to this encounter.

Geik offers to allow Houseman to walk home and retrieve his rifle the following day, or to drive him home and continue the discussion there. Houseman declines both offers.

Geik: But you’re not stable mentally, which now takes you away from that rifle.

Houseman: I’m not stable mentally? How do you decide that?

Geik: You’re damn right. How did this happen with open carry? What are you supposed to do when you contact law enforcement? Do you say, ‘I hate you mother(expletive), (expletive) you? I hate you, there’s a revolution coming.’ Do you say that? Is that what you’re taught?

Houseman: It was wrong of me.

Houseman agains asks for his gun back. Geik tells him he wants to make sure he isn’t a risk to himself or others.

Geik: You saying (expletive), (expletive), (expletive) and yelling across the street with a rifle in your hands …

Houseman: That’s my First Amendment right.

Geik: No it’s not. You can’t swear.

Houseman: That’s bull—. I can threaten you if I want to.

Geik: That’s incorrect.

Houseman: I can threaten you. I can threaten you’re family. I didn’t threaten your family, I said I could.

Unidentified officer: You said a war was coming.

Houseman: I didn’t say a war was coming.

Unidentified officer: You said a revolution is coming.

Houseman: Think about it. You know it is.

‘I’m trying to raise awareness’

The conversation continues, with Geik asking Houseman why he wants to scare bystanders and if he thinks his behavior while openly carrying a firearm is what the National Rifle Association advocates for. Houseman again becomes upset over officers questioning his mental stability.

Houseman: He told me I was unmentally stable. I tell you what, I got a job, I got grandchildren, I got children, I got a job …

Geik: Is this what you want to portray to your grandchildren?

Houseman: Damn right. I teach them.

The exchange continues.

Houseman: My grandson and I walked the same way last Sunday. He had his rifle on and I had mine.

Geik continues to tell Houseman he is free to go and can retrieve his rifle at KDPS headquarters the next day, unless he is willing to submit to a breathalyzer to prove he isn’t intoxicated. Houseman again refuses.

Geik: If I was going to open carry, which I have done before, there is no way in heck I would have come to a laundromat full of people trying to dry their clothes with an Auto Zone, carwash and 10 cop cars.

Houseman: That don’t mean (expletive). I’m trying to raise awareness.

Geik: You’re trying to make a statement, and you got it and now you lost your gun.

Houseman: You guys aren’t always right.

Geik: No, but in this one, we’re 100 percent right.

Houseman again asks if he can leave with his gun.

Geik: As I stated 12 minutes ago, you’re not detained. You were detained initially because the officer was trying to have a conversation with you, a legal, lawful, allowed, non-intruding Fourth Amendment conversation and when you start screaming obscenities and grabbing your genitals armed with a rifle, you crossed the line.

Houseman: I apologize. I have a bad attitude because we’re losing our rights.

Geik: They might as well put up a billboard right now that says the Second Amendment is junk because of people like this.

Houseman: I apologize.

Geik: I accept your apology, I don’t apologize on our end …

Houseman: I need a sling, I know I need a sling, you’re right. My grandson, we went last week, he had a rifle, he had a sling.

Houseman agrees to meet with Geik the following morning, before apologizing again, shaking hands with him and walking away.

‘We’ll go to the U.S. Supreme on this baby’

After Houseman leaves, two unidentified officers can be heard discussing what grounds there were for stopping Houseman and whether he could have chosen just to walk away at any point.

Officer 1: He wouldn’t take a PBT, and we took it (the rifle) away for a CCW violation because he was being irrational and having violent mood swings. I thought he was going to start walking, so now, he’s put the cards on the table, he’s called our bluff, what do we do? (He mentions a meeting that was happening at KDPS when he received the call.)

Officer 2: I didn’t like that, I was thanking God when he stopped. That crossed my mind too, at one point it looked like he was going to start walking across the sidewalk, I was like, s—, we kind of have to go hands on now and stop him.

Officer 1: That’s where I was going. It was alright, we’re going to arrest him, interfering, and we’ll go to the U.S. Supreme on this baby.

In the Department of Public Safety’s decision not to pursue charges, Webster said later that even though Houseman did not have the rifle in a sling and was  “fidgeting” with it, it was not evident that he was “brandishing” it.

Alex Mitchell covers county government and taxes for the Kalamazoo Gazette. Email him at amitche5@mlive.com. Follow him on Twitter.

http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2014/06/dash_cam_footage_from_open_car.html