Here's a story, disgusting if true, about the Chicago police, a legal gun
owner, and the city's anti-gun agenda.

Rick
Colorado
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http://www.illinoisleader.com/opinion/opinionview.asp?c=4541

GUEST OPINION: Legal Shootout Brewing in Chicago's 'Gun Free' Zone

Tuesday, March 04, 2003 by Joseph Pickett

OPINION -- The evening of Roderick Pritchett's descent into hell in Cook
County, Illinois started with an ordinary shopping trip to Safeway for his
mom last November 21st. The 25 year-old African/Jamaican-American frequently
ran errands for her; he was the sole car owner in his family.

On the way out of his south side Chicago apartment, he went back inside and
grabbed his Taurus 9 mm pistol, unloaded and in its case as Chicago law
requires, and tossed it in the passenger seat. Roderick liked to stop by the
shooting range to practice his marksmanship once a week to stay sharp and
keep his groupings tight.

In his wallet behind his driver's license was his FOID (Firearms Owner
Identification Card) which he obtained before purchasing the gun in 2000. In
accordance with the strict gun control laws enacted by Mayor Daley and the
city legislature, Roderick kept the gun in his apartment and never carried
it on his person. This seemed strange to him; the law essentially said that
defending his property was more important than defending his life from the
numerous predatory south side hoods. Pritchett however always followed the
law, even the ones that defy common sense.

As he drove down South Ada St. toward the range, he noticed a police car
tailing him. It was early evening and Roderick was a young black man with
dreadlocks driving alone. In Chicago, that's lights-and-siren time. Sure
enough, Police Officer Edward Kos and Officer Rodolfo Camarillo pulled him
over at 87th and Ada for a burned out taillight.

The officers approached and asked if he would mind if they searched his car.
Pritchett didn't object. He knew beyond a doubt that his 9 mm was 100
percent legal. He even had a copy of the Illinois gun laws in his case. When
he handed over his driver's license, he also gave them his FOID and
volunteered that he had a legal firearm in the vehicle. He knew he had
nothing to fear.

Unfortunately, his confidence was short-lived. The police ordered him to
take a seat in the back of their black-and-white. "The officers began
questioning me from the front seat of their squad car before they even let
me know I was under arrest," says Pritchett. "They giggled a couple of times
before sarcastically asking me why I didn't run. I was shocked speechless at
their rude treatment of me."

Pritchett couldn't understand why they were holding him. With all the crime
in the city, why should they bother someone with a legal gun? He pleaded
that he was only going to the range and that his gun was legal, but to no
avail. Pritchett was arrested for violating 720 ILCS 5/24-1.6 Aggravated
Unlawful Use of Weapons.

One of the officers left the squad car and got behind the wheel of
Pritchett's station wagon to drive it to the station. Apparently, Officers
Kos and Camarillo were either ignorant of the laws regarding the legal
transportation of firearms, or chose to ignore them. In any case, Roderick
Pritchett was on his way to 72 hours of misery that he would never forget.

Pritchett had his legal gun confiscated and was transported to the Cook
County lockup and charged with a Class 4 Felony. Next, he endured the
standard treatment of any run-of-the-mill accused felon within Chicago city
limits - a quite thorough strip search that left no body orifice sacred,
incarceration, long days and sleepless nights in a cramped, urine-stinking
cell chockablock with accused rapists and thieves, and meals of stale bread
and cold soup in the company of accused child molesters and slightly more
palatable muggers.

When his mother finally scraped together the $500 bond to secure his release
three days later, Pritchett had one more treat awaiting him, courtesy of the
Chicago PD - a $700 fee to spring his station wagon from the impound lot. He
begged the police before they impounded his car to let his girlfriend pick
it up. The cops refused.

In the eyes of the police and those who make our laws, Pritchett deserved
every minute of the humiliating ordeal he endured over the three miserable
days of his imprisonment. He was a most grievous sinner and lawbreaker in
their minds. He was a gun owner.

Mayor Daley, Cook County State Attorney Dick Devine, and other prominent
city politicians have had it in for legal gun owners for years. Daley has
stated on the record that if it were up to him, no one would have a gun.
Both have been ardent backers of limiting gun purchases to one per month and
closing the non-existent 'gun show loophole.'

In a 1997 news conference at Chicago Police Headquarters, Daley, Devine and
other gun control bureaucrats bragged of defeating proposed legislation that
would have allowed the law-abiding to carry concealed firearms to protect
themselves from criminals.

The police department follows their lead and makes the hassling of good sons
like Pritchett a priority. Meanwhile, for all the beauty of our downtown's
incredible architecture, the breathtaking museums, the thriving nightlife,
and the rich history of our city, Chicago continues to be overrun by violent
crime and guns. Despite some of the tightest gun control laws in the
country, murders are a twice-daily occurrence in Chicago, on average.

Other jurisdictions around the nation in the last decade have come to
realize the fallacy of gun control. Thirty-two states now issue
concealed-carry gun permits and on average violent crime has dropped 24
percent in those states, but Chicago, following the dubious example of
Washington, D.C., continues with the old tried-and-failed method of
legislating criminal behavior out of existence by restricting access to
firearms. Even open-carry of a gun is banned here.

Our booming population of murderous thugs love the 'gun-free' atmosphere
that such policies create. It leaves them with all the guns, and they use
them. In 2001, their exhaustive, murderous efforts put 665 bodies on slabs
in the morgue, which made Chicago the murder capital of the nation yet
again. Moral cretins like these pay scant attention to the laws that
prohibit blowing holes in other people, so naturally gun control laws are of
no consequence to them whatsoever.

To the thugs, Chicago is a new Wild West, where bullets can and do fly
anyplace, anytime. Even better for the hoods, the law-abiding guy on the
other side of the corral has no way to defend himself from hails of illicit
gunfire. With only the lawbreakers armed and the law-abiding obeying gun
laws, the piles of cold bodies stack up like bloody cordwood year after grim
year. The more 'sensible gun laws' Mayor Daley and company pass, the larger
the body counts.

Pritchett's case, however, was not the typical, daily west side murder our
good mayor is trying to prevent, and Pritchett was not the everyday violent
thug. This was a straight arrow with a 100 percent legal gun obeying the
law. Nonetheless, after having his rights violated, losing three days of
work, and going $1,200 in the hole, his nightmare still wasn't over.

Soon after posting bond, Pritchett was arraigned on Nov. 27 at the Cook
County Criminal Court. Cook County State Attorney Devine offered him a
conditional discharge, if he would plead no contest and surrender his gun.
Pritchett refused and pled not guilty. He wants his gun back and he wants
justice. Now with a lawyer to represent him, Pritchett is ready to go the
distance for what is right.

Says Pritchett, "I take this matter very personally and will not rest until
this case is concluded in my favor. No matter how much I tried to kill the
police with kindness and with the respect my mother instilled in me, they
still managed to show no compassion at all for a law-abiding American. Now
they have teed me off and I'm ready to fight this to the end."

The fight is approaching its climax. Interestingly, the city has not charged
Roderick with violating Chicago's hand gun registration ordinance. They are
going for the felony conviction in a trial set for March 20. Chicago is well
on its way to topping the 600+ murder mark for the 36th consecutive year in
2003 *2, but Devine believes that spending the city's time and taxpayer
dollars proving that a law-abiding citizen does not have the right to own a
gun is worth the fight.

For gun-grabbing pols, the Pritchett case presents a prime opportunity. If
Devine can convict Roderick Pritchett for legally transporting a cased and
unloaded firearm, that renders the laws to purchase and own firearms in
Chicago essentially meaningless. If they can do that, Mayor Daley and State
Attorney Devine can demonstrate once and for all that The Bill of Rights
does not apply to the good law-abiding citizens of Chicago.

To some that may seem an outrageous violation of Chicagoans' God-given
rights, but to others, making an example of Roderick Pritchett would be a
fine way to top off their long, distinguished, and lucrative
anti-gun/pro-criminal careers in city governance.