KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana |Traffic stop raises gun rights question, Mayor responds
SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) - It's another potential knock on the reputation of "The Next Great City of the South."
An online campaign is underway, claiming that when you come to Shreveport, your "rights will be suspended." It all started with a traffic stop on a Friday night a month ago. Even though Robert Baillio was never cited, and his gun was never confiscated, his story and a secretly recorded telephone conversation with Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover has been burning up the blogosphere.
Here is an excerpt of what happened in Baillio's own words, as posted on Conservative.Drink.com:
"Right after I stopped, I got out of my truck and walked toward the tailgate. I kept my hands where he could see them and I stopped right there by the back bumper. Right there I was directly in his headlights, and I wanted to be sure he could see that I wasn't carrying any kind of weapon, and I didn't pose any type of threat to him.
Well he got out of his vehicle and walked toward me.
He stopped a little short of what I'd consider conversation distance, and he looked at me and said, "Do you have any firearms in your vehicle?"
I didn't really expect him to ask me that. And I didn't know why he asked, but I answered and said "Yes"
He asked where they were. And I really didn't understand why he was asking me these questions. But I told him the truth, and I said "My pistol is between the drivers seat and the console.
He instantly turned and walked to the drivers side door, opened it, and removed my pistol. I stayed at the back of the truck. He approached me, held my HK 45 Compact up, and dropped the magazine. He then asked if there was a shell in the chamber, and I said, "Yes sir, there is." He ejected it onto the ground, locked the slide back, and walked back to his patrol unit and got in it.
After the stop was completed, and my gun was was returned, I thought about the events that had happened.
I called the mayor of Shreveport, on Monday June 8th. Late in the day he finally called me back. I told him that I was very uncomfortable standing on a busy street without my hand gun, and I did not believe the officer had any reason, or right to remove it from my vehicle.
He told me that during a traffic stop "My rights were suspended." At first I couldn't believe he said that. Then, I thought "no one is going to believe me when I tell them he said that" so I turned on my digital recorder and recorded the rest of our conversation."
Here is the transcript of where that recording (posted in it's entirety on the blog site) picks up:
Mayor Cedric Glover: It's something that no police officer no police division anywhere within this country would defend or support or allow.
Robert Baillio: Now..you lost me there for a second. Uh when I said "are you still there"..you..I'm not sure what you are saying..Uh Mayor Glover.
Mayor Cedric Glover: You are not sure of what I'm saying?
Robert Baillio: Well...I don't know if my phone broke up or what but you're saying that..as a citizen...when I am stopped by a police officer I don't have any rights? Mayor Cedric Glover: Your rights at that point, Mr. Baillio, have been suspended.
It's a choice of words that Mayor Glover tells KSLA News 12 he does not regret. "I'm perfectly comfortable with the conversation and what I said and and how I said it."
And Shreveport City Attorney Ed Jones says the Mayor wasn't wrong. "I don't think the law ever mentions a 'suspension of rights,' like the mayor said, but what the mayor said was correct, they are suspended at that point. his right to travel down the road he was on certainly had been suspended."
Baillio claims he was profiled because of the stickers on the back of his truck window. One says, "Armed We Are Citizens, Un-Armed We Are Subject!" Another says, "Celebrate Diversity," depicting an array of ammunition.
"They may have played a role," agrees Jones, "but certainly if you have 'This vehicle protected by Smith & Wesson' it's legitimate question: 'Do you have a weapon in the vehicle?'
"Well I answered that question honestly and he...disarmed me," says Baillio in the recorded telephone conversation, to which Glover replies, "Which would be appropriate and proper action, sir."
While Baillio and his supporters clearly feel that this it was inappropriate, Jones says the law does in fact allow an officer to ask for, frisk and even search for weapons within that person's reach in the course of a traffic stop, if he has reason to believe a crime has been or is about to be committed. But this it's not the only instance in which you may not be allowed to exercise your 2nd Amendment right. In fact, there are several instances where your right to bear arms is suspended even if you possess the firearm legally have a permit to carry a concealed weapon, like in an airplane, at a school, and in any federal or municipal building.
While having his words used against him is one thing, Mayor Glover says he is more concerned about the negativity the whole thing is drawing toward the city's officers. "I'm a big boy, so I'm accustomed to bring attacked from all sides, the right, the left, front and back. I think the thing that worries me the most and should worry and concern our citizens are the statements that have been made concerning our police officers, because all of this is about officer safety."
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