Moms Demand Action (MDA) types have threatened to make false 911 calls whenever they see anyone open carrying and have encouraged others to do so. In at least one case (though probably not MDA-related), an innocent man was killed by police as a direct response to false allegations in a 911 call. Last week, in Virginia, an open carrier was falsely accused of robbing a 7-11, in a 911 call. Fortunately, he was not harmed . . .

Here is Robert Dickens’ account as related to the Virginia Citizens Defense League, courtesy opencarry.org:

On 10/15/14 at about 5:30 pm, I stopped at a 7-11 for some coffee in the skyline area of Fairfax.

Like every other day when I’m off work, I had hopped on my motorcycle for a short ride . Being an open carry proponent, I didn’t think twice about putting on my every-day-carry pistol.

After leaving the 7-11, I went to the Verizon store for some quick shopping. Both stores are within five miles of my home. Chores done, I decided to go for a nice ride around the block.

What’s that Fairfax County officer looking at me like that for? Damn he’s going to pull me over! Yep… Lights, boop boop. Sigh.

Now I’m thinking that I’ve got my pistol on me and I’m asking myself how I would feel if I were an officer pulling over someone who was armed? [PVC: That is called “empathy,” something that normal, law-abiding people have, but violent criminals lack.]

Ok, turn the bike off, straddle the bike, interlock your hands on your head, and be calm. [PVC: Doing these steps calmly and slowly probably helped send a clear signal to the SIX responding officers in FOUR patrol cars that Robert was not a threat.]

As the officer gets out of his car, three other cars show up.

Wow, what did I do?

I let the first officer know that I have a firearm on my side. He says, “I know.” I did not move an inch!

To my surprise not one of the at least six police officers have a weapon pointed at me. [PVC: Hats off to FCPD for their professional handling of this situation! Robert’s life was not unnecessarily endangered during the stop by the police pointing their guns at him.]

The officer walks up behind me and asks if he can take the weapon from my holster. “Yes, sir,” I replied.

“Do you have any other weapons on you, sir?”

“Yes, sir, a knife in my pocket.”

“Yes, sir. Why did you stop me?”

“I will get to that in a minute.” [PVC: Robert wisely decides to temporarily let the issue drop at this point.]

As I’m being frisked, I’m still not moving and am keeping my hands on my head.

“Sir, can I put my hands down now?,” I asked when the frisking was concluded.

“Yes, you can stand at ease.”

At this point I ask the officer what is going on.

“Well, we had a person call from 7-11 and they stated that a white guy on a motorcycle robbed the place.”

I laughed nervously and told the officer that I left a 7-11 30 minutes ago, but that I didn’t rob the place! [PVC: This is where an attorney might advise the client to stop talking to the police for fear of saying something innocent that ends up getting misinterpreted. To do so properly, you must verbally indicate you are invoking the Fifth Amendment and stop talking. In this case it’s hard to argue with success, but one should be very, very cautious.]

I’m getting kind of angry now. I’ve heard of anti-gun people saying that they will call the police if they see an open carrier and make up some story to get the police to respond in a forceful manner.

Wow, I could have been killed!

Ten minutes later I’m on my way. With the police “checking the sanity of the caller.”

I put a call into the police station the following Monday and sent a email thanking FCPD for being very professional.

VCDL got involved and quickly put in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request into Fairfax County. They expeditiously received a recording of the 911 call, with the caller’s name and phone number blanked out. Here’s a link to the audio of that call. It appears that the caller may be of diminished mental capacity. The 911 dispatcher tries to get details to substantiate what the caller is saying. The dangerous part is that the caller gets most things correct.  He provided a good description of Robert Dickens and his motorcycle. He gave the correct location of the 7-11. It’s just that the robbery that he described never happened.

Just as clearly, the police seem to know this caller, and know that his calls are suspect. The problem is, of course, that he gets most things right, so police followed up on the call in case it was genuine. The fact that the officers did not draw their weapons on Robert shows that they were treading a middle road.

It also shows that MDA supporters who threaten and encourage false 911 calls are treading a very dangerous line. John Crawford III is dead, arguably because of false statements made on a 911 call. Another woman died in the panic induced by the call. Eric Scott, a West Point Grad, was killed by police in an incident in Las Vegas that may have resulted from bad information on a 911 call. Video tapes of the events of that shooting were never released.

I take this personally, as MDA followers wrote that they would call 911 on me when no crime was committed, urging others to make false 911 calls, and even threatening me with death if they saw me openly carrying.

I won’t allow this type of intimidation to prevent me from exercising my rights. That’s exactly what the MDA types want. They’re generally too cowardly to confront an open carrier in person, so they use their favorite means of oppression, the police power of the state.

The way to make this ineffective is by making it known. As more and more police become aware of these SWATing efforts, more and more false 911 calls will be prosecuted. Or one would hope.

©2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Gun Watch

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87 COMMENTS

  1. Dude should be prosecuted for filing false report. I love the part about him being mentally deficient. If so and he is obviously a danger to others, why is he not locked up

      • As a gun toting democrate I thake offense to that statement and yes I realize that a gun toting liberal is an oxymoron lol

        • Why would you take offense? The fact is 99.990172% of MDA subscribers are Democrats. I’m sorry you feel the need to vote Democrat but as you can see it’s your party that is trying to take your guns away even at the cost of your life if necessary. Democrats in general are not concerned with justice, tolerance, or the Constitution unless if affects them directly. There are good people who vote Democrat but I would guess those people are either not informed or drunk.

        • “It’s leftists you gotta watch out for!”

          There fixed it for you. Liberals simply mean people who support liberty. Leftists are the ones we deal with today. The media has brainwashed everyone into thinking the two are synonymous but they are actually near antithesis of one another.

    • PETA members did the same thing to us when hunting, calling the police to report suspected poaching, shot hitting their house, etc, etc, etc.

      See all the phone calls went to a centralized distribution hub where the closest agency, not necessarily the game warden, would be dispatched (sheriff, city, state, local yokels…) could be dispatched leaving a hodge podge trail of calls using the police as their harrassment tool!

      One particular recurring incident was where a buddy has a hunting spot set up for goose/duck hunting using ground pit blinds in fields, long before any homes were built on the approach to the property! Four seperate times the cops came out to check on calls of shot hitting the callers house, LOL!

      Unfortunately for the PETA crazy, I am rather good at geometry and physics, and a few other pertinent things about DOCUMENTING POLICE INCIDENTS!

      See, I demanded a police incident report everytime the cops came out, even though the cops were nice and polite, they were interrupting our hunt and cost us some shots, and when the birds arent flying….and people paid to be there…..feelings get TOUCHY!

      Then, the third time the cops showed up while we were personally hunting, I attached the applicable PLAT MAP, site survey with dimensions, physics work up using current wind conditions, and ballistics work ups based on the loads used and the time of the so called “shot hit their home calls”.

      To say it was impossible is an understatement to fire a 3″ 12 ga BBB steel shot over 379 yards to clear a set of 95ft tall pine trees 75 ft from the house supposedly hit, with a 20 knot cross breeze left to right, when we didnt fire in that direction all day to begin with, which was witnessed signed and notorized by a certain county official who liked to hunt there also, then made part of the police incident report that the cops signed off as receiving part of the documented trail of harrasment, along with dates and times of the multiple phone calls/visits by the cops!

      Yeah, the next time the call came in, filed another police incident report and notified the police that the next visit would result in harrasment charges being filed against the police department responding and the person making the call, and handed them a copy of the freedom of information act we would send by certified mail/deliver in person to their commander) complete to identify the home making said calls (we knew who it was, but another legal nail always helps).

      Since the homes on the road leading to the property were a homeowners association, we left a notice of the police incident report and information attached to every mail box (cant legally put them in the mail box) along with the intent to sue EVERYONE along the road were the harrassment to ever happen ONE MORE TIME since they were all part of the homeowners association, hence collectively they were responsible for the actions of their members.

      From what we heard, the home owners association meeting was rather abrupt and to the point on that issue, that PETA member moved out 3 months later, wonder why?

      So reality is the next time someone is swatted, freedom of information acts to tie them into one of these MDA bs on SWATTING, and name Shannon and her boss as defendants and sue the schiite out of em, if not felony charges, cause even crazy people have money!

    • False report is one thing. SWATing is an act of terrorism. You put enough of these clowns in GITMO and they will learn the point.

    • He’d probably call 9-11 on the jail phone system when he saw armed perimeter officers drive by.

    • + 1. There can be all sorts of good reasons why the PD have not filed false claims charge, but any concerned citizen who lives in the area could call the city clerk, ask how to be put on next city council agenda, and simply ask politely, and sincerely, “why not”. The PD works for the city, which works for taxpayer.

      Sometimes all the PD needs is a little public pressure to follow up, so they do get accused by ACLU card waving victims rights activists for picking on the local crazy guy, or batty old lady who calls 911 when lonely. You give them the rational reason to go on paper, which may be all the family of the crazy guy needs, to refer him to an evaluation at doctor, and conservatorship, if needed.

      • Prosecuted sure, but anything more than one should be ‘noted’ and if the meter is “going around like a fan” someone should ‘look into it’ with at least as much due diligence as was provided in the “prosecution” of the armed-intruder call.

      • I’m not surprised no charges were filed against the scumbag who made the 911 call. Look at all of the women that stand before a judge under oath and swear their husband/boyfriend was violent and had threatened to kill them so they could screw with the guy. Courts say women are just emotional.

  4. I listened to the 911 call, the caller was definitely a few beers short of a six pack. People who do things like that need to be dealt with as the law requires. If he is mentally incompetent then he needs to be compelled to get help before his antics do get an innocent person killed.

  5. I am confused, why did police not respond to the 7-11 first to find that nothing actually happened? Why pursue it any further once you find out nothing happened?

    • I would assume when chasing down a suspect you usually go for where you believe he is first, rather than visiting locations you already know he left.

      It makes sense that they would follow up and check out the story to get details later when time allowed.

      • Ideally, they would do both simultaneously. Securing the scene and witnesses ASAP is very important in violent felony investigations.

        To meet the Fourth Amendment standard of “Probable Cause” to “seize” the individual (ie, deny him freedom of movement), they have to have “a crime probably occurred and he probably did it.”

        A 9-11 call of an Armed Robbery may well meet the “crime probably occurred,” but in this day and age of “SWATting,” that might get more challenges in the future. Who knows?

        Bottom line, it sounds like they conducted a proper investigation without over-reaction, but yeah…they’d have someone go to the scene while others looked for the suspect.

    • What? You mean do actual police work? There’s no money in doing police work. They wanted to cuff and stuff whoever they caught as soon as possible and get back to pirating the roads and seizing peoples money and property.

  6. P.S. great story Dean, and lesson-learned on staying absolutely still, do as cops say.

    Same as Eric Scott at Costco, which could happen to anyone.

    Here is the memorial blog of Eric Scott, written by his father, bringing that info you linked at freep more up to date.

    Very tragic.

    http://erikbscottmemorialblog.blogspot.com/

  8. I listened to the tape also, and the 911 operator did a good job. He was very skeptical, and kept asking the caller to put the 7-11 clerk on the phone. The fact the caller did not was probably a good tipoff the guy was a loon.

    • Dispatcher could have called (or had someone call) the store’s number to see if the clerk answered. Probably did at some point.

      There was likely a good bit of indication this call was bogus before they located the “suspect.”

      Man the grabbers are completely irresponsible (to put it nicely) to suggest and advocate false calls to the cops. The word immoral comes to mind as well. Nothing is beneath them.

      • “Irresponsible” and “immoral” would minimize what it really is.

        “Felonious” would be a better description.

        • Another +1 for terrorism.

          The FBI definition of terrorism: “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives”.

          The caller unlawfully used lies to persuade use of force and violence onto a civilian for the furtherance of the civilian disarmament political agenda.

          Definitely terrorism.

      • That would be,the same as the dispatcher calling back on a 911 hangup and accepting the person’s word that nothing was amiss…it would be irresponsible not to send an officer to check up on the situation.

        The situation in this article, it sounds like the cops acted responsibly and professionally…but the 911 caller needs to be identified and get a talking to.

        • I never said they would not also send an officer to the scene. I said they would try to establish contact with the store – and they would.

          I don’t know about where you work(ed), but where I was, our dispatchers DID try to make contact when a robbery was called in by 3rd party. Did that mean we just sat around waiting for someone to ‘confirm or deny?’ Of course not; that’s absurd. It was Code 3 response.

          Also, there was ways to communicate to determine if the person on the other end was (a) actual clerk and (b) telling truth about “nothing going on here.” Again, that did not mitigate response, but it was far more informative than your comment suggests.

  9. Hmmm…pretty interesting after the earlier post of the loud mouth MDA gal. I support open carry but can’t do it in Illinois. Glad it turned out OK. I wouldn’t want the grief. And the mental idiot who filed a false report should spend some time in jail.

  10. LOW FUNCTIONING PEOPLE CALLING 911. When I was an EMT there was a frequent flier who would call 911 several times daily saying the local police were shooting lasers at him. (Several years previous, a motorcycle cop had run a radar trap in front of the callers house). Since he obviously wasn’t firing on all cylinders, the LEO’s had long given up. This continued for years until nature intervened and ended his pain permanently. Sometimes the best solution is to do nothing, sadly.

  12. Wow, scary indeed! If it were me I would do everything in my power to see that the false alarmist got the book thrown at them.

  13. Maybe one day, Shannon and her bunch will be charged with murder for the next unfortunate soul whom they swat

    • It would have to be a high profile, national news case with “prison” in the end result. Otherwise, no one would notice.

  14. Once mental defectives/false reporters are known to cops/911 centers, their calls are flagged as “the boy who cries wolf.” However, something should be done to take their ability to use a phone, possibly by a judge after due process.

    • Oh no! That would mean that the anti-gunners couldn’t call the police to defend them and would have to do it themselves! (sarcasm but still..)

      (now not sarcasm) That would be a fourth amendment issue unless it was done with due process. I bet leftists would jump to defend that fourth amendment issue but still try to press the red-flag/risk-protection order laws that run afoul of the fourth.

  15. I would hesitate to attribute this to anything posted on the MDA facebook page. It sounds like he is a frequent 911 caller. There aren’t very many open carriers in NOVA.

  16. How is MDA not prosecuted as a criminal conspiracy? Man, it’d almost be worth it to get SWATted by their efforts, then sue the pants off of Bloomie & Co.

    • You can’t prosecute a mentally ill person for a crime, they have no legal agency to commit a crime because they are mentally ill. One can only seek to have them committed to a mental institution.

      • Oh you most certainly can. If the perpetrator had the ability to distinguish right from wrong (a fact to which his 911 call is prima facia evidence) he can most certainly be prosecuted. Mental disease or defect is only a defense when it interferes with the formation of criminal intent.

  17. Eric Scott was killed because he was on what the coroner called a lethal level of several prescription drugs, refusal to leave the Costco when asked, and drawing down on the cops who responded to the call from the Costco due to his strange, drug induced behavior which included opening packages and trying to stuff them in a carrier and lying down on the checkout stall.

    Don’t mix real victims with those who brought their deaths upon themselves by a series of bad decisions.

    • The Eric Scott episode is another of the many examples of why only citizens, not government employees, should be armed. It is well past time to disarm all law enforcement.

  18. Every dullard with an IQ of 50 has access to 911. Basically their very own tax funded hit squad.

    Between the morons who don’t understand what they’re seeing and the malicious SWATters I wonder what percentage of 911 calls are genuine.

  19. Scuttlebutis the dude that callled it in is known by FFX police as having (at best) mental issues. Their ability to prosecute malicious reports is based on proving it was malicious and known to be false. The known crazy dude might not be successfully prosecuted because…. the dude is crazy. Dunno why someone with those kinds of mental issues is running around Fairfax is anyones guess. Keep in mind, FFx is the NRA HQ and the citizens just elected a very anti-gun Sheriff -go figure.

  20. So, it’s a half an hour or so from the time of the false report call to the time Mr. Dickens is pulled over. That wasn’t enough time to send one of the many squad cars that were dispatched to have one them go to the 7-11 to verify that the store was indeed robbed? The local popo knows the caller was a loon and has a reputation? Things aren’t adding up here.

    • It sounds like the police knew there WASN’T a robbery, but there WAS a gun. They figured why not grab some back up and check it out. Maybe they get lucky and nab a bad guy or they luck out and just get to harass a lawful gun owner…. Either way win-win for them, a little excitement and variety on the tour.

    • Agreed that it doesn’t seem very “professional” to me that within 30 minutes the PD couldn’t verify that a robbery hadn’t taken place and to call off the hounds.

      Also agree that the PD used it as an excuse to harass a gun owner.

      Lastly if the guy wasn’t a dimwit I’d sue him.

  21. I was SWATed years ago by my then partner, way before their was a name for it. He had one of my waitresses call the police and report that a “man” with a gun in a black bag(true) was going to the local bank. As most suspect, you can’t say “gun” and “bank” in the same breath to the 911 operator and not get an immediate police response. Long story short, when the cops saw me pull into the drive-thru teller to make my daily lunch deposits, they knew that the facts, though correct, weren’t as they were desperately reported to 911. Even so, the 6 marked, and 4 unmarked, police cars converged on me as soon as I left the teller window. Why? Because my then partner, and total ass-douche, was desperate, financially speaking, and he figured that dead people shot by mistake;, or those convicted of a gun felony, cannot hold liquor licenses or-r-r-r controlling interests in businesses that hold liquor licenses. The moral of these stories? Desperate people will do desperate things. And yes, even convince others to file a false 911 call that could end up with an innocent person being mistakenly gunned down by the responding adrenalin-jacked-up police. With the prospect of an innocents death on the line; and the premeditation to make a false 911 call that might result in that terrible end, how can these people escape being slapped with an attempted murder charge? They even seem to possess a palpable glee from their dangerous SWATting.

  22. As I’ve said before, just because open carry is legal doesn’t make it smart. So now add to the list of reasons why OC might not be smart; giving a lunatic a reason to call 911 and make an accusation of armed robbery.

    Yet another hint that the potential disadvantages of open carry probably outweigh any possible benefit of open carry as a form of political speech the Open Carry Obsessed claim to be expressing.

    The desire of the Open Carry Obsessed to be the center of attention means drawing the attention of everyone, crazy people included.

    • Good grief.

      Just what this story needed…anti-OC idiocy. Took a while to get there, but you get the prize for the day.

    • Oh ok. We shouldn’t ever OC because of the chance a presumed village idiot might knowingly and maliciously break the law to use the police against us. Guess I shouldn’t publically criticize militant Islam either since there is a chance some deranged radical Muslim will threaten me with a beheading. Brilliant.

  23. Dear God, here’s hoping the next mass shooting takes place at an MDA rally, huh? Bastards would happily see us all dead, but they’re such cowards that they wouldn’t dare do anything themselves. Makes me sick.

  24. If a death was caused by a false 911 call encouraged by the MDA, then by their logic the MDA and all 911 calls should now be banned. We had better get a bill written up and send it to our legislators to do that. Maybe signs and rallies too.

    • Sorry my logic was off. All problems must be blamed on inanimate objects. So, we must ban all phones. Can’t be the fault of the person that called. There are just too many phones. The more phones the more chances that something like this will happen (sarc). +

      • Maybe we should just limit phones to 8GB of storage. I mean, only a right wing phone-nut needs 32GB to play Bejeweled.
        Also did you know you can buy a phone without a background check!?! At Radio Shack!?! We have to close the Radio Shack loophole!

  25. The caller needs to be flogged. I still think the caller during the Beaver Creek Ohio incident should be responsible for the kids death who was pointing a BB gun at a bag of Alpo.

  26. Well…if a member of MDA ever pulls this on me, and I survive, I will be pressing charges against their organization. Anyone else should as well. Swatting should be treated with a MASSIVE fine, given directly to paying for the SWAT team action, with the rest being given to the SWATee.

  28. So if MDA is “…even threatening me with death if they saw me openly carrying” would that be a sufficiently good reason to get an HQL in Maryland?

  30. They should have arrested the caller. For at least false reporting. I would also think they could charge the caller with reckless conduct.

    • I think they could charge them with attempted murder because that could very likely be the outcome with so many trigger happy cops these days.

  31. These people who make false 911 calls that threaten the lives of others should be jailed for 10 year or more. They are guilty of murder or attempted murder when they make such calls. If someone dies as the result of their false calls then they should be tried for premeditated murder. They chose to make the call knowing full well that someone could die. In fact many are hoping that someone will die so they really are guilty of 1st degree premeditated murder.

  32. we can not play the “maybe” game here. maybe someone did intentionally send them out. it doesn’t matter, no matter how retarded they act, we always act the same. All we have to do is let the anti’s put enough rope out there to hang themselves with. Which they are doing at an alarming pace.

  33. Would calls to SWAT someone count as terrostic threats?

    I mean it has intent. It has premeditation. It has teeth (people have been killed that way). I wonder if you could prosecute.

    Not saying you should. :p But you should be able to.

  34. ” …take this personally, as MDA followers wrote that they would call 911 on me when no crime was committed, urging others to make false 911 calls, and even threatening me with death if they saw me openly carrying…”

    Where is the donations page for the legal action fund for this and similar events? What’s the status of the current legal action? Those threats are at least assault, plus whatever the basked is of false testimony, misdirection of law enforcement, conspiracy, false prosecution, and so on. Three prongs here:

    – Pushing for criminal charges for the crimes.

    – Civil charges for the affront.

    – A political and information campaign of mostly sunlight against the folks who enable such stuff. Along with information resources and a fact sheet, a running update of the legal proceedings, a series of report requests, FOIA requests and so on about the official, public response – stupidly being suckered into misallocation of public resources, willful dereliction of legal duties and stealth advocacy under cover of authority, and perhaps participation in the actual criminal conspiracy.

    Threatening to have someone killed – however one arranges the result – is a crime.

  35. File a freedom of information report, find out who made the police report, and sue the living crap out of them,,, sue them in to the gutter hopefully.

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