Notice it's at the request of the defense. He's the defendant.
They may be continuing it to allow him to hire an attorney. He definitely needs one. Also, you can usually get quite a few continuances in Oklahoma County Misdemeanor Court before you actually have to take care of it. I've drug them out for over a year before.
Looks like he hired Doug Friesen and plead guilty to a violation of 21-1277.
6 months deferred with D.A. supervision, $200 fine and other associated court costs.
http://www.oscn.net/applications/os...=caseGeneral&casemasterID=2937742&db=Oklahoma
6 months deferred with D.A. supervision, $200 fine and other associated court costs.
http://www.oscn.net/applications/os...=caseGeneral&casemasterID=2937742&db=Oklahoma
Yup. The D.A. supervision is going to cost him an additional $40 per month on top Mr. Friesen's fees, the $200 fine and the other court costs he's already paid.
And after all is said and done the original arrest will still show on his record unless he spends even more scratch to get that expunged.
Hope he thinks it was worth going back and rubbing his gun in the face of the poll workers.
Nice to finally be able to talk about this.
No one ought to put too much faith in the accuracy of media reports. This experience has given me a new skepticism for how news stories portray events. Not that they were intentionally biased – I didn't make myself available to tell the other side of the story – but the media accounts were based purely on the police report, which itself was based on one version of a story told by one poll worker. News 9's story in particular was exceptionally sensationalized by their reporter, Steve Shaw. He played it up a lot, including making fun of me for being stuck in jail because I supposedly didn't have the money to hire a bondsman. My bond had been posted hours earlier. None of the media accounts got the actual events of the story right (though some tried harder than others to be balanced).
Politics also shouldn't be dismissed. I've been told by a friend who's familiar with police training (OCPD academy) that their current training on OC falls along the lines of it may be legal now, but we don't like it, so drop the hammer on OCers whenever possible (that's something for anyone who carries in OKC to keep in mind). A detective from OCPD who spoke with me before the charge was filed told me he didn't know what law I might have violated, but that someone from the election board was very upset and was demanding that something be done. It seems like it took the DA's office weeks to decide whether they had a case or not. Then there was the arrest itself. The detective had my phone number, he knew I wasn't going anywhere. It wouldn't have been unusual in such a situation for a detective to give me or my lawyer a call and ask me to come in to be processed. I'm not saying it was handled wrong. Everyone involved did their jobs. I'm just trying to provide some insight into the situation by pointing out that there was some political hostility involved.
Despite that, it all comes back to me. Like some here have pointed out, my own stupidity and pride were the problem here. I do want to say that I never attempted to rub anyone's face in anything. There have been a lot of accusations leveled at me by people who weren't there, don't know me, and don't know what happened. I genuinely and reasonably believed that I was acting well within the law and that the election officials were bureaucratically imposing non-existent limits on SDA licensees. I carry every day and everywhere I am legally permitted to, so before I went to vote, I researched the law and case-law to try to ensure I wasn't going to inadvertently do anything illegal. I also received the advice of a lawyer who is very experienced with the SDA, and I contacted the OSBI to ask whether they consider it illegal to carry in a polling place (their answer was that as long as it wasn't in an otherwise-prohibited place such as a school or the election board's building, they didn't think it would be illegal). I made every attempt to respect the spirit and letter of the law, and the opinion of the most knowledgeable people was that carrying in a polling place is legal.
All of that to say that when someone says I'm an idiot, that I was trying to get attention, that its just plain obvious that a polling place is a prohibited placed – they're wrong. I'm a very private person and would never in my life wish to win this kind of attention. I'm a responsible person who respects the law and does his best to stay above board. And I am no idiot.
In the end, I take responsibility for my actions and admit my wrongs. In this case, I let pride direct my actions by going back to the polling place armed, rather than humbly submitting to authority. A better course of action would have been to disarm in my car, go back in to vote, and sometime later start a dialog with the election board to try to work things out for the future in the best way for both sides.
One last thing. There was no huffing and puffing about constitutional rights like some have claimed. All of the conversations I had with anyone at the polling place were quiet and respectful discussions and no one there was upset or seemed uncomfortable at the time. Also, I thought the report of me being in "disguise" was kind of amusing. I wasn't aware putting a jacket on qualifies as a disguise. I'm not sure where they were going with that, but if I had tried to hide my identity, it probably wouldn't have worked very well, considering the new voter ID law. Maybe I'll post a photo of myself wearing what I was wearing for you guys to see.
That's all for now, I guess. Ask me anything.
No one ought to put too much faith in the accuracy of media reports. This experience has given me a new skepticism for how news stories portray events. Not that they were intentionally biased – I didn't make myself available to tell the other side of the story – but the media accounts were based purely on the police report, which itself was based on one version of a story told by one poll worker. News 9's story in particular was exceptionally sensationalized by their reporter, Steve Shaw. He played it up a lot, including making fun of me for being stuck in jail because I supposedly didn't have the money to hire a bondsman. My bond had been posted hours earlier. None of the media accounts got the actual events of the story right (though some tried harder than others to be balanced).
Politics also shouldn't be dismissed. I've been told by a friend who's familiar with police training (OCPD academy) that their current training on OC falls along the lines of it may be legal now, but we don't like it, so drop the hammer on OCers whenever possible (that's something for anyone who carries in OKC to keep in mind). A detective from OCPD who spoke with me before the charge was filed told me he didn't know what law I might have violated, but that someone from the election board was very upset and was demanding that something be done. It seems like it took the DA's office weeks to decide whether they had a case or not. Then there was the arrest itself. The detective had my phone number, he knew I wasn't going anywhere. It wouldn't have been unusual in such a situation for a detective to give me or my lawyer a call and ask me to come in to be processed. I'm not saying it was handled wrong. Everyone involved did their jobs. I'm just trying to provide some insight into the situation by pointing out that there was some political hostility involved.
Despite that, it all comes back to me. Like some here have pointed out, my own stupidity and pride were the problem here. I do want to say that I never attempted to rub anyone's face in anything. There have been a lot of accusations leveled at me by people who weren't there, don't know me, and don't know what happened. I genuinely and reasonably believed that I was acting well within the law and that the election officials were bureaucratically imposing non-existent limits on SDA licensees. I carry every day and everywhere I am legally permitted to, so before I went to vote, I researched the law and case-law to try to ensure I wasn't going to inadvertently do anything illegal. I also received the advice of a lawyer who is very experienced with the SDA, and I contacted the OSBI to ask whether they consider it illegal to carry in a polling place (their answer was that as long as it wasn't in an otherwise-prohibited place such as a school or the election board's building, they didn't think it would be illegal). I made every attempt to respect the spirit and letter of the law, and the opinion of the most knowledgeable people was that carrying in a polling place is legal.
All of that to say that when someone says I'm an idiot, that I was trying to get attention, that its just plain obvious that a polling place is a prohibited placed – they're wrong. I'm a very private person and would never in my life wish to win this kind of attention. I'm a responsible person who respects the law and does his best to stay above board. And I am no idiot.
In the end, I take responsibility for my actions and admit my wrongs. In this case, I let pride direct my actions by going back to the polling place armed, rather than humbly submitting to authority. A better course of action would have been to disarm in my car, go back in to vote, and sometime later start a dialog with the election board to try to work things out for the future in the best way for both sides.
One last thing. There was no huffing and puffing about constitutional rights like some have claimed. All of the conversations I had with anyone at the polling place were quiet and respectful discussions and no one there was upset or seemed uncomfortable at the time. Also, I thought the report of me being in "disguise" was kind of amusing. I wasn't aware putting a jacket on qualifies as a disguise. I'm not sure where they were going with that, but if I had tried to hide my identity, it probably wouldn't have worked very well, considering the new voter ID law. Maybe I'll post a photo of myself wearing what I was wearing for you guys to see.
That's all for now, I guess. Ask me anything.
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