“A Tennessee man who was stopped for urinating near the White House on Sunday was arrested after authorities said they found at least nine firearms, including assault-style weapons, in the trunk of his car, according to a D.C. police report.” Hey, it was the Washington Post and they described the rifle as “assault-style” rather than a machine gun. You have to take your little victories where you can find them, no?
So what tipped the Secret Service off that something might be amiss?
Police said the incident occurred about 7:15 a.m. at 17th St. and Pennsylvania Ave. NW, near the Renwick Gallery, on the west side of the White House. The police report said a uniformed Secret Service officer stopped a man he saw urinating.
There’s probably no end of NFL players who’d line up to pee on the White House these days, but that doesn’t mean it’s legal. Timothy Joseph Bates had a Fraternal Order of Police insignia on his license plate, if that means anything. However . . .
When approached, Bates told the officer that he “came to the White House in order to speak with Adm. Mike Rogers and Gen. Jim Mattis for advice on missing paychecks and how to get the dog chip out of my head,” the police report said.
When asked, Bates gave them to go-ahead to search his car.
Items seized include a Glock handgun, a Rossi .357, a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson, a Bushmaster M4 assault-style weapon, a Tec-9 with a silencer, an XD-S .45-caliber handgun, a Norinco AK-47, numerous rounds of ammunition, a folding knife, a blackjack and brass knuckles, the police report said.
As you’re probably aware, our nation’s capitol takes a dim view of civilian ownership of firearms even in the bast cases. And given Bates’s state of mind, this probably wasn’t one of those best cases. He was taken to a local hospital and has since been booked on a variety of weapons charges.