| Another OFCC Member Harassed for Open Carry in Northwood |
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| Written by Daniel White | |
| Thursday, 10 July 2008 | |
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Update: Brian Ballenger, law director for Northwood, has contacted OFCC. He said he is well aware of the fact that open carry is legal and wants to work with us to resolve this incident. As he is out of state all of next week, we agreed to pick this up the following week after he gets back. Yet another Ohioans For Concealed Carry member experienced harassment from police ignorant of the laws in Ohio regarding open carry. OFCC member Edwin Farbrother took his eighteen-year-old daughter out for ice cream on her birthday in the evening of Saturday, July 5th, 2008 in the City of Northwood. After being there for approximately ten minutes, a police car roared up and skidded to a stop. The officer approached a man later identified as an off duty police officer (department unknown at this time) who pointed Farbrother out to him. Farbrother knew immediately that the officer was there because he was openly carrying a firearm, and he was correct. Farbrother immediately informed the officer that he had a concealed handgun license, but the officer was not interested in that. Instead, he immediately began berating Farbrother for openly carrying a gun where children were present, and told Farbrother that he was breaking the law by doing so. The off-duty officer and the uniformed officer continued to argue with Farbrother, despite his attempts to explain that open carry is legal. Soon after, a third officer showed up. The third officer joined in the conversation again asserting that open carry is illegal and told Farbrother that the Ohio Highway Patrol had lied to him when he confirmed with them that open carry is legal in Ohio. During the conversation, they also allegedly threatened arrest for impersonating a police officer. One officer insisted that if they were responding to a burglar alarm and saw Farbrother carrying a firearm that he would be the first one they would "take down," and that he risked getting "popped". They then informed him that they were letting him go, but if he did it again he would be arrested and they would let the judge sort out who was right and who was wrong. The initial officer responding to the scene had demanded Farbrother's drivers license, which had recently been issued and was kept in a protective cover. During the conversation, the officer was allegedly witnessed by both Farbrother and his daughter bending the license in his hand. At the end of the stop he returned it broken in half. When Farbrother pointed out the license was broken, the officer shrugged and said, "oh, well." Farbrother later found out that the officers had gone to a Speedway that he frequents and questioned an employee regarding if she felt threatened by him. She told them that, in fact, she felt safer when he was there. During an earlier incident at Speedway, Farbrother had been involved in a similar incident with one of the officers in this incident, who had told him that time as well that open carry is illegal. Through a friend, Farbrother contacted OFCC hoping that we would be able to help him as we had helped OFCC member Bryan Ledford in the Willlowick case. After several email contacts to gather information, today I emailed and called the Northwood police chief. The initial conversation was not very productive. Chief Thomas Cairl was very adamant that open carry is illegal in Ohio, despite not being able to quote the section of the Ohio Revised Code that supported his position. He argued that the concealed carry manual published by the Ohio Attorney General did not say open carry was legal, to which I countered it didn't say it wasn't legal. He then said he would refer the matter to his attorney. When I mentioned the broken drivers license, he became even more agitated and demanded to know if I was accusing his officers of willful destruction of property. I replied that I was simply relating facts as they were brought to my attention. The license was intact when handed over, and broken when returned. At that time, I could see the conversation wasn't going to result in anything positive, so ended it. Afterward, I sent the Chief an email containing the links to the Willowick articles on our website and directed his attention to the memos from the Hamilton County prosecutor and Akron police department affirming that open carry is legal. I let him know I would be calling him back tomorrow to again try to make progress towards a resolution. It is my hope that after talking to his legal counsel that he will realize his error and be more receptive. Incidents like this highlight the need for clear and direct training regarding the legality of open carry to be issued from the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission at the direction of the Ohio Attorney General. Law abiding Ohio citizens should not be in fear of being detained, harassed, or "taken down" for legally exercising their right to openly carry a firearm for their personal protection. |