Sgt. Dumbass Manages To Get The Whole Mall Shut Down

[Aesop]

With due respect, you're all wrong.

The first order of business is to demote every member of his E-5 promotion board one grade, and cashier the presiding officer, for cause.
If, due to Army regs, the officer ultimately responsible for his accession to sergeant is the Army Chief of Staff, so be it.

[BloodlessWeevil]

"a subject armed with an assault rifle walking through Macy's."

Is anyone else a little... concerned... by the wording in the above quote?

[Langenator]

The law in question

In practice, it seems to be applied as "you should have known it would scare people. It did scare people. Now you're in trouble."

Interesting that that article makes no discussion of the second element of the crime, which is intent. The accused, by my reading, had to have intended to scare people.

To me, it would seem easy enough for any halfway competent layer to argue to his client had no such intent: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client I'd not terribly bright. He is also a soldier, and thus is around weapons of this sort on a regular basis. They do night frighten him, and he honestly had no idea that people would consider the fact that he was carrying it frightening"

[skb12172]

"a subject armed with an assault rifle walking through Macy's."

Is anyone else a little... concerned... by the wording in the above quote?

Nah, typical Robo Cop speak. My cousin, a State Police Lieutenant now retired, was that kind of cop. Everybody is a "subject." He's my cousin and has many good qualities, but he was the type of cop that makes the general public dislike the police. No coincidence that he ended up in IA, in my opinion.

[JAG2955]

I'm waiting for the knee-jerk reaction by the base CO who will say "No open carry for soldiers stationed at Bragg!"

[skb12172]

Ok, I get it. All of your observations are valid. However, did he actually commit a crime?

I'm not familiar with that state's statute. It wouldn't be a crime in Louisiana, unless the mall posted a "no guns" policy, and then it would only be trespassing. Maybe Disturbing the Peace, both misdemeanors.

However, under that state's laws? Who knows?

As far as his commanders, you violate Article 134 at your peril.

Ah yes, Article 134. "We feel you deserve to be punished for something, so we'll use 134." The military version of "contempt of cop."

[mekender]

GOATTOP, Going Armed To The Terror Of The People, is a common law crime that requires 4 VERY specific elements:

A person guilty of this offense

(1) arms himself or herself with an unusual and dangerous weapon

(2) for the purpose of terrifying others and

(3) goes about on public highways

(4) in a manner to cause terror to the people.

http://nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu/going- ... he-people/

It is my understanding that this is covered EXTENSIVELY in the BLET training that every officer in NC has to go through, per my discussions with BLET trainers in NC. I suspect that if taken to trial, the charges would not stick... But in the case of an active duty Sgt., that probably will not matter as I expect his charges in the NC criminal courts are the least of his problems and he will not likely have much time to worry about them while he is scrubbing every latrine from NC to Greenland.

[mekender]

I should add that this is about the 4th or so time I have actually seen the GOATTOP charge made against someone in the 10 years that I have been in the Carolinas in a case where it was not an add on with multiple other charges, the most memorable of those was a guy in a trailer park who was holding a grenade (not live) and threatening that he would blow up the neighbors...

[Aesop]

GOATTOP, Going Armed To The Terror Of The People, is a common law crime that requires 4 VERY specific elements:

A person guilty of this offense

(1) arms himself or herself with an unusual and dangerous weapon

(2) for the purpose of terrifying others and

(3) goes about on public highways

(4) in a manner to cause terror to the people.

http://nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu/going- ... he-people/

It is my understanding that this is covered EXTENSIVELY in the BLET training that every officer in NC has to go through, per my discussions with BLET trainers in NC. I suspect that if taken to trial, the charges would not stick... But in the case of an active duty Sgt., that probably will not matter as I expect his charges in the NC criminal courts are the least of his problems and he will not likely have much time to worry about them while he is scrubbing every latrine from NC to Greenland.

Don't be silly: while he is standing tall answering the civilian charges, he will be absent from his duty station, without authorization, which will then get rolled in with the original dumbassery under the UCMJ, and get him reduced from 1 to 4 grades, along with forfeiture of pay and extra duty for some number of days, at which point scrubbing latrines won't be punishment, it'll be his regular everyday duty assignment.

Military justice is ponderously slow, but thorough.

If the guy stays in, he may eventually claw his way back up the ranks. He'll never make 1st Sgt or higher, but he may make it to the SNCO grades, and be able to stay in long enough to draw a pension. If he doesn't make this a pattern, rather than a one-time occurrence.

[SoupOrMan]

There is only one part of this that blows my mind:

A fucking SERGEANT?!

We had an E-5 in my squadron drive from New Mexico to Pennsylvania to play in a golf match to get experience towards earning his pro card. Then he ordered one of the E-4s in his shop to cover for him when he knew he wasn't going to make it back in time for midnight shift assembly. Said E-4 asked me what to do, I told him to tell the truth ahead of formation to avoid getting in trouble himself. The E-5 found himself busted to E-3 and refused any opportunity to re-enlist. A line number for E-6, loss of Red X orders and 13 years in the service all found themselves accelerating towards light speed down the crapper.

So, yes, I can see a Sergeant doing something this dumb.