After Marine veteran Lloyd Muldrow stopped an attack by an armed assailant at a Baltimore bar, police officers thanked him — and then they arrested him.
Now the Good Samaritan credited with saving a man’s life faces up to a year in prison, charged with violating a city ordinance that forbids bringing handguns within 100 feet of a public building, even though he neutralized the attack without drawing his pistol.
Mr. Muldrow, a North Carolina security specialist, holds a concealed weapons permit, but it was issued in Virginia, not Maryland. Even so, he has no intention of accepting a plea deal when he appears at his Oct. 31 hearing in Baltimore Circuit Court.
“I’m not going to settle with probation or anything like that. I don’t think it’s fair,” he told The Washington Times. “I’ve carried overseas in different countries, and you’re telling me I can’t carry my weapon from one state to another? I’ve trained more than the average police officer, and I can’t carry from Virginia to Maryland? I have a real big problem with that.”...
Mr. Muldrow, 57, had just arrived at a July 4 gathering of family and friends at Tequila Sunset in Baltimore when another patron, Wesley Henderson, became upset after seeing his ex-girlfriend dancing with Marshall Cullens, according to the Baltimore state’s attorney charging document.
Mr. Henderson allegedly shoved Mr. Cullens and then brandished a handgun, striking him in the head. He also shouted threats like “I’ll kill everyone,” Mr. Muldrow said.
“When I got there, I saw him [Cullens] bleeding profusely from his head. It looked like he had a gunshot wound to his forehead,” Mr. Muldrow said. “He was bleeding so badly that I couldn’t do anything but react. I saw the guy with the pistol in his hand, and I hit the guy and knocked him down. We went to the ground, and I secured the pistol from him.”...
He and Mr. Cullens were holding the suspect on the ground when officers arrived, as shown in a police bodycam video posted on a GiveSendGo crowdfunding page set up for Mr. Muldrow.
An officer asked where the gun was, and Mr. Muldrow, his light gray suit stained with blood, told him that his firearm was holstered on his hip. The officer pulled back his jacket and removed his gun, a .22 caliber Beretta M9.
The assailant’s weapon was never found, although several witnesses said that they saw Mr. Henderson wield the gun in the attack. He was arrested and charged with aggravated assault.
On the bodycam footage “you hear police say it’s a pretty common occurrence in Baltimore that, by the time they get there, the gun has disappeared. And that’s what happened in this case,” said Mr. Stark.
Several officers thanked Mr. Muldrow for stopping the attack, but the supervising officer decided to charge him for the weapons violation, even though his gun was never used in the altercation.
This looks like a good case to force the states to recognize carry licenses issued by other states.
.22 caliber Beretta M9? When did they start making the 92FS for that round?
ReplyDeleteBe glad it was not reported as .9 mm.
ReplyDelete