Senator Mensch Convicted

[LTCcarrier]

From WPVI.com A state senator and gun-rights advocate was found guilty Monday of a summary charge of disorderly conduct for displaying a handgun to another motorist on Interstate 78 during a high-speed encounter that both sides agreed was fueled by road rage.

[MrUgly]

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?se...cal&id=8121651

BERNVILLE, Pa. (AP) - May 9, 2011 (WPVI) -- A state senator and gun-rights advocate was found guilty Monday of a summary charge of disorderly conduct for displaying a handgun to another motorist on Interstate 78 during a high-speed encounter that both sides agreed was fueled by road rage.
Bernville District Judge Andrea Book issued the verdict against Sen. Bob Mensch, R-Montgomery, after a hearing that lasted nearly 2½ hours.

Mensch faces a maximum sentence of 90 days in jail and a $300 fine, although Berks County Assistant District Attorney James Goldsmith said he would not recommend incarceration.

Testifying under oath, Mensch and the other motorist, Brian Salisbury, offered sharply conflicting versions of the events of March 9 that resulted in the charge against the senator. Mensch denied displaying any sort of weapon and presented a string of character witnesses, including a Roman Catholic priest and two police officers who described him as a law-abiding man.

Both men agreed that the encounter occurred late in the afternoon along an eight-mile stretch of the interstate in Berks County and ended at a gas station just off the highway.

Salisbury, 55, who commutes from his home in Easton to his job in Harrisburg, said Mensch's vehicle came up from behind while Salisbury was passing a tractor-trailer and began tailgating him.

When he pulled into the right lane after passing the truck, he said, Mensch passed him and then slowed down. As Salisbury's vehicle came alongside, Mensch displayed a black handgun in his palm at about lap level, Salisbury said.

"It was definitely a gun," he said, adding that he slowed down and called 911 to report the incident.

"It just scared me," he said. "I didn't know what was going to happen and I just pulled back."

Shortly afterward, both men wound up pulling into the same gas station, where Mensch filled his gas tank and Salisbury described the incident to police on his cellphone, they testified.

State Trooper John Wenrich, one of the troopers who pulled over Mensch after he left the gas station, testified that he observed a black pistol under a scheduling book on the passenger's seat and that another pistol was revealed when Mensch opened his glove compartment to retrieve his driving papers.

Mensch, 65, who has concealed-weapon permits to carry both guns, denied that he displayed any weapon that afternoon, suggesting that Salisbury might have seen him holding his cellphone.

Mensch, a former state representative who won a special election to the Senate in October, is a co-sponsor of a Senate-approved bill to ease legal restrictions on the use of deadly force in self-defense in Pennsylvania. The House has passed similar legislation.

The senator claimed Salisbury was "dallying" in the passing lane when Mensch approached from behind. The senator said he became frightened after Salisbury pulled into the right lane because he said Salisbury made "gestures with his hand" andtailgated him until they stopped at the gas station.

"I had no sense of what this man's intent was," he said.

Mensch acknowledged that at the gas station he took the black pistol from its box under the front seat and stuck it under his coat in the small of his back, but said he did so because he feared for his safety.

Defense attorney Rich Wagner told the judge that Mensch did nothing wrong because he never used the gun in a threatening way.

"It was never raised. It was never pointed," he said.

Goldsmith, however, said state troopers corroborated key parts of Salisbury's version of events, and his description of the black gun undercut the defendant's contention that he was not displaying a weapon.

"That's one heck of a lucky guess," he said.

Damnit.

[TravisBickle]

About 3/4 of all handguns are black. That's not a lucky guess, that's a probability. And I'd venture to guess that more than half of white males in that part of the state have an LTCF and carry regularly.

All one would have to do is call the cops every time he/she gets cut off on the turnpike, make accusations about brandishing, and a vehicle stop will turn up a black firearm. Law of averages.....

[9orangeletters]

Good job, Activist Justice Andrea Book. Way to really stick it to the bad guys.

[ruggerio]

Good job, Activist Justice Andrea Book. Way to really stick it to the bad guys.

not knowing all the facts and making a judgement call would have agree with the judge.

how many asswipe politicians think they are above the law and can do what they want? what would be salisbury's motive to lie in this situation?

[bluedog46]

this is crap they are going after a pro-gun senator. most people would do the same if they felt threatened

[MichaelVain]

I may be in the minority here, but it seems that the State Senator was wrong here.

He basically admits to tailgating the other driver. How is the other driver going to get a glimpse of a gun unless the Sen. Mensch slows down and is side by side with other driver long enough for the other driver to see an object?

Unless other facts come out or there is some other evidence I didn't catch, it does seem he was in the wrong.

The bigger issue to me is how this affects or does not affect the Castle Doctrine being passed.

[falcn]

I may be in the minority here, but it seems that the State Senator was wrong here.

He basically admits to tailgating the other driver. How is the other driver going to get a glimpse of a gun unless the Sen. Mensch slows down and is side by side with other driver long enough for the other driver to see an object?

Unless other facts come out or there is some other evidence I didn't catch, it does seem he was in the wrong.

The bigger issue to me is how this affects or does not affect the Castle Doctrine being passed.

You've got the tailgating backwards. The Senator said the guy he passed was tailgating him until the pulled into the gas station.

[MichaelVain]

You've got the tailgating backwards. The Senator said the guy he passed was tailgating him until the pulled into the gas station.

Salisbury, 55, who commutes from his home in Easton to his job in Harrisburg, said Mensch's vehicle came up from behind while Salisbury was passing a tractor-trailer and began tailgating him.


This is what the driver said. I am aware that Mensch also said that the driver then tailgated him. I guess what strikes me as "strange" is that if the guy saw a gun and was scared, why would he tailgate the Senator.

I guess only the 2 of them know what really happened.

I was really hoping that the evidence would clearly show that the State Senator was framed or this was a stalker and the State Senator saw him multiple times. From what was tweeted (posted in another thread), the State Senator never brought this claim up as was reported in the paper.

[Siobhra]

Senator Mensch was a neighbor of me when I lived in his district. I would see him often on walks in the area. He never seemed to me to be the type of person to mis-handle a gun. This whole thing just does not sound right to me.