What’s your opinion? The guy had a license and got involved in a situation he heard about over the scanner. He caught the person in question. He feels he did the right thing. The cops say his license is for personal protection and not to go looking for trouble. What say you?

http://www.salemnews.com/news/local_...b24c61b13.html

Man defends decision to hold suspect at gunpoint

BEVERLY — Kenneth McKay Jr. insists he was just trying to protect neighborhood children when he confronted and then ordered a domestic abuse suspect to the ground at gunpoint behind his Beverly Housing Authority apartment Wednesday evening.

He says he sees it as part of his responsibility as a gun owner and a member of the controversial militia organization calling itself Oath Keepers.

But veteran law enforcement officers say what McKay did was ill-advised, and could have led to a tragedy.

“As well-intentioned as people may be, it really becomes a matter of common sense,” said Salem state Rep. Paul Tucker, the former Salem police chief.

It started around 6 p.m. Wednesday, when Beverly police got a call from a woman in a Beverly Housing Authority apartment on New Balch Street, according to a police report.

She said her ex-boyfriend, who had been told by a judge to stay away from her, had shown up at her apartment, grabbed her shirt, pushed her, then grabbed a phone she was holding and ran off toward a wooded area.

Police say the man then returned half an hour later, threw the phone back into the apartment, and fled again. The woman was not injured.

The man, Carlos Figueroa, 28, of Lynn, ran through several backyards and into a wooded area behind Memorial Drive. Several residents of the apartment complex called 911.

McKay, however, saw police cruisers approaching, turned on a police scanner, and heard police were looking for Figueroa.

“They were searching the woods right in back of my house,” McKay, 36, said Friday afternoon.

“I’m licensed to carry,” he said. “I always carry a firearm, as is my Second Amendment right.”

McKay, who received that license earlier this year, says he told officers “I’m keeping an eye out with you guys,” then began looking for Figueroa. After hearing that an officer had spotted Figueroa, McKay decided to wait near the end of a path.

When he heard a noise, and then someone say they had seen Figueroa, McKay said, “I go scrambling into the woods.”

“I’m the only thing between this guy and the children,” he said he was thinking. “I’m thinking of the kids.”

“He heard me and dove under some brush,” said McKay. “I ran in, spotted him really quick.”

He said he considered the situation. “The possibilities ran through my head,” he said, acknowledging the possible consequences of pulling his gun out, “in this (Democratic Attorney General) Maura Healey atmosphere, where citizens are demonized and criminalized for exercising their rights.”

“The safety of these children is worth the risk,” he said he concluded.

McKay acknowledged that he had heard nothing on his police scanner saying that Figueroa was armed. Figueroa was not carrying any weapon.

McKay said he aimed the gun at the ground and kept his finger off the trigger as he yelled at Figueroa, still hiding under a bush, to stay on the ground.

“I had him held at gunpoint,” McKay said.

He said police arrived within less than a minute.

“I secured my weapon and produced my license to carry and a photo ID,” McKay said.

An appropriate response?

But Tucker said a responding officer could have easily misinterpreted the situation.

“You have a guy with no uniform, police may or may not know the situation when they roll up and see a civilian pointing a gun at another civilian,” said Tucker. “Now this person, he turns and starts to identify himself, and he might point the gun at police unintentionally. That’s a situation prone to disaster.”

He said there are times, including incidents when he was a police officer, when citizens come to the aid of an officer and it’s helpful.

But, “It’s very much situation-driven,” said Tucker.

And a license to carry is intended for personal protection.

“It’s not meant for going out and proactively searching for someone,” Tucker said. “It sounds like he just basically went out on his own. That’s not appropriate in that situation.”

Tucker suggested the wiser course of action would have been for McKay to stay in his home with his children.

“Your first reaction should be to lock your doors and lock your house and call police,” said Tucker. “It’s certainly not to go out and step in the shoes of law enforcement. Things can really go south fast.”

McKay insisted, however, that police in Beverly know who he is through his work restoring the gravestones of veterans. “They all know who I am,” he said.

McKay, who is disabled, acknowledged that Beverly police told him “they don’t advocate for people to do what I did,” but insists that he had the proper training to assess the situation.

That training, he said, has come from attending meetings of Oath Keepers and what he described as “other patriot groups.”

“We employ the same training police use,” he said.

Self-defense and the law

He went on to say he “swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” He says the oath was administered to him by a member of the Marine Corps League, a civilian group.

“I take that oath very seriously,” said McKay, who has never served in the military or in law enforcement, but once worked as a hospital security guard. “I’m a Constitutionalist. We don’t stand behind the blue line, or on the blue line. We stand with the blue line to protect those who protect us.”

But he’s also critical of Massachusetts law saying that a person can only use a gun to defend themselves or another person who is under attack.

“Honestly, those sorts of rules are so arcane it creates an atmosphere where people cannot defend themselves,” he said. “You can’t point a gun at someone unless you’re being attacked. That’s absolute (expletive),” McKay said.

“What if he goes into someone’s house? It’s a possibility. I was there to neutralize that possibility,” he said.

As of Friday, police had not taken any action regarding McKay’s license to carry. He said he’s been told he has nothing to worry about.

A spokesman for Beverly police could not be immediately reached Friday afternoon.

Figueroa, meanwhile, is facing charges that include domestic assault and battery, for allegedly pushing his former girlfriend, and witness intimidation for taking her son’s phone, as well as charges of resisting arrest and disturbing the peace stemming from the police search and arrest. He was ordered held at Middleton Jail on $500 bail.