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Thread: Red Flag Abuse

  1. #41
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    Default Re: Red Flag Abuse

    ABC News coverage of the Duncan Lemp murder.

    https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/...lling-69587748

  2. #42
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    Default Re: Red Flag Abuse

    Quote Originally Posted by Spirit of 76 View Post
    ABC News coverage of the Duncan Lemp murder.

    https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/...lling-69587748
    Lawyer: Man killed by officer was asleep when police fired
    An attorney says a Maryland man who was shot and killed by a police officer was asleep in his bedroom when police opened fire from outside his house
    By
    MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press
    March 13, 2020, 10:47 PM
    5 min read




    Image IconThis 2019 photo shows Duncan Lemp in Venice, Italy. Lemp was asleep in his bedroom when police opened fire from outside his house, killing him and wounding his girlfriend, an attorney for the 21-year-old man’s family said Friday, March 13, 2020. (Mercedes Lemp via AP)This 2019 photo shows Duncan Lemp in Venice, Italy. Lemp was asleep in his bedroom when police opened fire from outside his house, killing him and wounding his girlfriend, an attorney for the 21-year-old man’s family said Friday, March 13, 2020. (Mercedes Lemp via AP)
    The Associated Press
    SILVER SPRING, Md. -- A Maryland man who was shot and killed by a police officer was asleep in his bedroom when police opened fire from outside his house, an attorney for the 21-year-old man’s family said Friday. The man's girlfriend was also wounded.

    The Montgomery County Police Department said in a news release Friday that Duncan Socrates Lemp “confronted” police and was shot by one of the officers early Thursday. Rene Sandler, an attorney for Lemp’s relatives, said an eyewitness gave a “completely contrary” account of the shooting. She said police could have “absolutely no justification” for shooting Lemp based on what she has heard about the circumstances.

    “The facts as I understand them from eyewitnesses are incredibly concerning,” she told The Associated Press.

    The warrant that police obtained to search the Potomac home Lemp shared with his parents and 19-year-old brother doesn’t mention any “imminent threat” to law enforcement or the public, Lemp’s relatives said in a statement released Friday by their lawyers. Nobody in the house that morning had a criminal record, the statement adds.

    “Any attempt by the police to shift responsibility onto Duncan or his family, who were sleeping when the police fired shots into their home, is not supported by the facts,” the statement says.

    A police department spokesman didn’t immediately respond to the statements by the family or their lawyer.

    The department's news release on Friday says tactical unit members were serving a “high-risk” search warrant around 4:30 a.m. when one of the unit's officers fatally shot Lemp. Police detectives recovered three rifles and two handguns from the home. Lemp was prohibited from possessing firearms, police said.

    “Detectives were following up on a complaint from the public that Lemp, though prohibited, was in possession of firearms,” the release says without elaborating.

    Sandler said the family believes police fired gunshots, not a flashbang or other projectile, from outside the home, including through Lemp’s bedroom window, while he and his girlfriend were sleeping. Nobody in the home heard any warnings or commands before police opened fire, she said.

    “There is no warrant or other justification that would ever allow for that unless there is an imminent threat, which there was not,” Sandler said.

    The police department's news release says the “facts and circumstances of the encounter” are still under investigation. Prosecutors from neighboring Howard County will review the evidence at the conclusion of the investigation.

    “An established agreement between the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office and the Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office stipulates that when an officer-involved shooting involving injury or death occurs in one county, the other county’s State’s Attorney’s Office will review the event,” police said.

    Lemp was Caucasian, according to Sandler. She did not know the race of the unidentified officer involved in the shooting because she said the officers were wearing masks. The officer was placed on administrative leave, a standard procedure after police shootings.

    Sandler said Lemp’s grief-stricken family is traumatized. Their statement says they intend to “hold each and every person responsible for his death.”

    “We believe that the body camera footage and other forensic evidence from this event will support what Duncan’s family already knows, that he was murdered,” the statement says.

    Lemp worked as a software developer and was trying to raise money for a startup company, according to friends and co-workers.

    “He was a talented, smart guy. Super nice. Didn’t deserve to get shot,” said Samuel Reid, whose Canadian software company employed Lemp as an independent contractor.

    Tsolmondorj Natsagdorj, 24, of Fairfax, Virginia, said he met Lemp in 2016 and bonded with him over their shared interest in cryptocurrency. They also talked about politics. He described Lemp as a libertarian who frequented the 4chan and Reddit message boards, sites popular with internet trolls.

    “Duncan was a young guy with a bright future as an entrepreneur,” Natsagdorj said. “He was working on things to change the world.”

    On social media accounts that friends said belonged to him, Lemp’s username was “YungQuant.” On an internet forum called “My Militia,” someone who identified himself as Duncan Lemp, of Potomac, and posted under the username “yungquant” said he was “an active III%'r and looking for local members & recruits.” That’s an apparent reference to the Three Percenters, a wing of the militia movement. The group’s logo, the Roman numeral “III,” has become popular with anti-government extremists, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

    On his Instagram account, Lemp recently posted a photograph that depicts two people holding up rifles and included the term “boogaloo,” slang used by militia members and other extremists to describe a future civil war in the U.S.

    Friends said they never heard Lemp espouse any anti-government rhetoric. Sandler said Lemp was not a part of any anti-government or militia-type group.

    “He was pro-America and supported wholeheartedly all the protections of the Constitution,” she said.
    "Cives Arma Ferant"

    "I know I'm not James Bond, that's why I don't keep a loaded gun under the pillow, or bang Russian spies on a regular basis." - GunLawyer001

  3. #43
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    Default Re: Red Flag Abuse

    I'm quite certain that once the police get done investigating themselves they'll find that everything was done properly.
    Rules are written in the stone,
    Break the rules and you get no bones,
    all you get is ridicule, laughter,
    and a trip to the house of pain.

  4. #44
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    Default Re: Red Flag Abuse

    His name was Duncan Lemp and I have the story bookmarked to show my reps why we don't like red flag laws. Even though this guy wasn't red flagged the circumstances are similar enough.
    Gender confusion is a mental illness

  5. #45
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    Default Re: Red Flag Abuse

    The Mystery Deepens Over the Pre-Dawn Police Killing of Duncan Lemp
    https://www.theamericanconservative....f-duncan-lemp/
    Five days after shooting 21-year-old Duncan Lemp in a predawn raid, the Montgomery County, Maryland, Police Department announced Tuesday that the killing was immaculate.

    Under pressure by media criticism, the police department issued a detailed statement this afternoon purportedly exonerating itself. But that statement—the third revision of their official account of the fatal raid—is contradicted by multiple eyewitnesses.

    Police now say that the raid was spurred by “an anonymous tip at the beginning of the year, indicating that Lemp was in possession of firearms.” A response from the Lemp family, delivered by their lawyer, Rene Sandler, noted, “Using a three-month old ‘anonymous’ tip, the police sought and obtained a no-knock search warrant on March 11, 2020 at 2:38 p.m.”

    The police department states that the warrant “was served in the early morning hours, consistent with Montgomery County Department of Police practice.” So an anonymous tip is all it takes for a SWAT team to launch violent predawn assaults on Montgomery County homes? The press statement declared, “The officers entering the residence announced themselves as police and that they were serving a search warrant.” Why did they obtain a no-knock warrant if they intended to enter the residence and announce themselves?

    According to the statement from the family, the raid began when “SWAT officers initiated gunfire and flash bangs through Duncan Lemp’s bedroom window in the front of the house.” According to the police, “Upon making contact with Lemp, officers identified themselves as the police and gave him multiple orders to show his hands.” The press release reads almost as if Lemp died from an overwhelming sense of guilt, rather than being shot perhaps multiple times by police. It also doesn’t specify whether they’d shot or otherwise wounded Lemp before “making contact” and issuing commands. According to Lemp’s pregnant girlfriend, who was in bed with him at the time of the police attack, “police never made verbal commands upon either her or Duncan until after Duncan was shot and lay bleeding on the floor.”

    The press release declares: “Upon entrance by officers into Lemp’s bedroom, Lemp was found to be in possession of a rifle and was located directly in front of the interior bedroom entrance door.” Was he “found to be in possession” as he lay on the floor bleeding? And was it Lemp or the rifle that was directly in “front of the interior bedroom entrance door”?

    The police claim to be vindicated because they found five firearms in the house and because they asserted today that Lemp had a “criminal history as a juvenile” that “prohibited [him] from legally possessing or purchasing firearms in the State of Maryland until the age of 30.” Do the police have a right to kill anyone who possesses a firearm in violation of any statute on the books? If so, that’s bad news for the tens of thousands of Maryland gun owners who are federal felons because they use marijuana or other illicit drugs.

    The police department has offered a sham of transparency. They refused to answer any of my questions last Friday. I sent another set of questions to them this morning prior to the latest revision of their story, among them:

    Many people online have suggested that Lemp was targeted for a raid because he was helping to build a secure computer site for people who shared his [pro-gun] political beliefs. Is that allegation correct? Did concerns about Lemp’s political beliefs or associations factor into the SWAT team’s decision to launch a violent raid at 4:30 a.m.?
    Did the SWAT team or other police department or Montgomery County officials do any assessment of the likelihood that someone would be injured or killed by a nighttime SWAT raid that began with shooting or flash-bangs?
    Did Montgomery County police or other officials make any effort or even consider making an effort to serve the search warrant in a way that would have permitted the peaceful, voluntary cooperation of Lemp family members?

    I sent those questions to a Montgomery County police department official, who notified me that all questions were being forwarded to the Montgomery County Attorney’s Office. I contacted that office and its spokesman, Ramon Korionoff, who responded: “I cannot help you on this matter as it is the Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office who is handling the investigation.”

    (Howard County and Montgomery County have an agreement to conduct reciprocal investigations of police shootings).

    Howard County Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Yolanda Vazquez responded that the case was “still under investigation” and thus they would disclose nothing. And folks wonder why I am cynical.

    I also emailed the Montgomery County Police Department asking for the names of the police officer or officers who shot Lemp. As David Simon, the writer who masterminded the television series Homicide and The Wire, observed, “Without a name [of a policeman involved in a shooting], there’s no way for anyone to evaluate an officer’s performance independently, to gauge his or her effectiveness and competence, to know whether he or she has shot one person or 10.”

    I also asked: “Have those officers made a statement to investigators yet?” Maryland’s so-called “Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights” prohibits questioning a police officer for 10 days after any incident in which he used deadly force. That law is practically designed to sabotage honest investigations into killings by police. As the Washington Post noted in a prize-winning report on police abuses in neighboring Prince George’s County, “a lawyer or a police union official is always summoned to the scene of a shooting to make sure no one speaks to the officer who pulled the trigger.” I received no response to that email either.

    The family’s statement notes: “The actual search warrant and sworn statements therein were sealed by the judge upon request of the police at the time the warrant was filed for 30 days.” So the public will not learn until April 11 at the earliest why Montgomery County police chose to use a violent predawn raid on someone who, according to court records, had engaged in no criminal activity since he was a juvenile.

    The Montgomery County Police Department doesn’t have a Fifth Amendment right to remain silent after it kills county residents. The SWAT team wore body cams and police have thus far refused to release the footage. They deserve no benefit of the doubt for this violent killing.
    --ET

  6. #46
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    Default Re: Red Flag Abuse

    Duncan Lemp case becoming more disturbing. The police and politicians are stonewalling like nobody's business. The latest allegations are that intimidation tactics are being used against the surviving family members and protests to call awareness to it are being threatened with $5K lockdown fines.

    https://www.americangunnews.com/anot...h-by-the-cops/

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