VA MAN ARRESTED FOR CARRYING A BB GUN AT CHURCH..

[glockman22]

Saw this and said what the hell post it..

http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/new...234610/232545/




A man with a BB gun stunned parishioners during yesterday morning's service at Macedonia Tabernacle Church in Ettrick.

Pastor Stacey M. Roberts said church members became alarmed when they saw the man holding a gun not long after he had finished a sermon titled "Watch for it," in which Roberts talked about looking for God's presence instead of worrying about current economic struggles.

"He was disarmed by one of our people, and we called police," Roberts said yesterday evening, adding that churchgoers initially seemed surprised but welcoming when the well-dressed young white man said he wanted to attend services at the primarily black church.

Christopher A. Smith, 24, of the 100 block of Hanover Avenue in Colonial Heights is charged with possession of a dangerous weapon on church grounds and possession of a weapon by a felon. He faces a preliminary appearance this morning in Chesterfield County General District Court.

"We don't think he intended to cause any harm, but he made the mistake of carrying a weapon into the service," said Chesterfield police Capt. David Stone.

Roberts said Smith had been hanging around the outside of the church on East River Road beginning about 10 a.m. and then returned at 11.

"He was singing out in the parking lot and said he wanted something to eat," Roberts said.

Smith sat in a rear pew with a raincoat folded to his left side during the service. Toward the end, a videographer saw Smith pull a gun from a bookbag and insert what looked like a magazine, Roberts said. Smith tucked the weapon among the folds of the raincoat, but almost immediately a parishioner grabbed the weapon and held it aloft in front of the camera, the pastor said.

"We were stunned, shocked," said Roberts, whose wife had warned her Sunday-school class that morning about people approaching the front of the church, as a gunman had done last Sunday in Maryville, Ill., killing the preacher.

After the parishioner gave the gun to the pastor, Smith walked to the front of the church and demanded it back, Roberts said. But the pastor refused, and church members called police, he said. To keep Smith from leaving, congregants locked the church's doors.

Police said they have not turned up any indications that Smith made any threats.

"We think he had [the gun] in a bag and happened to move it, and someone saw it," Stone said.

Smith apparently had walked to the church from his home, Stone said.

A woman reached by phone last night at Smith's address identified herself as his mother, but declined to give her name. She said that he attended his twin sister's wedding Saturday, but that Smith had not stayed at home Saturday night and failed to show up at work yesterday afternoon. She was not aware that he had been arrested.

"I can't understand what could have happened," she said.

A video of the incident provided by the church showed Smith seated peacefully on a church bench surrounded by parishioners when a police officer arrived.

[addicted2freedom]

Smith sat in a rear pew with a raincoat folded to his left side during the service. Toward the end, a videographer saw Smith pull a gun from a bookbag and insert what looked like a magazine, Roberts said. Smith tucked the weapon among the folds of the raincoat, but almost immediately a parishioner grabbed the weapon and held it aloft in front of the camera, the pastor said.

Misleading title perhaps?

[wa3ra]

The headline I saw said 'BB Gun', seemed accurate.

I'm not so sure about 'DANGEROUS WEAPON', but if he is a convicted felon, it's on the list of stuff he shouldn't have.

Otherwise, no threat, no brandishing, simple possesion of what used to be considered a toy.