Armed man arrested near Obama is a Ham and an Emergency Volunteer

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Visitors since May 03, 2008

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This is why being an "Ambulance Chaser" is a bad idea:

Ohio Dispatch

Joseph Sean McVey, 23, of Athens, is being held on a $100,000 bond in Asheville, N.C., where a judge set his next court date for June 10.

McVey was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of going armed in terror of the public after a security officer noticed him with a gun in a parking lot of the Asheville Regional Airport. McVey reportedly told security officers he wanted to see the president.

The 2005 graduate of River View High School in Warsaw in Coshocton County is known locally for his love of amateur radio and his association with a group of volunteers who perform traffic control duties for law enforcement and emergency personnel.

Tim Wise, president of the local Radio Emergency Association Citizen Team, or REACT, said McVey has been a member of the group since June 2008. Although club members are allowed to have amber lights on their vehicles when helping with traffic control they are not allowed to have police sirens, such as the one authorities in Asheville found in McVey's car.

Wise said most of the club's members would have radio monitoring equipment in their vehicles. He said McVey's arrest likely stemmed from a misunderstanding, but he did not know what McVey was doing with a gun.

He said the club has had to reprimand McVey in the past for using a siren and speeding - and almost causing collisions himself - to the scene of a traffic crash. Wise said he thought McVey had always wanted to be a law enforcement officer.

Although McVey received a permit to carry a concealed weapon from the Coshocton County sheriff's office six days before his arrest, he previously had been caught with a handgun in his vehicle. In January, a deputy stopped McVey after the county prosecutor saw him involved in an altercation on a township road with a .40-caliber handgun strapped to his thigh.

McVey had stopped to assist a woman who was involved in what he thought was a domestic dispute when the prosecutor drove past, according to the deputy's report. The gun was in a pocket of McVey's passenger-side door when he was pulled over, with a loaded clip in the glove box.

At the time, McVey was given a warning about the proper way to carry a handgun in a vehicle, but Sheriff Tim Rogers said yesterday that he would revoke McVey's permit.

Remember, folks, you're only there to assist.  Don't try to be a cop or fireman.  Let them do their job.

This is the kind of thing that give Amateur Radio and Emergency Communications a bad name.

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More: McVey Released from Jail

"I talked to him about stirring things up ...," Adams said.

Adams, who has a been involved in amateur radio since he was 13 years old and locally since 1991, said McVey was trying to make a point about a local repeater and went on the air to correct the problem.

"You don't do that. You go to a meeting or use the telephone," Adams said. "A lot of people listen to these repeaters and that drove me nuts. That's not the place for these arguments."

"He's a young kid. He wants to be involved in many things," Adams said, calling McVey a "Johnny on the Spot" when it comes to hearing activity happening on the scanner.

McVey has been involved in the local amateur radio club for two years. He is not, however, a member of the club's Amateur Radio Emergency Services group which provides emergency communication during a major catastrophe.

At the airport on Sunday, McVey told police he was parked near a gate at the end of the terminal that led to the runway as Air Force One was taxiing because he wanted to see the president.

Police started questioning him after noticing the car's Ohio license plate and equipment, including a digital dashboard camera and multiple antennas. He got out of the car talking on a handheld radio linked to a remote earpiece and wearing a sidearm.

Police said Monday McVey's Springfield XD 40 handgun was loaded. Searching the car, they also found a siren, strobe lights and notes containing radio frequencies and rifle scope formulas.

Taken individually, none of things McVey did was against the law, including carrying the gun, Airport Police Chief Jeff Augram said. It was the combination of McVey's behavior and the things he had that drew the charge, Augram said.

Nothing, individually, was a problem.  The strobe lights; the camera on the dash; even the handgun, all fine.

But add them all together, along with the odd behaviour, and it's a bad combination, and a bad impression on what we want to accomplish when volunteering for this.