Next up: No knives at a knife fight. No swimming at a swimming pool. No eating at an eatery. No sex at… Wait! Now that’s going too far!
Airport President Facing As Many As 6 Felony Charges
Orlando-Sanford International Airport President Larry Dale is facing up to six felony charges. He’s accused of confronting and then disarming three people at a Volusia County gun range.
The Volusia County State Attorney’s Office is looking at the case. They are trying to decide if they will file charges.
Dale faces three felony charges of aggravated assault with a firearm and three felony charges of assault with a firearm after what happened on September 9 at the New Smyrna Conservation and Hunt Club in Volusia County.
In the charging affidavit, Jerry Autry said he was shooting pistols there with his son and son’s girlfriend when Dale jumped out of his truck, pointed a handgun at them and ordered the trio to drop their weapons and put their hands up while he patted them down.
Autry said Dale told him they weren’t allowed to use handguns at the club. Dale then reportedly asked if they wanted to shoot skeet with his group.
Autry told investigators he feared for his life and his shooting group, so they left. Autry said he believed he was assaulted. Autry said Dale never told him he was a police officer.
Dale, though, told Volusia County sheriff’s deputies that he identified himself as a police officer and was investigating a felony trespassing.
Dale, a sworn police officer, is the commander of the Orlando-Sanford International Airport’s police department. He had no comment.
Autry didn’t want to talk to Eyewitness News.
Joke gone wrong? Drunk? Mental illness?
Weird man. I’ve never heard of no handguns at a shooting range. Especially if it’s one the police frequent.
Ranges for shotgun sports don’t have the same line of fire constraints that pistol and rifle ranges must. Shot doesn’t fly far, but bullets do.
It is COMPLETELY illegal –and terribly dangerous– to shoot bullets at some ranges designed for shotguns.
Just because it’s a range doesn’t meant its for your gun of choice.
Peter – thanks for pointing out the difference. I did most of my early days skeet and trap shooting at a factory gun club that sat on a point of land next to a beach community. It was laid out so any stray shot went out into the water.
If they had allowed hand guns or long guns, stray rounds might have landed hundreds of yards away – or even picked off a local coastal fisherman.
There’s a great deal of difference in safety requirements in the design of either kind of firing range.
Right idea – telling them that its a shotgun only range. Wrong method – telling them with a gun.
What a dumb ass. He could have just walked up to them and asked them to stop. Just another reason to despise the police, especially airport police.
I just want to confirm that there are outdoor ranges that are shotgun only, for the reason stated above.
6,
Exactly. Why draw down on them?
Reading the article, there seems some merit to charging him. Although, it seems ambiguous enough that the parties would be better off settling this personally.
Just because you’re at a gun range, I assume you’re still not allowed to threaten people with guns!
Like most libbie gun control types, I have no problem with sport shooting. It’s when you start pointing them at people that I have a problem with it.
Hey Greg, I despise gun control, but pointing guns at people unless you are in mortal danger is something I have a problem with too. In this case, drawing a bead on mistaken, albeit armed, people strikes me as a recipe for tragedy. Good thing it didn’t work out like that.
Li,
Well, I’m glad we have that in common. I honestly believe that there is a reasonable compromise on this subject that could be created except that the NRA and others have so polarized the debate.
I’m curious: do you have a concern about guns that are designed primarily for shooting people? Or at least having those guns in the hands of every and any goofball who wants one?
He’s going to have those charges dismissed because he’s a police officer.
#9, Greg Allen,
Well said. I have little issue with those who shoot sport weapons or hunt. Pointing a weapon at someone though is entirely different.
#12, Angel,
Good point. That won’t save the civil suit though.