A judge sentenced him to a 180 day suspended jail sentence, two years of probation, with special conditions requiring him to serve 48 hours shock incarceration in the county jail (which he already did in August), receive firearms training, and participate in a victim-offender dialog, a restorative justice measure, and any community service established through the restorative justice proceeding.
Seems a very comprehensive sentence for a misdemeanor.
And the local news gets an “A+” from me… not using the “assault rifle” term in here at all:
Police arrested Andreychenko on August 8 after walking into a Springfield Walmart Neighborhood Market, openly carrying a tactical rifle and at least 100 rounds of ammunition.
And the other CC …
Another man held him at gunpoint until officers arrived.
“Praise God that he (the man who held Andreychenko at gunpoint) was trained and that he was able to see that I wasn’t threatening anyone and didn’t shoot me, so praise God for that,” Andreychenko said
The other carrier had the mature judgement and training to do the right thing.
It was a stupid act, by a foolish and immature guy, but the authorities and the news are doing the right thing.
Greene County Prosecutor Dan Patterson said law enforcement was initially looking at the Andreychenko case as a possible mass shooting that didn’t occur. The 911 calls led to more than a dozen police officers swarming to the Walmart store and sent shoppers scurrying out into the parking lot to take cover.
As the investigation unfolded, Patterson said authorities determined Andreychenko did not have those malicious intentions. Still, prosecutors felt a crime had been committed.
“It was a really irresponsible, ill-conceived social experiment,” Patterson said. “He knew it could cause this kind of reaction. That’s why this charge of causing a false report to be made, I believe, is appropriate.”
And what I’ve been telling y’all about how things are, carry-wise, in our part of Missouri:
In a news release, Patterson said it’s not unusual in this community for people to openly carry firearms.
@MikeBKY follow along and comment as you see fit please.
It should be noted here that while the good citizen here should be lauded for his actions it should also be noted that in many jurisdictions he might well have been charged with aggravated assault or some similar charge.
While the overly provocative idiot was acting a fool he was not committing a forcible felony and as such there was no justified use of deadly force.
Pulling your gun on someone in most states is all that it takes for you to be charged and convicted absent the lawful justification of self defense.
A way to handle such a situation where you’d be on solid lawful ground everywhere you do not have a duty to retreat would be to confront the individual prepared for a split second draw with your hand on your weapon and only do so if the individual began to raise theirs or otherwise threatened to shoot you.
I agree with you on all points. I think the FF was doing what he believed was appropriate. And yes, it could be looked at, depending upon the specific laws of the jurisdiction, as an assault, brandishing or false arrest, amongst other possibilities.
From the FF perspective, without knowing what he knew, I can only speculate about what information he had. There is a good chance that he knew that there was a suspected gunman that lead to the fire alarm being pulled. Once police were notified I guarantee the FD was also notified so they would not rush in without having the PD clear the scene before they would go in.
I agree that confronting him ready to draw would be within the law. I’m not sure what happens if he just keeps walking toward you or turns and walks away with the rifle still slung over his shoulder. I guess if that happens, you let him walk and let the police know which way he went.
While I may not have said so in spite of the law and the grave risk he put himself in with respect to legal jeopardy while I probably would have handled it slightly differently I cannot fault him.
We need to do our best to act within the law but there are times where extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary actions.
I agree, the firefighter could have been in trouble, but given the context of the still-fresh El Paso Walmart shooting, I doubt any prosecutor would have the chutzpah to bring charges… that would have set up a lot of public uproar and been a really poor political choice. Prosecutors have a lot of discretion and other situations might get a different reaction.
Pretty sure I would not want to undertake that action… and that most people don’t have either the skills or the experience under that sort of life-on-the-line pressure to risk winning that duel.
Just imagine what the trials would have looked like if the FF was charged and the young man charged did not enter a plea? On one side, you would see a jury wanting to find the “2A Auditor” guilty of something and another jury not wanting to find the FF guilty of anything. They would have made a great docudrama in side by side courtrooms!