BATF strikes in Los Angeles
Kenneth G. Hagler
type in the following article. This is from the Los Angeles Times, 17 Jan
95.
U.S. PROBES ANIMAL GROUP'S ARMS CACHE
* Weapons: Federal officials say the Van Nuys organization has a $100,000
stockpile, including assault-style guns.
By Josh Meyer
VAN NUYS -- While Los Angeles County supervisors were honoring an
animal-welfare organization in September for donating $20,000 to help the
county spay and neuter pets, federal agents had their eyes on the same
group--for spending as much as five times that amount on guns.
Agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were
investigating the Van Nuys-based Mercy Crusade Inc. for stockpiling an
estimated $100,000 arsenal, according to authorities close to the
investigation.
Among the guns were assault-style weapons that were purchased just before
they were restricted under federal gun control legislation. The agents
seized a dozen assault-style pistols and are still holding them.
The guns were purchased for the group's 12 humane officers, quasi-police who
have powers of investigation and arrest in animal abuse cases. Although they
can wear uniforms and badges virtually identical to those of California
Highway Patrol officers and carry guns, they are supervised by no government
agency and little formal law enforcement training is required of them.
They draw their authority from an obscure state law more than 80 years old,
which allows animal welfare groups to appoint such officers with a judge's
approval.
Mercy Crusade's humane officers are headed by James McCourt, a Pepperdine
University economics professor, and recently included a resteraunt security
guard, a lawyer, a martial arts instructor, and a retired kennel operator.
McCourt said the guns were needed for "law enforcement purposes." No charges
have been brought against him or Mercy Crusade.
Although it is legal for any adult without a criminal record to buy the
guns, federal agents are still investigating, saying they are concerned that
they cannot answer this question: Why would a group whose stated purpose is
to deal with mistreatment of animals want to arm badge-wearing volunteers
with military-style weapons that would give them far more firepower than a
police SWAT squad?
Even the professional Los Angeles city and county animal control
officers--who are not connected to state humane officers--do not ordinarily
carry so much as a pistol.
"You have an unregulated organization with questionable people arming
themselves to the gills and imperiling the public," said one federal source,
who called the purchases "outrageous."
"The system has got to be changed," he said, referring to the unsupervised
status of humane officers.
"There is obviously something wrong that this organization can legally carry
firearms with little or no training....No legitimate police agency carries
any of those weapons," except for specially trained SWAT teams, he said.
He echoed concerns by others in law enforcement that many humane officers,
especially in the Los Angeles area, operate outside the institutional
framework of supervision and professionalism that is standard for other
peace officers.
Indeed, part of the problem for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
when the investigation began was that, like many others inside and outside
law enforcement, the federal agents had never heard of state humane officers
and found it difficult to understand that a private, nonprofit organization
such as Mercy Crusade is entitled to field a unit of sworn law enforcement
officers.
Federal investigators are still holding 12 semiautomatic Heckler & Koch
"assault pistols" seized in June from McCourt, who is the chairman of the
board of directors of Mercy Crusade Inc., as well as its chief humane
officer.
The guns, which are classified as handguns but come with 15- or 30-round
magazines and are designed to be fired with two hands, are now on a federal
list of weapons that can no longer be manufactured, although it is not
illegal to own them.
In addition, McCourt or his aides in the past year bought or ordered 22
other weapons, including five AR-15s, a Bushmaster, a Heckler & Koch .308
and a Fabrique Nationale de Arms .308--which are all modified versions of
military assault rifles--plus an unusually powerful Israeli .50-caliber
pistol, according to authorities.
McCourt told the Times that he bought the Heckler & Koch weapons shortly
before their manufacture was banned by federal law because "we were
anticipating...that these things would no longer be available and that extra
taxes and extra paperwork would be required [after the ban]. And that is
something I was not prepared to do. I'm old-fashioned."
McCourt offered several other reasons for the purchases, at one point saying
that he wanted his officers to be familiar with the guns in case they ever
encountered them in investigations.
McCourt also said that having such weapons would gain Mercy Crusade's humane
officers more respect from other law enforcement officers, and that he hoped
to promote a sense of camaraderie by giving his officers identical
state-of-the-art weapons.
"It seemed like a good idea--go to the firing range at the same time with
the same type of gun," he said.
Another need, McCourt said, is to be armed well enough to protect animal
shelters from rioters. During the 1992 riots, armed Mercy Crusade officers
were dispatched to protect various animal shelters and clinics, he said, and
"we were worried we might have to do that" again.
Because he gave federal agents several different answers to their questions,
they "thought he was being evasive" and that his explanations "just didn't
add up," said one source.
The federal bureau declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.
The weapons were purchased with Mercy Crusade funds, McCourt said. According
to records filed with the secretary of state's office that supervises
tax-exempt charities such has Mercy Crusade, the group had a $2.3-million
treasury at the end of 1993. The group raises money primarily through
direct-mail solicitation of animal lovers.
Firearms agents began the investigation that led to McCourt after receiving
tips from San Fernando Valley gun shop owners that two men had been
purchasing large numbers of assault weapons, the sources said. The gun
dealers said the purchasers declared that the guns were for law enforcement
use, and one of the wore a police uniform.
But the dealers became suspicious because of the number of guns purchased
and because the buyers paid by checks drawn on a private organization's bank
account, which is not how police departments make such purchases, the
sources said.
In June, notified that the two gun buyers had returned to one of the shops,
federal agents followed McCourt and a uniformed fellow humane officer,
Judson Swearingen Jr., from the shop to McCourt's home, the sources said.
The agents interviewed them at length and seized the 12 Heckler and Koch
SP89 pistols, for which McCourt has paid more than $2,700 apiece, the
sources said.
McCourt said he voluntarily surrendered the guns to the agents, but has now
asked Mercy Crusade's attorney to have them returned.
Although bureau spokesman John D'Angelo refused to comment on the case, he
noted that agents "don't take guns for safekeeping--we take guns [by
seizure] when we believe there is evidence of a crime."
McCourt said the agents questioned him for several hours in June, asking
what humane officers are and why Swearingen was in uniform, and "challenging
whether we needed" the weapons.
He said that agents asked sever times whether he had bought the weapons with
the intention of reselling them at a profit after changes in gun-control
laws made them harder to find and therefore more valuable. He said he
thought the agents suspected he was planning "to turn around and sell them
to gangs. But we don't."
McCourt said the questions left him "kind of shocked, because I wasn't aware
that capitalism had been outlawed in this country."
According to McCourt and sources close to the case, the investigation
remains open, but is at a standstill.
Federal prosecutors declines to bring charges against McCourt and Swearingen
for listing a post office box instead of McCourt's street address on the
federal gun purchase form, a felony. McCourt said he was only trying to hide
the location of his home and business, a common practice by law enforcement
officers to thwart vengeance-seekers.
Prosecuters also refused the ATF's request to seek a warrant for a search of
McCourt's home and Mercy Crusade's office by agents who hoped to determine
how many weapons McCourt and the other officers had, and how they paid for
them. The sources say that purchase records filed by gun shops indicate the
group's members had bought at least 34 guns worth at least $100,000 in the
past year.
State humane officers are not required to meet the minimum firearms
education requirements imposed on other law enforcement officers in
California, who fall under the Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST)
Commission, which is part of the state Department of Justice. Lack of POST
certification, for example, briefly helped prevent even Los Angeles Police
Chief Willie L. Williams from carrying a gun when he first arrived from
Philadelphia.
To carry firearms, humane officers are required only to take a 24-hour
course in firearms safety offered at community colleges--compared to the 364
hours required of virtually all other state law enforcement officers, and
the more than 500 hours that is normal in many large departments. POST
officials said that as far as they know, humane officers are one of only
three classes of peace officers--along with investigators supervised by
state banking and real estate regulators--required to take so little
firearms training.
Although there are clearly scores of humane officers in Los Angeles County
alone, and probably hundreds of them in the state, state officials say there
is no central registry of who they are, or which of them are authorized to
carry weapons--a decision that is up to the animal welfare groups they
belong to.
Apparently the only records are kept by the county clerks and registrars who
swear in the officers after a judge's approval. According to Los Angeles
Superior Court administrators, such applications are routinely approved
after a cursory fingerprint check for criminal convictions.
As for McCourt, he said he could not remember how many weapons Mercy Crusade
had purchased. "When you put them [the guns] in a pile, it looks big," he
said, "but it really isn't."
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| Kenneth G. Hagler | |
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