Update on the excessive show of force in Sharpsburg “manhunt”

Update January 31st, 2013:  Porter preliminary hearing demonstrates MD State Police screwed up, here (and we hope that is all it is!).

Update December 15th:  Summary of the meeting with Lt. Woodward of the Maryland State Police, here.

Update December 13th:  Police to meet with concerned citizens Saturday December 15th, here.

Update December 7th:  Rally in support of the “hunted” man, Terry Porter, in Sharpsburg tomorrow (click here for details and more on the story.)

By the way, PJ Media has the story, here.  As does Infowars, here.

Let’s all build bunkers!

As we told you here and here a few days ago, an estimated 150 police and FBI officers, closed a country road and descended, as if in a military operation, on the modest home of a Sharpsburg welder named Terry Porter.   Taxpayers should be outraged at this over-zealous reaction to what we now learn is a man who simply feared for a crisis coming to America (don’t we all!) and had become a “doomsday prepper ” —-in addition to having a neighbor with a grudge who likely turned him in.

It is true that Porter had a 20-year-old drug conviction on his record (confirmed here by the Hagerstown Herald Mail) but apparently had no subsequent run-ins with the law.  He is legally not allowed to own a gun so he does have a legal problem, but that doesn’t justify the cost and scope of this massive operation.

I suspect his real un-doing came when he told an undercover officer on November 16th that he was not happy with the outcome of the Presidential election (along with 66% of his Washington County neighbors who voted against Obama).

Several times in the last few days, it has been expressed to me that “there is more coming,” that he is a “dangerous” man, well, if this is it (reported in the Herald Mail today), then I look forward to hearing an apology from the Maryland State Police for this costly, and frightening to the community, “manhunt.”  Mind you there could have been no manhunt when the military-like operation began on Thursday because they had NO arrest warrant that day.

Here is the Herald Mail.  Message to readers, don’t tell strangers you are unhappy with Obama!  LOL! The stranger could be an undercover agent for the regime.

A Sharpsburg man charged last week with illegal possession of firearms is a “doomsday prepper” who told an undercover Maryland State Police trooper about an underground bunker and surveillance cameras on his property, according to a charging document filed in Washington County District Court.

Terry Allen Porter, 46, of 4433 Mills Road, Sharpsburg, was charged Friday with seven counts each of being a convicted felon in possession of a rifle or shotgun and possession of firearms after being convicted of a disqualifying offense, court records said.

Porter was the subject of a manhunt after his property was searched Thursday. He turned himself in Friday morning and was briefly held on $75,000 bond before posting bail, court records said.  [That is a tiny bond for a “dangerous” man, if they were really concerned it would have been upwards of $500,000—ed]

Contacted Monday by The Herald-Mail, Porter declined to comment on his case. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Dec. 19, court records said.

Porter’s criminal record includes a 1992 conviction for distribution of cocaine before a U.S. magistrate in West Virginia, according to the statement of probable cause filed by state police. Porter was sentenced to six months’ incarceration and three years’ probation in the case, the document said.

A person wishing to remain anonymous contacted state police in early November, telling them that Porter “has been getting crazier and crazier over the past several years,” the charging document said. The person told police that Porter had 10 to 15 “machine gun-style firearms,” six handguns and up to 10,000 rounds of ammunition, the document said.  [I’m looking forward to seeing that person in court at some point, surely he or she will be called to testify.—ed]

[….]

Two searches of Porter’s property — one Thursday by warrant and a consent search Friday — turned up four shotguns, a .30-30-caliber rifle and two .22-caliber rifles, the charging document said.

A state police corporal went to Porter’s home Nov. 16, posing as a customer for the business Porter runs from his home, the charging document said. Porter got “very irritated” during a discussion of the recent presidential election and “openly admitted to being a prepper,” the document said.

There is talk in this article that Porter had an AK-47-like gun, but the guns listed sure don’t sound like anything more than your average hunting guns.

The “crazy” and “dangerous” man (described to me by people close to him to be a really decent family man) turned himself in to authorities the next morning and offered the police a tour of the bunker.

Porter turned himself in at the Hagerstown state police barracks at 9:30 a.m. Friday and offered to submit to a consent search of his home to include the bunker, the charging document said. The two other firearms were found during that search, the document said.

I want a bunker!  Hey, let’s all build bunkers—even just a little hole in the ground with some plywood over it and announce we have a bunker!  Or better still,  maybe Porter could go into the bunker-building business, and as one of my MD CAN friends joked yesterday, we could then have “home and garden bunker tours” and show off our bunkers!