Meredith Graves, a fourth year medical student was in town interviewing for a position when she decided to visit the 911 memorial. The Tennessee native is the possessor of a conceal carry permit for the handgun she carries for her personal protection. The married 39 year old observed a sign reading "No guns allowed," and dutifully approached a police officer to ask where she could check her handgun. To protect and serve, isn't it? She was told she was in luck, it was police day at the memorial. She was arrested on a gun-possession charge, handcuffed and led away.
Meredith Graves is looking at 3 1/2 years of prison.
Afterwards New York mayor Michael Bloomberg attempted to defend the actions of his city's police force by alleging Ms. Graves was carrying cocaine, but this was baseless, as were the New York Posts efforts to equate the arrest as coming from the city's efforts to stop the smuggling of illegal weapons into the city. It soon becomes tiresome arguing with these mopes. Ms. Graves has a legal permit to carry her handgun in Tennessee. She was not carrying an illegal weapon, nor was she attempting to smuggle it into the city.
She was released on $2,000 bail, and must return in March for her arraignment hearing. The arrest and potential felony conviction puts into serious question whether she will be able to further pursue a career in medicine.... and to what purpose?
This woman was packing in New York City, and I'm worried about it why? If you mean her no harm she will mean you no harm. She has a right to protect herself, and my guess is she can do a better job of it than Mayor Bloomberg. Personally, I like the fact that a woman like this was armed.
ReplyDeleteThis is disgraceful. The policeman who arrested her and Mayor Bloomberg are disgraceful. I lived in NYC while going to grad school. Glad I don't live there now.
ReplyDeleteWhere's Gloria Allred when you need her? She'll make sure Mayor Bloomberg is charged with idiocy and locked up for the duration...what a twit! I love New York but this sure puts a pall on that city for me.
ReplyDeleteWell, exactly. Why does Bloomberg say anything? Why comment that she was carrying cocaine? To the press? Doof.
ReplyDeleteAnd Gloria Allred - sheesh. As you well know Astrid, she is not an equal opportunity legal consultant. In fact, I believe Sharon Bialek has already morphed into just another Sharon Who?
Thanks for coming by guys.
Let me broker a prisoner exchange with the Peoples' Republic Of New York City. . . I'm in Illinois, and will give you Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn for Meredith Graves and Ryan Jerome.
ReplyDeleteAs for Bloomie, Meredith Graves should sue him back to the Stone Age for that cocaine slander when she correctly identified the substance as powdered aspirin for migraines at the time of her arrest. Mayor McNoCheese has the deep pockets.
Exactly.
ReplyDeleteMark Steyn weighs in:
"...we might have known that Bloomberg would effortlessly sink to new depths. It is outrageous that his enforcers are obtuse enough to seek jail time for Meredith Graves. But it is entirely unacceptable for the chief executive of a major American jurisdiction to slur innocent private citizens as coke snorters simply because he’s in power and they’re not."
NRO's editors have weighed in, and comment on Ryan Jerome, the former marine Darrell alluded to earlier:
ReplyDelete"New York’s strict gun laws do little or nothing to keep guns out of the hands of violent criminals, something that probably was very much on the mind of Mr. Jerome, who became a jeweler after his honorable discharge from the Marine Corps and was carrying $15,000 worth of gold as part of his work. Like Ms. Graves, he attempted to surrender his gun to security guards, in his case when visiting the Empire State Building. Landmark skyscrapers in New York City face a great many serious threats, but Mr. Jerome is not among them. If anything, the presence of an armed Marine, among the most rigorously trained fighting men in the world, would render the Empire State Building marginally safer from the parlous uncertainties of 21st-century urban life. Indeed, New York might have two more very tall buildings if a few such men had been present in a couple of airliner cabins a decade ago."
Read the whole thing here.