Shawn Moore is a certified firearms instructor for the National Rifle Association and a New Jersey hunter education instructor. He was proud of his son for recently passing his hunter’s permit course and posted this picture of his boy in camouflage holding his .22 rifle. A Facebook “friend” saw the picture and reported him to the New Jersey police and Dept. of Children and Families for child endangerment. Moore says that his home was raided, searched, and he was threatened with the loss of custody in response to the complaint.
While not commenting on the alleged raid, Department Spokesperson Kristen Brown said. “We are required to follow up on every single allegation that comes into the central registry.” That is a bit surprising if the allegation describes lawful conduct. Children are allowed to hunt in New Jersey. I had assumed that there was some screening that occurs. Moreover, I am not sure why there is no intermediate step short of the search of the home.
Moore says that he received an text message from his wife that the Carneys Point Police Dept. and the New Jersey Dept. of Children and Families were at the home demanding to see his guns and gun safe. The officers were told by his lawyer to leave the home absent a warrant. He says that that officers responded that the demand for them to get a warrant was “suspicious” behavior. If true, that would be highly abusive and unconstitutional. A citizen invoking their rights does not create reasonable suspicion, let alone probable cause. While the officers said that they would get a warrant, he says that they never returned.
It does strike me as odd that anyone can trigger such an action based on a photo that does not show any illegal action or conduct that is demonstrably dangerous in a state where children are allowed to hunt and shoot such weapons.
What do you think?
Source: Yahoo
not that it matters, but that isn’t a .22 rifle he’s holding, its not an AK47 either, its an AR15 or clone thereof. the magazine is much to large for .22 ammo
If this were a police state, the cops would NOT have left. Instead they would have rushed in, arrested the guy for obstruction and taken the child away. Simply responding to a tip does NOT make it illegal or oppressive for the cops to be there. ALL parties except the Child Welfare worker acted correctly.
I do wonder what our rights are when a cop or other person acting in an official capacity refuses to give a name or badge number. Let’s hear from our lawyers on this one.
More proof that we are a gun crazy nation — both for them and against them. Let’s all just take a breath and be reasonable.
I’m curious where Turley gets the fact that the family was “threatened with loss of custody,” the visit occurred “late night,” or that the cops responded to the request to leave without a warrant by saying that the request was “suspicious,” NONE of those facts are in the yahoo news article cited.
Turley makes this sound a lot worse than it actually seems to be.
1. I would not describe this as a “raid.” More like an inquiry or investigation. They come to the door, they knock, they talk to the wife, they request permission to search. When the husband comes home, he asks them to leave and they do. The officers saying a demand for a warrant was suspicious is wrong, but don’t cops do that or suggest not cooperating is bad in just about every case? Nothing since.
2. Someone called into the hotline. We don’t know what was said. We don’t know what investigation, if any, the CPS did before going to the home. The assumption that the mere Facebook photo triggered the visit is from the father.
“magginkat” I am sure there are some quirks in your life that are entirely legal yet everyone around you might find odd, are you “dumb” and should you be investigated for them?
It seems the pendulum always swings to extremes in this country. Is there any middle ground?
@ Frankly
Thank you for injecting some critical thinking.
It’s depressing to read people jumping to the defense of poor, persecuted, gun nuts while at the same time able to devine the Police are clearly corrupt. All from the USofA’s incompetent sensationalist media?
No wonder you shoot each other at a rate far greater than any other nation on the planet.
Personally, I find the reaction of the cops to being told to leave absent a warrant the most troubling aspect of this case.
Tony,
Yep. Especially considering the vast majority of all gun crime is perpetrated with hand guns and 2/3 of that is suicides.
A 22 rifle? I used to own a 22 rifle and it didn’t look anything like the thing that kid is holding. His looks remarkably like the AK 47 so it’s no surprise that someone reported them. The fact that his father is with the NRA might explain why he was dumb enough to post the picture. While I don’t agree with the police action I have no sympathy with anyone who allows a kid that young to use a gun for any reason.
Failure to properly train the Children Protective Services….. We are nearing that zero tolerance of individual rights….
Vendetta: A 22 rifle is NOT an assault weapon, a clip is not an indication that it fires anything more than one bullet per trigger-pull, and the design is military-looking for a good reason, over half a century of research has gone into making military rifles stable, accurate, safe for the shooter, comfortable and shock absorbing for the user, and easy to use. If a child is going to use a rifle for hunting or target practice, this is a good choice for a parent to make.
I would be far more worried if the child was brandishing a handgun.
Seems like there must be more to this story somewhere. I’d like to know what the complaint stated and what the department did to investigate before the raid. Was there previous contact with this family before this incident?
It may be that none of that changes the appearance of the raid but sadly we live in a time when the reporters are much more interested in making the story exciting and controversial than in just publishing the facts and allowing us to decide if the story is controversial.
I have still not seen any real follow up on the story where the imaginary grenades turned out to be real rocks and the imaginary box turned out to be other kids on the playground. But that story wouldn’t have gotten half as much attention as the original.
Outrageous abuse of the police power…and yes, all involved should be fired and, if possible, prosecuted.
There is nothing unwise about it. We should not be afraid of legal acts because of hysterical fascists. At some point we are going to have totake back control from the fascists and remove them from power
If there were true justice, everyone involved would be fired. Until we start holding the police and govt agencies accountable, actions like this will become increasingly more common
Well, I take pictures of my children taking baths, but I don’t post them on Facebook. I think, in the current climate, posting a picture of a child with an assault weapon is phenomenally unwise.
What do I think? I think the US of A is turning into a police state, and anyone who talks about demanding their basic rights is someone that police state regards with suspicion.
Looking on the bright side here, in this particular instance perhaps we should give thanks that the police didn’t come in with a SWAT team and leave someone dead in the name of “protecting” them.