Monday, April 26, 2010

Man With Gun Arrested At Airport as Obama Departs

His name is Joseph Sean McVey and he is being held at the Buncombe County Jail. You just can't make this stuff up, folks, alas.

Armed Man Arrested at Airport as Obama Departs
Associated Press

An Ohio man has been charged after authorities spotted him with a gun in a North Carolina airport parking lot as Air Force One was departing Sunday afternoon.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- An armed man spotted at a North Carolina airport parking lot just after Air Force One departed Sunday told an officer he wanted to see the president and had a car equipped with police gear, including a siren and flashing lights, authorities said.

Joseph Sean McVey, 23, of Coshocton, Ohio, is charged with going armed in terror of the public, a misdemeanor, said Asheville Regional Airport Police Capt. Kevan Smith.

Security was heightened at the airport because President Barack Obama was leaving after spending the weekend vacationing in Asheville. He was headed to a memorial service for 29 West Virginia coal miners killed in an explosion.

At about 2 p.m., airport police saw McVey get out of a maroon car with Ohio plates and that he had a sidearm, Smith said. Both airport police and the Secret Service questioned him and he was taken into custody. The suspect was nowhere near the president's plane, which had just departed, and was in a rental car return lot that is open to the public, Smith said.

His car was equipped with clear LED law enforcement-style strobe lights in the front and rear dash, Smith said. The car also had a mounted digital camera in the front window, four large antennas on the trunk lid, and under the steering wheel was a working siren box. Smith said McVey was not in law enforcement.

When McVey got out of the car, he was listening to a handheld scanner and radio that had a remote earpiece, Smith said. Police said he was monitoring local agencies and had formulas for rifle scopes on a note in his cup holder. Police did not immediately elaborate on what the formulas might mean and Smith was not available to comment late Sunday.

McVey gave authorities an Ohio driver's license, but a computer check failed to show the number was valid, police said. His hometown of Coshocton is about halfway between Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio.

When Officer Kaleb Rice asked him what he was doing, McVey told him he heard the president was in town and wanted to see him.

Rice removed the firearm and took McVey into custody. He was being held at the Buncombe County jail on $100,000 bond.


The investigation into what McVey was doing with a gun, with formulas for rifle scopes and why his car was equipped with police gear was continuing, Smith said. The Secret Service had no comment on the arrest, deferring to airport police.

A jail officer said it didn't appear McVey had an attorney.



McVey becomes "racist home-grown Tea Party terrorist" in 3...2...

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Joseph Sean McVey, 23/Timothy James McVeigh, 26 . . .Napolitano, Clinton and the msm are going to have a field day with this. Oy.

Anonymous said...

Self fulfilling prophecy re him being a tea party member by writing that sentence you create google hits on "tea party" and "sean mcvey"....

Anonymous said...

Officials downplay NC airport arrest - KAVL Asheville Regional Airport
From NBC's Pete Williams

Official concern is very low over the Ohio man arrested Sunday at the North Carolina airport where President Obama's plane took off.

Based on the airport police report, it appears that Joseph McVey pulled into the rental car parking lot about a minute after the president's plane left. His appearance provoked curiosity, because his car was loaded with police scanners and antennas. He had flashing police-style lights and a siren. And he was carrying a sidearm.

However, officials say he had a license to carry the gun and was apparently the kind of person who likes to hang around cops and help out -- in parades with crowd control, for example.

This morning, one official familiar with the investigation says McVey heard the president's plane was at the airport and wanted to see it take off.

McVey has been charged with a misdemeanor, common law public nuisance violation. But there's nothing to indicate that it's going to go much further.

Read the original here:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/04/26/2279264.aspx

Anonymous said...

Web sites of man arrested at KAVL Asheville Regional Airport reveal interest in radios, police, but no threats
ASHEVILLE — An Ohio man arrested Sunday at Asheville Regional Airport with a gun and police scanners around the time President Barack Obama flew out on Air Force One wrote on one Web site that he planned to become a police officer.

A variety of social networking and personal Web sites also show that Joseph Sean McVey is a HAM radio enthusiast.

On policelink.monster.com, McVey wrote that his hobbies include “shooting, fishing, hunting, piano, trumpet (and) voice.”

McVey, a resident of Coshocton, Ohio, graduated from West Liberty University in July 2009, according to a Web site he created listing himself as a sound engineer. The school has about 2,600 students and is located about an hour southwest of Pittsburgh.

He majored in music technology, according to his Myspace profile, which also lists him as a HAM radio operator with the call sign K8JSM. According to a post by McVey on qrz.com, a HAM radio-oriented Web site, he goes by his middle name, Sean.

On Sunday, an Asheville airport police officer noticed large antennas on McVey’s vehicle as he sat near an airport runway.

“Generally my antennas sit at the bottom of the rear windshield, on the front lip of my trunk, and this provides for some directionality towards the front of the vehicle,” McVey wrote on qrz.com. “This enables me to help increase signal strength when necessary.”

McVey’s sites indicate he may be a member of SKYWARN, a National Weather Service program that calls on citizens to report severe weather.

On Friday, he posted two “tweets” from Limestone, N.C., on his Twitter account. Limestone is a small town about 25 minutes south of Asheville .

McVey posted three additional tweets before he was arrested, the last, which he posted on Saturday, citing a CNN warning of tornado watches in multiple states.

His Xanga profile page, last updated in 2006, lists his birthday as April 16, 1987.

In 2007, McVey posted a blog on his Myspace profile that said he got a job working “as IntelliTarget Marketing. (Verifying addresses on magazine subscriptions and, soon, political ‘advertising’ for the One Million Republicans, a new Republican group postered by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay).”

Other blogs describe girl troubles and his frustrations surrounding his efforts to become a good pianist. He hasn’t posted a new blog since 2008.

His Facebook page, which the Citizen-Times had limited access to, lists him as a fan of Asheville and, separately, as fan of downtown Asheville

On his YouTube account, McVey has favorited more than 100 videos, including multiple law enforcement-related videos and one that allegedly shows U.S. soldiers accidentally killing civilians in Iraq .

None of the sites examined by the Citizen-Times included any mention of President Barack Obama.

Read the original here:
http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20100426/NEWS01/100426001

midnight rider said...

Well there you go. The man was perfectly legit. Yet the headlines screamed Armed Man Arrested At Airport.

And he was arrested AFTER the plane departed. So why was he even stopped?

"His appearance provoked curiosity, because his car was loaded with police scanners and antennas. He had flashing police-style lights and a siren. And he was carrying a sidearm."

Not a goddamn thing illegal there.

But oh jesus christ he has a gun.

Guess we know where we stand now, eh fellow CCW?

And will the retraction of this story get the same coverage as the initial story did?

No, of course not.

And why are they printing ANY details of this guy's personal life if no crime was commited? How about WHOOPS! WE FUCKED UP ON THIS ONE? Wouldn't that be sufficient?

mah29001 said...

I wonder if this fella has any affiliation with the Ohio Militia. The Ohio Militia has ties with the arrested members of the Hutaree militia.

Many of these militia members believe in "New World Order" conspiracy theories promoted by Alex Jones whom is not but the least a fan of Capitalism.

midnight rider said...

I don't think so. I know a number of guys around here who listen to either police or fire bands and aren't involved in militias. Not that, with some of them, it would take much of a shove.

I think he's just a law and order junkie (kinda like an ambulance chaser) who happens to have a CCW license.

The downside to guys liek that is, often, they may show up with the very best intentions to help and either get themselves or someone else hurt or just get in the way without meaning to.