Billings man who displayed firearm across from school arrested

[Auburn85 434]

https://www.ktvq.com/news/crime-watch/billings-man-who-displayed-firearm-across-from-school-arrested

 

 

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By: Q2 News

Posted at 11:03 AM, Aug 23, 2023

 

The Billings man spotted with a rifle on his property across the street from Broadwater Elementary School was charged Wednesday with one federal charge of illegally possessing a gun within a school zone, U.S. Attorney Jesse Laslovich said in a news release.

"I do believe that the guy has a right to his choice if he wants to bear arms great," said Katy Hoffman, a Broadwater school parent. "But he shouldn't be posted outside of a school where he could see children."

"Everybody has a right to bear arms and protect their property, protect their family," said Bradley McGrady, a neighbor. "Second amendment but bearing arms like that is totally wrong here or anywhere."

Gabriel Cowan Metcalf, 49, make his initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Billings. If convicted, he faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $100,000 fine and three years of supervised release.

Police had received at least two dozen calls over the last month from people concerned that Metcalf had a rifle in front of his property at 430 Broadwater Ave., which is just across the street from the school. Concerns became elevated Tuesday, when school started for the new year, and students were removed from the front playground so they were out of sight of the gun.

"I was worried and I was also a little sad when I heard that my child had to go to an alternative playground," said Teresa Blaskovich, a Broadwater school parent. "But I was very happy with the school's support of the matter and their ability to keep them safe."

"It was just a little terrifying at first," Chandra Whiteman-Laforge, a neighbor, said when she first saw Metcalf with the gun. "But I think the second time I passed by him, I actually waved at him and he waved back at me. So I was like, oh, he's not being hostile towards me. He's just trying to look for somebody else."

Billings police said they could not make an arrest because they did not believe Metcalf was breaking any state laws by possessing the gun on his property.

Federal prosecutors argued in court documents that the sidewalks and street in front of Metcalf's residence are public property within 1,000 feet from the school, meaning the area is a "school zone" as defined by federal law. Metcalf was seen wielding the rifle on the sidewalk.

"Totally, very empathetic to this guy'" said Rebecca Noell, a Broadwater school parent. "Because I just think that we should all be more understanding of each other and really try to understand why he was feeling so unsafe in the first place."

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents arrested Metcalf near his residence on Tuesday night, pursuant to a warrant issued by a federal judge, and executed a search on the residence at 430 Broadwater Ave.

Metcalf told MTN News Tuesday that he did not intend to threaten the school or students and teachers there but aimed to protect himself.

BILLINGS - Federal agents on Tuesday arrested a Billings man who had been seen in a yard across from an elementary school displaying a rifle.

"Last night, pursuant to a warrant issued by a federal judge, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested a Billings man and executed a search warrant on the 400 block of Broadwater Avenue in Billings," the U.S. Attorney for Montana, Jesse Laslovich, said in a press release issued Wednesday morning. "I am grateful to the ATF, the Billings Police Department, and our federal prosecutors for their work on this case. The investigation is ongoing, and I will share more information at the appropriate time."

The man, who identified himself to Q2 News on Tuesday as "Gabriel," had been seen in recent weeks displaying a firearm in the front yard of a residence across the street from Broadwater Elementary School.

The activity raised concern among parents and school officials as students returned to class on Tuesday.

Billings police said they had spoken with the man numerous times and could not take legal action because no state laws were being broken. A police spokesman did say the department had reached out to federal authorities for assistance in the case.

The Yellowstone County jail inmate list shows 49-year-old Gabriel Cowan Metcalf was booked into the facility Tuesday and is on a federal hold.

 

 

[Auburn85 434]

https://dailymontanan.com/2023/08/31/the-school-shooting-that-didnt-happen-and-the-reason-it-probably-will/

 

 

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Elementary students have to rely on a tarp, not the law

Darrell Ehrlick

August 31

 

You ever wonder what the Second Amendment looks like?

It’s a concept more than an object; many Montana politicians think the Second Amendment looks like something with polished steel or that it comes in a camouflaged matte finish.

But the clearest representation of the Second Amendment to me isn’t any particular firearm, it’s a Billings elementary school that has put up a plastic black tarp – the kind that you’d buy at a hardware store; the kind that seems to flap in the breeze, no matter how well you try to hold it down.

That was about the only option left for Billings Public Schools to try to alleviate Broadwater Elementary parents’ fears about a man walking through the neighborhood with a gun.

Those words are hard to write.

Man, gun, school – those are the elements that have become the prelude to a tragedy that is completed by the coda, “thoughts and prayers.”

Yet, in all the talk of making schools safe or hardening them, the only available option for the school was a flimsy tarp that couldn’t stop a bullet, but could at least hide the reality long enough for kids to be dropped off at the backdoor of the school. Or so that the kids could play in the back of the building, away from playground equipment. At least there, they couldn’t be upset by the man with the gun right across the street.

According to records from the Billings Police Department, officers had been dispatched more than 30 times to Gabriel Cowan Metcalf’s house, right across from Broadwater Elementary, on reports of a man with a gun. Billings Police Lt. Matt Lennick said that as many of those calls-for-service happened, emergency dispatchers were often inundated with other callers – parents, students and concerned citizens — all worried about Metcalf, a man with a gun, right across the street from one of the largest elementary schools in Montana’s largest city.

So, 30 calls is conservative.

This is a situation that has spanned more than two school years. I can only imagine that the tension and fear normally induced when schools “go into lockdown” was exacerbated by the presence of Metcalf, never knowing if he had crossed that line from gun-totin’ to gun-usin’.

Our state lawmakers, egged on by their federal counterparts in the Freedom Caucus, have eliminated nearly any gun law that would prohibit this sort of menacing behavior, because protecting someone’s right to paranoia exceeds the rights of hundreds of students and their parents, the teachers and even police officers’ safety.

Metcalf told authorities that his reason for carrying an open gun was because of an ongoing dispute with his neighbor – even though the neighbor has since moved. And that answer is helpful because it explains why Metcalf also chased down some cars with gun in hand. Metcalf explained that he thought he often saw his former neighbor, possibly coming back for revenge. That may also explain the bear spray Metcalf was carrying and camouflage he was wearing, according to court documents.

Even though Metcalf had never expressed any hostility toward the school, or the people who seemed alarmed, you can excuse folks for being concerned.

I cannot imagine how police officers felt, metaphorically handcuffed, unable to do much about Metcalf who had a vendetta, a shotgun, right across the street from more than 400 students. His interactions with the Billings Police Department stretch back a decade, with a 2013 incident that got him flagged as a potential danger to officers when Metcalf was carrying a loaded .22 rifle.

Meanwhile, school officials were left with a tarp.

Federal officials were able to do slightly better, arresting Metcalf because he was violating federal law by having a weapon within 1,000 feet of a school – a measure that many Congressional Republicans have advocated to repeal.

Just last year, U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale, a Republican, whose largest city in his district is Billings, was a co-sponsor on House Resolution 7415, a measure that would repeal all “gun-free” zones around schools.

When contacted three times after Metcalf was arrested, Rosendale’s office refused to comment on how this legislation would work had it passed, and how it could have possibly helped. Figures, seeing as how Rosendale has also been accused of colluding with the National Rifle Association.

Metcalf, as I write this, is still being held in federal custody after Magistrate Judge Timothy Cavan determined:

“Defendant believes possession of the firearm and patrolling the area around his property within the school zone is necessary to protect he and his mother from a perceived threat posed by a former neighbor… and he has chased automobiles he believes may be associated with his former neighbor. He has previously been advised that he is prohibited from possessing a firearm within the school zone, but he has stated his belief that the law is unconstitutional and he asserted his right to do so…

“…The court finds it is unlikely that he would abide any condition prohibiting him from possessing a firearm while on pretrial release. Therefore, there are no conditions or combination of conditions which can be imposed to reasonably assure the safety of any other person or the community if released.”

The “return” of the search warrant to the federal court – which inventories what was confiscated — listed  a 20-gauge break-action shotgun and six rounds of 20-gauge ammo.

It’s telling that gun enthusiasts like Rosendale or even state Attorney General and fellow Republican Austin Knudsen, who admits that he has “a bit of a problem with guns,” take to cable television and talk radio to profess their love of guns, but remain silent in cases like this.

We have been given a gift – a warning sign and precursor to something far more tragic. People can sense what could have happened if the circumstances were just slightly different.

It’s well past time that we advocate for common-sense measures and responsible gun control, instead of contorting history to support the idea that our founding fathers would have accepted the idea of lockdowns, school shootings, and Metcalf, who seemed convinced his former neighbor was planning revenge via gasoline and a leaf blower (true story … read the court documents), as the necessary and inevitable byproduct of the freedom to own guns.

I am not sure how parents are supposed to feel when their kids drill for active shooter threats, routinely go into lockdown, and are warned that even joking about a weapon can get you expelled, only to have a neighbor patrolling the neighborhood with a shotgun face nearly no consequences for months.

“Sorry, the best any of us could do was a tarp” seems like a pathetic and insulting excuse — even though school officials literally had tried everything, including asking Metcalf to not patrol the neighborhood during school hours.

I have three children, all in public schools. I used to be worried about someone walking into school with a loaded gun before being halted. Now, I have been confronted with an even scarier reality: A man gets to walk around school with a gun.

And nothing happens.

 

 

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Amurica! by God!  

[Auburn85 434]

https://dailymontanan.com/2024/03/26/billings-man-pleads-guilty-to-illegal-gun-possession-inside-school-zone/

 

 

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Billings man pleads guilty to illegal gun possession inside school zone

 

By: Blair Miller - March 26, 2024

 

A Billings man who carried a gun in his yard and on the sidewalk across the street from Broadwater Elementary School last year who frightened children, their parents, and school staffers agreed Monday to plead guilty to unlawfully carrying a firearm in a school zone.

In addition to the plea deal, the case also includes an original opinion about how Montana’s gun laws interact with federal gun laws, as the court held that Montana’s individual licensure law is not an exception to federal law identifying who can possess a weapon on school grounds or in a 1,000-foot zone surrounding a school. That means, the judge wrote, that the federal law in Montana can be violated when a person steps off their private property with a gun within a school zone.

Gabriel Metcalf, 49, agreed to plead guilty to one federal count of unlawful possession of a firearm in a school zone.

Metcalf was charged and arrested late last August after he earlier in the month, on multiple occasions, was seen pacing his front yard and walking down the street with a .20-gauge shotgun, sometimes staring into traffic or at Broadwater Elementary School, which is across the street from the home he shares with his mother, according to court documents.

When Billings police talked to him after numerous complaints were made, he told them that his next-door neighbor and others were stalking him and that he believed the neighbor was working to place bombs in his yard.

Metcalf previously was given an “officer caution” notice for Billings police officers to exercise caution around him, dating back to a 2013 incident in which he got agitated with officers while carrying a loaded .22-caliber rifle.

Metcalf said he was conducting patrols to protect his mother, whom he said had a restraining order against the neighbor. Court documents show the neighbor has a pending case for violating a protection order.

When Billings police on Aug. 17 told Metcalf that he was in possession of a gun inside the 1,000-foot school zone that surrounds Broadwater Elementary, he called the FBI to say police were harassing him. He said that he had no mental health issues but declared the Gun-Free School Zones Act to be unconstitutional before the conversation became “unmanageable,” federal prosecutors wrote in an indictment and criminal complaint.

Prosecutors charged Metcalf on Aug. 21, and he was arrested a day later. Federal agents seized Metcalf’s shotgun and six rounds of ammunition.

 

Attorney argues Second Amendment protects Metcalf’s actions

 

In October, Metcalf’s attorney filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that his actions were both protected by the Second Amendment and fall within the exceptions to the federal school zone law, which include possessing a firearm on his own property.

His attorney cited the 2022 New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen Supreme Court decision to say that Metcalf’s right to own a firearm extended to areas outside the home, arguing the government could not regulate guns within a school zone because the government did not historically apply that regulation to firearms dating back hundreds of years.

The attorney also argued that since Montana law grants every person in Montana who is not a convicted felon or otherwise prohibited from possessing a gun under the constitution a license under “individual licensure” exempting them from the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act, that Metcalf was allowed to carry a gun in the school zone while not on his property.

“If Mr. Metcalf stepped from his property onto the public sidewalks while carrying a firearm as the government alleges, he was licensed to do so by the State of Montana at the time,” Metcalf’s attorney wrote. “…And the indictment must be dismissed.”

 

Judge says Montana’s law does not meet exception requirements

 

But at the end of January, U.S. District Court Judge Susan P. Watters denied the motion to dismiss, saying that the federal law Metcalf was charged under does not violate the Second Amendment and that Montana’s “individual licensure” law cannot be an exception because a law enforcement officer did not verify that he was qualified to carry a firearm before issuing the license.

Watters said the case involved “an issue of first impression” — a case that presents an issue never decided in that jurisdiction.

She interpreted the Gun-Free School Zones Act as saying that a state “require(s) some kind of process for law enforcement to determine whether a person is qualified to own a firearm before issuing a license.”

She said Montana does not meet the requirement for the exception because it automatically considers everyone in Montana to be licensed, but “claws back” licensure for those who are felons or otherwise prohibited under the constitution. She wrote that the Legislature had effectively declared that “individual licensure” would comply with the exemption requirements on its own.

“But a state legislature cannot work around federal law by simply proclaiming that a state statute meets the federal requirement. Proclamation of compliance does not override non-compliance on the face of the text,” Watters wrote in the order denying the motion to dismiss.

Watters said this is the first time a party has argued that Montana law does not qualify for such an exemption and said the Department of Justice “is responding to novel challenges to the Act and evolving conceptions of gun control in light of intervening law, namely Bruen.”

“The court finds that, while Metcalf was licensed under Montana law to carry a gun, his license does not exempt him from the requirements of the Gun-Free School Zones Act because Montana’s individual licensure does not comply with federal law,” Watters wrote.

Responding to Metcalf’s attorney’s contention that the Gun-Free School Zones Act is unconstitutional because it extends gun-free zones beyond the physical campus of a school, Watters said the prevalence of school shootings over the past 50 years constitutes an “unprecedented societal concern” that means there is likely not a direct historical analogue because there were only two documented school shootings during the colonial period up through the mid-1850s.

“It is thus highly unlikely that the Founders could have anticipated the prevalence of gun violence today, and a more nuanced analysis of the historical regulations is warranted,” Watters wrote in the order denying the motion to dismiss.

Since the government had only presented examples of gun restrictions on school campuses, Watters said she needed to do her own analysis to find examples where guns were not allowed in a “sensitive place,” which is one of the standards for gun regulations, dating back to a 2008 case, District of Columbia v. Heller.

Watters used polling places as the historical “sensitive place” that schools could be compared to since they historically have had buffer zones where guns are prohibited, dating back to the 1776 Delaware Constitution and continuing on to the years that followed the Civil War.

“The Colonial and post-Reconstruction laws that formed a buffer zone around the location of elections further persuades the court that this nation has a history and tradition of banning firearms within a certain proximity of ‘sensitive places’ in order to hold safe and fair elections. Like voting, the Founders considered education essential for a responsible citizenry,” Watters wrote. “The court’s conclusion under the Bruen analysis ensures that the law protects children from deadly gun violence that threatens to subvert their first duty as citizens—to become educated.”

She said the Founding fathers “did not – and could not” foresee the gun violence happening in schools today and thus couldn’t have anticipated the Second Amendment covering guns near schools, but said keeping guns out of “sensitive places” was not a violation of the amendment historically.

She concluded by saying she felt it was “important to reiterate” that Metcalf did not violate the Gun-Free School Zones Act when he had the gun in his home or yard, but only when he stepped onto the public sidewalk within 1,000 feet of the school.

The two sides had been preparing for a trial in the case through mid-March, when on Monday, Metcalf agreed to change his plea and to plead guilty. As part of the plea agreement, the government will recommend Metcalf get points for accepting responsibility when the judge considers his sentence.

The two sides also agreed to seek probation in the case, according to the agreement. Metcalf would also agree to forfeit his .20-gauge shotgun and the six rounds of ammunition previously confiscated by federal agents.

Metcalf is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 2 and faces up to five years in prison and up to a $100,000 fine under the standard sentencing guidelines.