---

SEE PHOTOS: 6-Year-Old With Handgun, Suspect With Rifle
VIDEO REPORT: Felon Arrested After Police Discover Photos Of 6-Year-Old

---

Investigators said 30-year-old Toby Allen took the disturbing photos on a cell phone. They finally tracked him down at a house in Palm Bay on Tucson Street (see map), where they arrested Allen and one of his roommates, 26-year-old Paul Rosaci.Her face is blocked out to protect her identity, but police said it's a 6-year-old girl in the flower print shirt holding a handgun that seems disturbingly large for her small hands. In a second picture, she's pointing the same gun right at the camera with her finger on the trigger."It's alarming to us that we had such a young child brandishing a handgun," said Det. Steve Hill, Palm Bay Police Department. Investigators with the Palm Bay Police Department and the Brevard County Sheriff's Office said Allen took the photos, including two more of himself holding an SKS assault rifle. Detectives said the pictures came from a cell phone stolen from the owner of a local landscaping company where Allen recently worked.The owner of the company was able to recover some of his stolen property, including the phone and contacted officers when he discovered the photos. By examining the background in the photos, police determined they were taken at the home on Tucson Street where officers arrested Allen Friday.A man who still lives there talked to Eyewitness News about the photos Friday. "I thought they were outrageous. I don't know why he did it," the unidentified man said. "I asked him what the hell he was thinking."Police said the photos aren't enough to charge Allen with child endangerment, but they said the girl is safe and Allen, who has a long criminal history, is charged with being a felon in possession of a weapon."He indicated he thought it looked funny. He thought it looked cool," said Randy Holliday, Brevard county Sheriff's Office.Police said they are not identifying the girl in the pictures or her relationship to Allen.

Amnesty Offered for Access to Homes

By Allison Klein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 13, 2008; B01

D.C. police are so eager to get guns out of the city that they're offering amnesty to people who allow officers to come into their homes and get the weapons.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced yesterday the Safe Homes Initiative, aimed at parents and guardians who know or suspect that their children or other relatives have guns. Under the deal, police target areas hit by violence and seek adults who let them search their homes for guns, with no risk of arrest. The offer also applies to drugs that turn up during the searches, police said.

The program is scheduled to start March 24 in the Washington Highlands area of Southeast Washington. Officers will go door-to-door seeking permission to search homes for weapons. Police later plan to visit other areas, including sections of Columbia Heights in Northwest and Eckington in Northeast.

"If we come across illegal contraband, we will confiscate it," Lanier said. "But amnesty means amnesty. We're trying to get guns and drugs off the street."

Fenty (D) and Lanier announced the plan as part of a new strategy to deal with the prevalence of firearms in a city that has one of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. The Supreme Court will hear arguments next week in a case challenging the constitutionality of the D.C. law.

Residents who agree to the searches will be asked to sign consent forms. If guns are found, they will be tested to determine whether they were used in crimes. If the results are positive, police will launch investigations, which could lead to charges.

Boston police are embarking on a similar program this month. Police in that city have been meeting with residents before the door-to-door effort begins. Philadelphia police are considering such an initiative.

Ronald Hampton, executive director of the National Black Police Association, questioned the Washington effort. As a lifelong D.C. resident and a former police officer, he said, he would not consent to his house being searched.

"They haven't earned that level of access or respect from the community," Hampton said. "I just can't believe they're trying to do that. I've never heard of anything like that in my life."

Arthur B. Spitzer, legal director of the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the program is "a very bad idea." He said officers might act so aggressively that residents feel coerced into letting them in.

"It sends the message to the public that the police ought to be able to search your house anytime for any reason," Spitzer said. "People will be intimidated. That cheapens civil liberties and privacy for everyone."

At a news conference, Fenty and Lanier also said police will host monthly meetings with other law enforcement agencies to identify trends in gun-related crimes and to facilitate information sharing. The goal is to identify repeat offenders and find new ways to stop them, Lanier said.

"It should give us a much clearer picture of how to coordinate our efforts," she said.

Police also announced the creation of an anonymous hotline for people to call with information about crimes. The line, 888-919-CRIME, is staffed by detectives. In the coming weeks, the department is planning to set up a system through which the public can send tips as text messages.

"We want to make sure the community has every means necessary to get in touch with us," Lanier said.

View all comments that have been posted about this article.

Martha Smith, 80, shot a mountain lion her dog, Bo, had cornered in some trees in her yard with her .22 caliber rifle. 

80-year-old woman shoots mountain lion in her yard

By Steve Miller, Journal staff

The light was already fading when 80-year-old Martha Smith heard her dog Bo barking furiously outside her Fairburn ranch house late last Thursday afternoon.

She looked outside and saw Bo, a Border collie, facing off with a snarling mountain lion.

So Smith, who was home alone, grabbed her .22-caliber rifle, walked outside and fired a shot at the lion. She missed. "He was a little uphill, and I should have raised the barrel more," Smith said.

She hadn't fired the rifle much in recent years.

Smith went back inside and called 911, but the dispatcher had trouble finding someone from Game, Fish & Parks to come out right away and take care of the lion.

So Smith grabbed the .22 again and went back outside where Bo was keeping the lion at bay.

She admits she was a little nervous because she couldn't see well enough to tell whether the lion was big or small. "All I could see was three feet of tail switching, and it was snarling and spitting at me," she said.

"I knew I'd have to kill him. You can't have a mountain lion in your yard," she said.

She walked to within about 20 or 25 feet of the lion and fired. "I got as close as I could," Smith said. "I figured he'd run. I waited until he lifted his leg to run, and I got him right in the chest where his heart would be."

Smith, a retired nurse anesthetist who has also doctored dogs and cats on the ranch, said she had a good idea where the lion's heart was located.

She hit him with one shot. The lion jumped up, ran a short distance and dropped to the ground.

Smith went outside her yard gate and found the cat dead.

A GF&P staffer showed up a few hours later, measured the cat and brought it to Rapid City.

GF&P regional wildlife manager John Kanta estimated that the 6-month-old lion weighed 30 to 40 pounds.

Smith said initially she was worried the young lion's mother was around.

But the young cat had been fitted with a collar, so GF&P was able to determine that its mother had been shot by a hunter last fall.

"Thank God he was little, because I don't think my .22 would have killed a big one," Smith said.

Kanta agreed that a .22-caliber rifle probably wouldn't have killed a full-grown lion. GF&P staffers use high-powered rifles when they have to kill a problem lion.

Smith said she would like to get the cat mounted and display it at Fairburn's new museum. Kanta said GF&P does not return mountain lion carcasses to private individuals but does allow lion carcasses to be mounted and loaned to public places, such as museums, where they can be exhibited for educational purposes. The state retains ownership, he said.

Kanta said Smith was justified in shooting the lion because she was protecting her property and her animals.

Smith lives on the family ranch where she was raised and learned to shoot. "My sister and I were taught to shoot when we were young. We were put on a horse with our lunch and a gun, and we were sent to the pasture to herd sheep," she said. "So you learn to shoot -- you know, rattlesnakes and rabbits and coyotes."

Smith said she isn't a hunter and doesn't do a lot of shooting. "But a person never forgets how to shoot," she said.

Smith also has a bigger rifle, a .30-30, but it kicks too hard, so she isn't keeping it loaded until a neighbor finishes making lighter-load rounds for her.

But Smith said she always keeps her .22 rifle loaded. She said, "What good's a gun if it's not loaded?"  Link

FRANCONIA (AP) A police officer was fatally shot and run over by a man who had assaulted him four years earlier, authorities said Saturday. The shooter, a cousin of ski champion Bode Miller, was then killed by a passer-by who grabbed the officer's gun.

Attorney General Kelly Ayotte said Liko Kenney, 24, shot Cpl. Bruce McKay four times, then ran over him with his car after a traffic stop Friday evening.

Gregory Floyd, who was driving by with his son, grabbed McKay's gun, then shot Kenney when he refused to put his gun down, Ayotte said.

"This once again reminds of us of the difficult and dangerous work that is done everyday by the law enforcement of this state to protect each of us," Ayotte said at a news conference in Concord. "The police officers of this state, including Cpl. McKay, are nothing short of heroes."

Authorities said McKay pulled Kenney over for speeding on Route 116. Kenney then took off, and McKay pursued him for about a mile and half before pulling his cruiser in front of Kenney's car and pushing it off the road.

The officer used pepper-spray on Kenney and his passenger then turned around, Ayotte said. That's when he was shot.

"Cpl. McKay's cruiser video confirmed for police investigating this case that in fact Mr. Kenney had discharged several shots at Cpl. McKay before running him over," Ayotte said.

Soon after, Floyd arrived and confronted Kenney while his son, also named Gregory Floyd, called for help using the officer's radio. Authorities have determined that his actions in shooting Kenney were justified.

An autopsy showed McKay died of four gunshot wounds. Autopsy results on Kenney were incomplete Saturday.

McKay, 48, was a 12-year veteran of the Franconia Police Department and previously had worked in Haverhill. Survivors include a daughter, Ayotte said.

Ayotte said McKay had "prior dealings" with Kenney, who was convicted of assaulting the officer and resisting arrest in 2003. She had no other details of that incident and brushed off suggestions that an officer should have let someone else handle the traffic stop given his history with the driver.

"This is a situation where this corporal is doing his job in Franconia ... he's not going to look the other way when he see someone violating the law," she said. "The history is that Mr. Kenney was convicted of these offenses. If the standard was that police officers were going to remove a police officer from interacting with anyone who has a criminal history that they had some involvement in, that frankly, would not make a lot of sense."

Bode Miller's father, Woody Miller, said there was a history of animosity between the officer and his nephew, who claimed the officer had once beaten him during an arrest.

Bode Miller, who had bailed his cousin out of jail once, was on his way home to Franconia, his father said.

Lynch ordered all state flags be flown at half-staff in memory of the officer.

The shooting happened near this town in the White Mountain National Forest, popular with skiers and tourists who visited the Old Man of the Mountain, a rock formation and the state's symbol that crumbled into pieces four years ago.

It's the second time in less than a year that a New Hampshire police officer has been killed on the job. In October, when Manchester Officer Michael Briggs was shot in the head while investigating reports of gunshots in an alley. Michael Addison is charged with capital murder in the shooting.

RSS syndication of this podcast:
gunghogunshow.libsyn.com/rss

link to my original podcast's blog:
girl600.libsyn.com
RSS syndication of the GIRL600 SHOW podcast:
girl600.libsyn.com/rss

Full time Girl on Gun Radio Program. Subscribe today to America's first female gun podcast.