Haynes.tv

Yesterday at around 1:30pm we noticed a lot of police, fire, and news activity in the vicinity of Wal-Mart on Connell Highway in Newport; though the whole thing actually began before the store opened around 6:50 with a phone call. My first though was some sort of hold up or something of that nature and I was pretty close, in was a bomb threat placed from an international thief/terrorist, with specific employee information. It is still somewhat unclear why the building was not immediately evacuated in an orderly fashion by all, some employees went out the back door, and it is really unclear why they actually complied to the demands and wired $10,000 overseas to the threat maker, from the check cashing and money transfer department to somewhere in Portugal. The police did not say who owns the account. Perhaps the Wal-Mart employees do not understand the concept that if you negotiate with terrorists it just encourages the behavior.

When the police arrived on the scene they treated it as a hostage situation, because the front door had been locked down, and people were still inside, so the police took up positions around the building. WPRO-AM apparently incorrectly reported it originally as a hostage situation, and even Lite Rock 105 mentioned that it was originally though to be a hostage situation. A homeland security unit from the Naval Station just down the road responded, along with many state and local police, also there was a K-9 and the state fire marshal on the scene, in addition to many news organizations. This crime appears to have been very well orchestrated and was carried out in tandem with similar threats on other businesses across the country.

See more photos of the scene here: http://www.rifoto.com/

This is a picture of, what was assumed to be, a SAM launcher. A SAM (acronym meaning surface to air missile) is as its name implies a SAM is designed to shot down airplanes. Of course the police and CNN seemed to have wrongly identified it as a SAM launcher initially, and as far as I know right now CNN has not yet corrected their error. It turns out it is just a casing for an anti tank weapon, which the guy said he found in a shed he tore down. He first tired to disposed of it at three different dumps; none of which would accept it.

I took it to three dumps to try to get rid of it, and they told me to get lost.

So he decide to bring it to the Orlando police’s, no questions asked, guns for shoes trade in, where he exchanged it for size 3 Reeboks for his daughter.

I think he would have done better on ebay with it, assuming that it is harmless, being that it is just a casing. I am sure there are many people out there who collect that type of stuff, and would probably be will to pay more than $50 (the police offered shoes or a $50 gift certificate for the guns). Of course with something like that it may not have been worth his time to try and sell it, although some of the other people got an even worst deal: According to the Orlando Sentinel “An unblemished 1903 .32-caliber Colt pistol caught the eye of a knowledgeable deputy who checked the Internet and found it was worth about $1,400.” Since the trade in was no questions asked the guy will probably not be able to get his gun back and the police get a 2800% profit on just that gun alone. Maybe if they want to be really good-natured they will try to get in touch with the poor guy that traded his $1,400 antique gun in for $50. To be fair, they were able to get several hot (stolen) and illegal guns off the streets too.