January 10, 2016

"The longest and possibly most bizarre stand-off in American history has come to an end."

"John Joe Gray, from Trinidad, near Dallas, Texas, was arrested in 1999 for biting a police officer after the cop found he was carrying high-powered rifles without a license during a traffic stop. Gray paid his bond and has since refused to go to court, hiding inside his 47-acre property for 16 years and vowing to shoot any officer of the law who tries to make him leave. The bearded grandfather, his children, grandchildren and friends have armed themselves with pistols and rifles and patrolled their grounds ever since - with the county sheriff choosing not to send cops in for fear of them being killed. But the unusual stalemate has finally come to an end after the authorities decided they just could not be bothered to wait for Gray to emerge any longer."

Tags: time, crime.

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

18 comments:

madAsHell said...

found he was carrying high-powered rifles without a license during a traffic stop.

License? Can anyone explain license, and for that matter high-powered? Perhaps, high-powered is something beyond .50 caliber?...or fully automatic?

When I lived in East Texas, every truck had a rifle rack, and the rifle rack carried either an umbrella, or a rifle. There might have been some fishing rods too.

Once written, twice... said...

Right wing hillbilly nonsense

Original Mike said...

@madAsHell: I had the same question.

Once written, twice... said...

And before I get the fake outrage about using the pejorative "hillbilly," let me tell you to go stuff it. A hillbilly can be of any economic or educational status. Being a hillbilly in 2016 is now exhibiting a stupid kooky right wing mindset. Trump is a hillbilly. Or, more precisely, he is pretending to be a hillbilly in order to get the vote of the Republican base, which is now made up of hillbillies.

Hagar said...

Imagine that - 16 years - and the sheriff just ignored him, so nothing happened!
This outrage is hardly to be borne!

Again, "high-powered rifle" by defintion is anything larger than a .22LR; though .22 Magnum may be questionable - I do not know if anyone ever questioned.
It is a media thing, like car chases with speeds up to 90 miles an hour!
(90 mph being about the top speed of Detroit chariots prior to 1950.)

And beyond .50 caliber by definition is a cannon; not a rifle (nor a machine gun, if capable of automatic fire).

In New Mexico, open carry is legal and always have been, and your car is considered the same as your house, but Texas, though looming large in Eastern journolists' minds, has a lot of silly laws that cause more trouble than they relieve.

Dr Weevil said...

You won't get any fake outrage from using the word 'hillbilly', Once bitten, nor much in the way of genuine outrage. What you get is contempt. Do please keep on being a bigot and a moron: it's amusing in a low way, like watching Duckman or Beavis and Butt-Head.

Bob Ellison said...

47 acres is not that big. Cityfolk might think it's huge, but it's not. That's about a 1500 X 1500 -foot square, something a fit person could run across in about a minute.

I looked at the article, wondering how anyone could do that on such a small space in Texas. He's got trees there. Probably had to hide, literally, quite a lot.

Expat(ish) said...

@Bob - It's not big unless you have to mow it!

I went to google maps and that is the flat part of TX, with fields interspersed with that terrible TX scrub that only a deer can get through. Some river draws (the Trinity runs through it, natch) too. So if he had the right property it could have been Falluja, TX for the LEO's.

-XC

madAsHell said...

OK....so maybe this entire affair only existed in the mind of Mr. John Joe Gray.

cubanbob said...

Who wants to bet a buck the sneaky cops are just pretending and will quietly bust him when he least expects it.

Hagar said...

He wasn't "doing anything," so they just ignored him and walked around him.
And the warrant was just for him, so the family was free to go anywhere they wanted or needed to go.

This id just media hype.

Anonymous said...

Thank our lucky stars for the Second Amendment. Gun license is not a Constitutional requirement.

Thank his lucky stars that he has a big family, and land big enough that cannot be "surrounded".

On the other hand, was he being house arrested for 16 years without trial?

Btw, high powered rifle, low powered rifle makes no difference: no cop wants to get shot. Have a sneaky feeling Texan cops rooted for him.

buwaya said...

I admire and envy him.
We own more things, but we haven't the guts to tell the world to go to hell.

Jason said...

And before I get the fake outrage about using the pejorative "hillbilly," let me tell you to go stuff it. A hillbilly can be of any economic or educational status.

Yes, yes. And there are white n****rs, too. Just ask Democrat Senator Robert Byrd.

Therefore the term is not offensive. Amirite?

Idiot.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

I don't think it counts as a standoff unless the police actually have you cutoff and surrounded. Likewise, the occupation at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon is not yet a standoff. The road is still open and people are coming and going.

Drago said...

Just think, all that "hillbilly" has to do is convert to Islam and every leftist will immediately shut the hell up about this and, in fact, provide as many rationalizations as required to defend it assuming the behavior ever makes it past the leftist-islamist red-black media filter.

Food for thought.

Hagar said...

madAsHell said...
OK....so maybe this entire affair only existed in the mind of Mr. John Joe Gray.

Precisely.
Well said, Sir.

Wince said...

"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."

NSFW: Barretta's Robert Blake has been known to kiss a cock or two.

Watch: https://youtu.be/qRa9uhiAPBs?t=38s