to gin up a test case. Now he's shot a couple of people. Maybe it was a good shoot, maybe not, but his confrontational attitude and delusions of grandeur about leading the charge for open carry are on the record. There is no way any jury will avoid seeing this incident as another escalation in his desire for notoriety and/or frustration about the summary judgment ruling in his case.
http://www.georgiacarry.com/gonzalez_westmin/Doc%2025%20Brief%20in%20Support%20of%20Def%20MSJ.pdfGonzalez Dep. p. 66-67, 143. Gonzalez posted about his intent to open carry in Milwaukee:
Q. We’ve marked as Exhibit 12 an Open Carry forum topic on the subject of
“Intent to Open Carry in Milwaukee.” Am I reading that correctly?
A You are.
Q And this is a forum topic that you began, correct?
A It is.
Q And it looks like you posted it sometime about May 4th, 2008, at about 1
o'clock in the morning, correct?
A Yes.
Q In your first paragraph you say, “Hi, I'm new to these forums as a member
but have been coming here as a guest for some time. I've noticed that there
seems to be no one in Milwaukee willing to get the OC started, but I was
never one to wait for others. So I am going to start open carrying around
Milwaukee County, in particular, the city of Milwaukee. I'm a 6 foot 3,
280-pound Hispanic male with very long hair and a big beard (almost no
mustache, weird). I almost always wear black and I always, without fail,
wear either a big black leather coat, black hooded sweater, or black
windbreaker.” Am I reading that correctly?
A You are.
Q So when you posted this, as you've indicated here, you were going to get
the OC started, correct?
A Yes.
Q And OC means open carry, correct?
A Open carry, yes.
Q And so you were going to lead the charge; fair to say?
A Yes.
Gonzalez Dep. p. 67-68. Gonzalez also acknowledged that he is not “one to wait for others” and
that his approach may have ran contrary to those of other open carry advocates:
Q. You say that you were never one to wait for others, correct?
A Yes.
Q You say in this post, “I’ve decided only to go to places that have an
entrance from their parking lot as it is considered private property and is
exempt from the school zone restriction. Please note that I have read a lot
of your posts and understand that my attire and way of grooming are not
what you would advise, but I don't believe I should be dressed in a certain
way to exercise my right to bear arms. I'll keep adding to this post as
things happen or don't happen. . .” Is that a fair reading?
A It is....
McCloy Dep. p. 15. McCloy then approached Gonzalez:
Q: And then what happened?
A Then we started talking about whether it was right or whatever to carry a
gun. He said, it’s okay to carry a gun. There’s no law against it. I said,
that's fine and good. It might be okay, but this is private property, not a
public place. We don’t allow guns to be around or in the store. I need you
to either leave or go put it in your vehicle in the front, but whatever you
want to do, you can't be here with a gun on you.Q And what did Mr. Gonzalez say?
A Well, he argued with me for a bit about how I couldn't do that because it's
not legal to have a gun in here, and we went into, again, it's private
property, it doesn't matter, and he is – he’s making people uncomfortable.
He needs to do that one way or another. And then after a couple minutes,
he conceded and said he would go ahead and put it away.
Q When you said that there was a discussion about whether it was okay to
carry a gun, are you referring to you having that discussion or Mr.
Gonzalez was having that discussion with you?
A We were talking back and forth. He said in Wisconsin, it is not illegal to
carry an open firearm. And I said, I don't know about that, but here in this
-- on our private property, you can't when there’s people around.
Q You asked him on more than one occasion to leave and put the gun in the
vehicle?
Case 2:09-cv-00384-LA Filed 11/30/09 Page 12 of 62 Document 25
13
A At least three times.
Q And would you describe his initial reaction to those requests as
argumentative –
A Very.
Q -- including that he didn't want to leave?
A Um-hum.Q Did you feel a sense of urgency in dealing with Mr. Gonzalez?
A Yeah. I didn't want any more people getting more upset than they already
were, and I didn't want a bunch of parents with their kids seeing a guy
walk around with a gun on him. And that would have caused a little bit of
panic, I believe.
Q And so when you were having your conversation with Mr. Gonzalez, you
felt a sense of fear for your customers?
A Um-hum.
...
Gonzalez does not believe he caused a disturbance because the Menards employees
treated him in a “friendly” manner. Gonzalez Dep. p. 126-127. He would have expected them
to treat him “unfriendly” if they were concerned about his firearm. Id. p. 127. Gonzalez
testified:
Q. I mean, is it possible that they treated you friendly but still had concerns
about the safety of themselves and their customers?
A Well, I would assume that if they were truly concerned for their safety,
they would have assaulted me instead of simply accosting me and asking
me questions and then asking me to leave instead of demanding it.
Case 2:09-cv-00384-LA Filed 11/30/09 Page 15 of 62 Document 25
16
Q So if the employees and managers at Menards were concerned about
themselves or the safety of their customers, you would have expected
them to assault you?
A If I'm armed and they're not, I would have -- yes. Emphasis mine.
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