84-Year-Old Former Cop and Korean War Vet Has Guns Seized over Comments ‘Taken Out of Context’
October 20, 2019 in News by RBN Staff
source: gunpowdermagazine.com
by: Teresa Mull
An 84-year-old Korean War veteran who served as a policeman for sixty years has had his firearms seized, despite no criminal charges being filed.
Stephen Nichols was, until recently, working as a crossing guard at Tisbury School in Massachusetts.
MVTimes.com reports:
Nichols said he was unimpressed with the Tisbury School resource officer’s alleged trips to Xtra Mart to get coffee when children came to school in the morning. While dining at Linda Jean’s a couple of weeks ago, Nichols said he told a friend about this and suggested somebody could “shoot up the school” in that officer’s absence, which he described as “leaving his post.”
Nichols said the waitress made a complaint to Tisbury Police about what she overheard and on the strength of that, (Tisbury Police Chief Mark) Saloio and another officer relieved Nichols of his crossing guard duties while he was in the midst of performing them and subsequently drove to his home and took away his firearms license and guns.
“He came up and told me what I said was a felony but he wasn’t going to charge me,” Nichols said of Saloio.
In a lengthy interview with The Times, Nichols explained his concern about Tisbury School.
“When I was in the United States Army, and it wasn’t just me, it’s anybody who’s in the United States service, if you are on guard duty for eight hours, you didn’t leave that position,” Nichols said. “And I’m just so accustomed to that, that when I see someone who’s supposed to be protecting kids…leave the school unguarded — if you’re on guard duty, you stay there.”