The gun was mine. My convict cousin was just taking it to the car.
So an off-duty firefighter allegedly told the cops.
Now the firefighter faces an internal fire department investigation, a separate police probe — and possible arrest.
The investigations stem from an after-midnight incident at Cody’s Diner last weekend.
Around 3 a.m., diner owner Troy Bacon was working the register. He noticed a bulge coming from the waist under the shirt of a customer leaning over to talk to patrons at a booth.
“I carry a gun. I know what a gun looks like,” said Bacon, who said he was packing his own .40-caliber Colt at the time.
Bacon had an off-duty cop named Jimmy Carter working the diner, which attracts a crowd after the bars let out. Bacon told Carter about the gun. He asked Carter to keep an eye on the customer, but to wait until he left the diner unless trouble developed.
“We want to keep the diner a safe place. We don’t want to have any issues,” Bacon said in an interview this week. “The reason we have an off-duty officer is so people can come in and have something to eat and be safe.”
So Carter waited until the gun-toter walked through the door out to the parking lot. Then he patted him down. He found a Taurus .40-caliber semiautomatic on him.
“Fearful” of trouble, Carter wanted to remove the gun first, then inquire into whether the man had a permit for it, according to Assistant Police Chief Kenneth Gillespie. “We’ve had incidents of shootings there in the past, as you know.” (Officer Carter declined comment when reached for this story.)
The man “resisted” and “struggled” with Carter, Gillespie said. Carter got the gun, held it one hand, held off the man with the other.
A third man entered the fray: off-duty firefighter Reggie Blakey. He had been inside the diner with the man.
Blakey told the cop that the gun belonged to him, and he had a permit for it, according to both Gillespie and Bacon; he said he had given the gun to the other man — who turned out to be his cousin — just to have him bring it to his car.
Back-up officers arrived on the scene. The firefighter’s cousin, who’s 31, was arrested. He turned out to be a convicted felon. Police charged him with carrying a pistol without a permit, criminal possession of a firearm, interfering, and disorderly conduct. The police held onto the gun, too.
2 Probes Begin
Blakey was not arrested.
When he showed up at work this week, he told Fire Chief Mike Grant what happened, Grant said. “He said there was an incident at Cody’s that involved a gun that he had a permit for,” Grant said.
Grant said he has assigned Assistant Fire Chief Ron Dumas to investigate the incident. “I want to have all the facts correct before I make any determination” on whether to take action, Grant said.
Meanwhile, the police department’s gun unit is investigating the incident in conjunction with the state police’s firearms unit, according to Assistant Chief Gillespie. An arrest may be forthcoming, he said. “We are working with the state attorney’s department on appropriate charges for the firefighter.”
Blakey, who’s 30, couldn’t be reached for comment. A colleague at the fire station where he works said he was off until the weekend. Fire union President Pat Egan declined comment, saying he didn’t have enough information about the case.
Blakey last year made news when he prepared to audition for American Idol. Click on the play arrow to watch him belt out the Carpenters (and later Luther Vandross) hit “Superstar,” in the above video by the Register‘s Bill Kaempffer.
Cody’s Bacon said Blakey comes to the diner “all the time. I like him. He doesn’t bother anybody.”
“Bottom line,” Bacon added, “you don’t give someone your gun. Especially a convicted felon.”
He should be terminated from the fire department, arrested and have his pistol permit revoked. This is unacceptable behavior by a city employee. Time to clean house in all departments.