Skip to main contentA recent Portland house raid led to a gun collection meticulously organized in a peculiar way.
When federal agents busted Gerald Leroy Barnes II at his East Portland home last month, they found $1,600, less than a pound of weed inside a safe, "a scale, money counter and small amount of drug packaging material," according to a felony criminal complaint filed April 27 in U.S. District Court in Portland.
"Barnes denied dealing drugs," an agent's affidavit notes. The April 12 raid included agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshals and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The complaint does not list a reason for the warrant.
In addition to the relatively small quantity of weed, the feds found an impressive gun collection in Barnes' house.
Barnes was not merely an avid gun enthusiast, he was also, evidently, meticulous:
A place for everything, and everything in its place.
In a 2011 cover story, former WW reporter James Pitkin explained why street-bought weapons are often not at all illegal, and showed how easy they can be to obtain.
And it may be no wonder he never got around to the paperwork:
For all that policework, however, prosecutors only found only one felony crime to charge Barnes with: unlawful possession of an unregistered sawed-off shotgun.
WWeek 2015