James V. Baker is no stranger to attention. You may not be familiar with the name (yet) but you may be familiar with what he did this past Sunday afternoon: James live-streamed to Facebook while wearing a bullet-proof vest and a seemingly weather-appropriate mask over his mouth and what appears to be a rifle strapped over his shoulder. He later uploaded the video to YouTube. James is no stranger to open-carrying. Founder of “Hell’s Saints”, an open-carry advocacy group, he has been mentioned in 4 previous articles on Mlive.com in regards to it. After the initial article, mlive.com wrote a piece further clarifying the situation.
4 previous articles regarding his advocacy: http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2014/09/detroit_police_have_repeatedly.html http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2014/09/gun-toting_open-carry_activist.html http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2014/09/detroit_gun_arrest_prompts_unu.html http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2015/06/open-carry_activists_face_off.html
I messaged James and asked him a few questions in regards to the recent incident.
I asked him, what is the legality of what he did?
James: Basically, (in Michigan) it’s lawful to possess a firearm in anything owned by municipality (basically - and that includes a P.D.).
What were the charges?
James: The main charge they got me with was concealing my identity in the commission of a crime. Which that charge is obviously circular logic as they had no crime to suspect me of in the beginning. The other things they got me were: “breach of peace” and “did not cooperate with booking procedures”.
What is the legality of the use of body armor?
James: Body armor is completely legal.
What happened that led up to this?
James: We were just meeting up and someone sent out a 911 call about guys in tactical gear. We were just exchanging vehicles, we didn’t even have rifles out or anything. The police somehow found us on the other side of the city, 45 minutes later. We were not sure how they followed us but they obviously followed us by vehicle. We didn’t even get out and start walking yet, we were still in the car. They pulled us over, citing a 911 call about “men in tactical gear” which obviously is not proper reasonable suspicion. In that traffic stop, they advised us that we should go file a complaint if we didn’t like the fact that we were pulled over illegally. So we did just that, and that is the point of the video that’s now... Gone crazy … to file a complaint.