HAPPY ENDING: Firearm seizure shenanigans cost Arlington Heights, IL $185K

Illinois mandated reporting system isn’t perfect, by a long shot.

Here’s one example where a mandated reporter perhaps overstepped her bounds in reporting Art Lovi for expressing his bitterness against doctors who misdiagnosed his wife’s cancer almost ten years earlier.  From a story in the Daily Herald:

After the session, Lovi’s therapist was concerned. She called the Arlington Heights police to report he had made a threat against the first doctor who saw his wife.

She told them she didn’t think he would carry it out or that he was dangerous to himself or others, but she just wanted to do her job and report it.

What was the threat?  Mr. Lovi said he would punch the doc in the nose if he saw him.  (See the case as filed in federal court.  Fair warning, take your blood pressure meds first.)

Oh brother.  (HINT:  Watch what you say to your counselor/pastor/doctor/psychologist/psychaitrist/anyone who isn’t your bartender in a place you’ve never been before).

Arlington Heights police called and asked if he had guns in the home.  He told them he had three antique guns, but no ammo.  They went away, seemingly satisfied.  Fast forward a few hours, with an ominous warning:  “If you want us to get a warrant, we’ll get it and come back and tear the living shit out of your house.”

Lovi and his lawsuit, filed by lawyers at Chicago-based Meyer & Kiss LLC, say the officers entered his home without his consent and seized his three guns and FOID card. When Lovi asked if they had a warrant, he was told “they could go get a warrant and if he insisted they do that, they would come back and tear the (expletive) out of his house,” according to the suit.

The police report, dated Aug. 30, says, “Lovi was cooperative and voluntarily handed over the weapons.”

There were no charges and the police went away.  They refused to give him a receipt when they took the guns and FOID card though.  They made him follow them back to the police station where they wrote up a receipt.

Mr. Lovi wanted his guns back, so he called a couple of days later.  What happened?

Two days later, Lovi called the police about his guns, and an officer came to his house. He says the officer turned the conversation to his late wife, and Lovi got upset. The officer determined he needed a psychiatric examination, but again, the two reports of the situation differ.

Lovi’s suit alleges police threatened that if he didn’t go into the ambulance willingly, they would handcuff him and physically put him in the ambulance.

The evidence is beginning to sound like the Arlington Heights Police were determined to take this man’s guns.  They used the common tactic of asking a person to take a voluntary psych admission.

HINT:  If you ever find yourself in that situation, MAKE THEM involuntarily commit you.  Make them show proof of your psychological condition, not you voluntarily committing yourself (and getting the bill) to prove your innocence/sanity.

Mr. Lovi got a mental health evaluation as part of that admission.  He was immediately released.  It found he was not a threat to himself or others.

At that point, the common sense thing would be to return the guns promptly.  The Arlington Heights Police Department delayed, obstructed requests to return the guns.

In other words, they were acting like bullies, intent on keeping those guns without lawful justification.

Armed with his release from Northwest Community Hospital, Lovi says he went back to the Arlington Heights police station three more times to try to retrieve his guns and FOID card. On one trip, he was told he had to get a note from the original therapist, whom he was no longer seeing. Later he was told his FOID card had been sent to Springfield, which he later discovered was not true.

Two months later, Lovi hired a lawyer, which he found through his membership in the NRA. Shortly thereafter the Arlington Heights police returned his FOID card and the weapons, one of which he said was damaged.

Their intransigence cost them almost a quarter million dollars. 

It cost them $185,000 to be exact.  All over three antique guns, which might be worth more traded in at the next Chicago gun buyback.

Someone – or several someones – should be fired over this.

It took almost a year and a half before Mr. Lovi got his justice.  But he got it.

It started going his way in April when a jury awarded him $80,000 from three individually named officers.  From the Daily Herald.

On Thursday, the jury found Arlington Heights police Sgt. Charles Buczynski guilty of illegal entry into a home and unreasonable seizure of property for leading the charge into Lovi’s home. The jury ordered him to pay Lovi $45,000, Kiss said.

The jury found Arlington Heights Cmdr. Richard Gausselin guilty of unreasonable seizure of person for coercing Lovi into the ambulance two days later, and ordered him to pay $25,000.

An additional $10,000 was awarded to Lovi to pay his medical bills and to fix damage done to his antique guns during their seizure, Kiss said.

Three other officers named in the suit were not found guilty.

If the jury decision stands, Illinois law says the individual officers would be responsible for paying those damages. Whether the village of Arlington Heights would pay the damages on their behalf is unclear. Calls to the village were not returned on Friday.

It got tied up on appeal and the city ended up paying over twice that just to make it go away.  With negotiating like that, maybe they should apply with the Obama administration to be foreign policy negotiators!

Sadly, the attorneys got most of it, but it serves as a stinging reminder to local law enforcement not to infringe upon Constitutional Rights.

I bet Arlington Heights PD:

1.  Has zero love for Mr. Lovi.

2.  Won’t be so cavalier in their disrespect of his rights in the future.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. (AP) – An Arlington Heights man will receive $10,000 in a settlement with the village over the seizure of three antique firearms.

The lawsuit was settled out of court for $185,000 and approved Monday by Arlington Heights. But the Daily Herald reports that $175,000 of the settlement will go to Art Lovi’s attorneys.

In August 2012, his guns were seized by police after a therapist reported that Lovi made a threat against a doctor who he believed misdiagnosed his deceased wife’s cancer. A mental health assessment determined Lovi wasn’t a danger to himself or others, but the village’s police department didn’t return the weapons for another two months.

A legal battle ensued after a Chicago-based law firm filed a civil rights lawsuit on Lovi’s behalf in January 2013.