Arrested for open carry in Oregon Charged $924 hospital bill

I was walking in my BDU's and carrying a Keltec rifle through town in Ashland, OR. The cop took me to the ER for a psch exam then the hospital sent me a bill for $924 that went to collections. It had to be a illegal arrest and they made me sign under deress because no law was broken.

Good Lord!!! Sorry man but you owe me a computer screen! I just spit snuff all over the place laughin so hard! :shocker:
How in the hell did you end up getting a Psch exam?
I think you need to get a lawyer and sue that cop and everyone in between!
Was the rifle a SUB2000?

Did you shoes match your undies? That's key.

OTOH, he might have detained you for other reasons besides OC-ing.

Is this real life? 1 post ever on the board? No details? Walking around town wearing BDUs carrying a rifle? What were you trying to accomplish...?

Trollin'

At this point in time, this does not pass my smell test.

:uhoh:

Well you need to post more details if you are looking for assistance. For starters, get a copy of the police report and post a link to it online. If it turns out the 'only' reason you were stopped was open carry (a lawful act) then you will get a lot further and on the otherhand if there were other factors in play then I'd say it all depends. Honesty is the best policy, please give an accurate and full acccounting of what happened.

You also need to get copies of the internal police documents (reports, memos, dashcam videos, 911 call recordings, etc.) via a Freedom of Information Act request. Check with your State's forum for specific help on this. You can also Google for help with FOIA requests. Share whatever you obtain with us.

Sounds like you don't have the funds for a lawyer since you weren't able to cover that silly psych exam.

I know this sounds harsh, but did you get an audio recording, if not give yourself a good kick in the rear and repeat to yourself 1,000 times that you'll never ever open carry again without a recording device (know your State's recording laws - you can ask in the Oregon forum).

Kel-Tecs are awesome but scary looking. Sorry to hear about your troubles.

Better to start a thread in your State's forum section about this, if you haven't already, once you get all the details in order.

Good luck!

I'd like some more information about this as well.

It is good to know before you go (the laws and junk about your area or areas you will be travelling too).

Always have a recorder or someone with a recorder with you to record the interaction. Oregon is a one party consent state for such things.

Open carry of a rifle around town (unless you are obviously part of a hunting party, etc.) is much more likely to get you some "special scrutiny" by the police. The BDU's would be icing on the cake. If this actually happened as described, can you really blame the cop for a Terry stop? Pistols are typically defensive firearms, but rifles are more usually thought of as offensive weapons, and not very well suited for self defense around town. Still, I don't think a cop would bring someone for a psychiatric exam unless some of the OP's comments were also troubling in some way. Care to share what the consultant wrote?

Dutch Uncle said:

Open carry of a rifle around town (unless you are obviously part of a hunting party, etc.) is much more likely to get you some "special scrutiny" by the police. The BDU's would be icing on the cake. If this actually happened as described, can you really blame the cop for a Terry stop? Pistols are typically defensive firearms, but rifles are more usually thought of as offensive weapons, and not very well suited for self defense around town. Still, I don't think a cop would bring someone for a psychiatric exam unless some of the OP's comments were also troubling in some way. Care to share what the consultant wrote?

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Yes I can blame the cop for the terry stop as a gun and clothes don't make RAS. As long as OC of a long gun isn't illegal he shouldn't have been stopped without further reason. Though as people have pointed out it is a first post which makes people sceptical of the story.

Yeah, more details are needed, and my smell-tester keeps pegging past "rotten in Denmark" all the way to "week-old fish."

From his description, he could have been walking home with the firearm securely strapped to his back, or he could have been skulking down the street, pointing the weapon back and forth, across the street, from house to house, or he could have been doing something completely different.

In the first scenario, he'd be the victim of rogue LEOs. In the second, the LEO properly sent a whack-a-doodle for the evaluation he needed. If the circumstances are completely different, my judgment would also be.

Based upon how the post was written, I'm thinking the OP is hiding something, causing me to tend toward the whack-a-doodle explanation. Even if this is the case, the city should pay the bill. They requested the service; they pay for it.

eye95 said:

or he could have been skulking down the street, pointing the weapon back and forth, across the street, from house to house, or something completely different.

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As my wife put it. He could have been playing army man. :uhoh:

Definitely sounds like something is not being told or else that something did not even happen.

Out of curiosity, how could the hospital legally make someone pay for a service that was neither asked for nor wanted by the patient, but was done at the orders of a third party? Something in that just does not make sense to me.

Agree - way too little definitive information to properly make an assessment.

Grapeshot said:

Agree - way too little definitive information to properly make an assessment.

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Heh, heh, heh. Turn it over to the county dept of taxation; they'll assess anything.

But, seriously. Why make an assessment? The OPer didn't particularly request one.

Its a Zen sort of thing. Do nothing, think nothing, just observe.

A gun-guy sort of version--and this is really cool--is to go to your dry-fire spot. Pistol set up for dry-fire. And...don't hang a target. Just sit in a chair looking at the spot where you would ordinarily hang a target, for oh say 5 minutes. Just observe the...absence of a target where you have gotten completely used to having one.

Try that. No, really. I mean it.

Citizen said:

Heh, heh, heh. Turn it over to the county dept of taxation; they'll assess anything.

But, seriously. Why make an assessment? The OPer didn't particularly request one.

Its a Zen sort of thing. Do nothing, think nothing, just observe.

A gun-guy sort of version--and this is really cool--is to go to your dry-fire spot. Pistol set up for dry-fire. And...don't hang a target. Just sit in a chair looking at the spot where you would ordinarily hang a target, for oh say 5 minutes. Just observe the...absence of a target where you have gotten completely used to having one.

Try that. No, really. I mean it.

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A stream of thought aimed at nothing and in the passive reflection found to be true. I don't, but Soto do.

I'm from Medford, same metro area as Ashland and there is NOTHING on the radar down here about any incident such as described by the OP.

I CALL BS but will keep my ears open on the VERY off chance that this just hasn't hit the news yet.

We-the-People said:

I'm from Medford, same metro area as Ashland and there is NOTHING on the radar down here about any incident such as described by the OP.

I CALL BS but will keep my ears open on the VERY off chance that this just hasn't hit the news yet.

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One post and hasn't been back. It may be real, but I doubt it. More than likely, it is either total BS or a self-serving interpretation of what really happened. Even if the details are not accurate, he may actually believe all of them that he reported, thereby explaining the enforced visit to the shrink.

Most likely just a troll trying to stir up a hornets nest to discredit. The brady bunchers really do think of second amendment supporters as wack jobs with guns, ready to jump.

Long story short, we had the David Pyles incident here a little over a year ago. Multiple SWAT teams surrounding a private home in the early morning with NO warrant, wanted to "talk" to Mr. Pyles and immediately "not really" arrested him on psych statutes because the employer pushed the right buttons in an attempt to discredit Pyles who had filed (through proper union channels) a grievance. The cops blew it so it's not absolutely unthinkable here BUT...since that incident I'm sure all the local LEO's have spent a good amount of time on the legalities and liabilities of such actions.

And with the OP's story not on the news radar, it's highly unlikely to have actually occurred but I will keep the radar up.

SFCRetired said:

Out of curiosity, how could the hospital legally make someone pay for a service that was neither asked for nor wanted by the patient, but was done at the orders of a third party? Something in that just does not make sense to me.

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I'm fairly certain if a psych eval is mandated by the city, then the city is responsible for the bill.

since9 said:

I'm fairly certain if a psych eval is mandated by the city, then the city is responsible for the bill.

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ObamaCare????? LOL