Bump Stocks Ban: First People Charged Under New Law Allegedly Brought Cache Of Weapons To March For Our Lives
The first people to be arrested and charged with crimes under the new federal ban on so-called “bump stocks,” enacted in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, are a Texas couple who allegedly brought a cache of illegal weapons to a March for Our Lives sister rally in Boston, the Boston Herald is reporting.
Francho Bradley, 59, and Adrianne Jennings, 40, allegedly traveled from their home in Frisco, Texas, to the Boston suburb of Tewksbury and checked into a hotel room for two weeks. During those two weeks, according to some investigation by Tewksbury police Detective Patrick Connor, the couple did some things that suggested they may have been up to something more sinister.
Specifically, the couple’s vehicle was found to have accrued several parking tickets, two from the exact same Cambridge intersection. That intersection was to be the site of a March for Our Lives sister rally.
“Based on his frequent trips to Cambridge from Tewksbury… my suspicions grew that he may be surveilling an area. It should also be noted that I knew there was a major demonstration ‘March For Our Lives’ in Boston that day.”
On March 24 – the day of the march, Bradley called the police, saying that the video feed he had set up in his hotel room had been disrupted and that he believed someone had broken into his hotel room.
Who is Francho Bradley and he is a lunatic or a real governmental virus-chasing spy?https://t.co/DAMyAy4kzU pic.twitter.com/pK6Ef8l99K
— Nothing Man (@TheNothingManCA) March 28, 2018
That would prove to be the wrong decision for the Texas couple. In his hotel room, police found a “hoard” of weapons, including including an AR-15 with a grenade launcher and bump stock, two other semiautomatic rifles, a shotgun, two pistols, and three smoke grenades classified as “infernal devices” under Massachusetts law, along with tactical vests and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
Many of those weapons aren’t legal in Massachusetts, and the so-called “bump stock” is now illegal in both Massachusetts and at the federal level. Bradley, for his part, tried to claim that he has permits from Texas for his handguns – permits which hold no legal weight in Massachusetts.
Further, Bradley also allegedly claimed that he was “in this area working for a government agency that is dealing with a virus,” although he declined to give specifics.
Despite the Tewksbury police’s suspicions that Bradley and Jennings may have been scoping out the area for March-related activities, the Massachusetts State Police, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, all of which are now carrying on their own investigations, have failed to turn up any evidence that the couple had their sights on the March. According to a statement from State Police spokesman David Procopio, so far there is no indication of what Bradley and Jennings were up to.
“We’ve interviewed (Bradley) and he’s made certain statements to us. We’re still investigating his purpose in going to Cambridge. So far we have not determined anything to establish a nexus between him and the march, and nothing to suggest a wider group or conspiracy.”
