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By Jeff Johnson CNSNews.com Congressional Bureau Chief
November 05, 2002

Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - Prior to the capture of "Beltway 
Sniper" suspects John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, an 
unconfirmed number of Maryland gun owners received surprise visits 
from the FBI as part of the investigation. One such gun owner had a 
surprise of his own for the agents when they arrived at his home.

Jeff Brown of Gaithersburg, Md., was "a little nervous" when he 
heard the voicemail message from an FBI agent on the sniper task 
force who wanted to "visit" Brown at his home to check a .223 
caliber semi-automatic rifle Brown purchased in 1993. Adding to 
that apprehension was the fact that Brown owns and drives a full-
sized white panel van, the type of vehicle investigators believed 
the sniper was driving.

"I expected, actually, to be pulled over and spread-eagle on the 
street at some point," Brown told CNSNews.com Monday. "When he 
called, I knew their database had had a double hit. A white van and 
a .223 rifle? I knew they were coming."

In a subsequent telephone conversation, Metzger reportedly told 
Brown that agents merely wanted to verify the serial number of the 
rifle and confirm that it was, in fact, still physically in Brown's 
possession. The two scheduled an appointment to accomplish those 
goals.

But Brown later learned that the agents had tried at least once to 
make an unannounced visit, and only called because they were unable 
to catch him at home.

"Once I told some of my friends in the pro-gun community what was 
happening, they began to relate some stories to me about guys 
having their guns confiscated, for so-called 'ballistic 
fingerprinting,' and not getting their guns back," Brown explained. 
"I became alarmed."

Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said the 
attitude of the federal agents comes as a result of "years of 
accepting gun control as somehow useful for solving crimes."

"The [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms] went to the stores 
and got the lists of gun owners that had something that could fire 
a .223. But, it didn't solve the crime," Pratt noted. "The only 
reason we find that gun registration is 'useful' is for 
confiscation."

FBI Agents 'Were Not Happy'

Brown's apprehension prompted him to contact an attorney, who 
instructed him on preparing for the visit. So, when FBI Special 
Agent Greg Metzger and his partner arrived at Brown's home for 
their scheduled meeting, they were greeted by Brown and his wife, 
Mary, along with reporters and photographers from various media 
outlets.

As Brown described the situation, the agents were "a little bit 
miffed."

"They were not happy," he observed. "They just were not interested 
in being around any cameras."

The agents asked Brown to step outside the home, away from the 
television crew, to talk.

"Can we, uh ... come here," one of the agents said to Brown. 
Obliging, Brown stepped away from the door to speak with the 
agents, but still within view of the camera.

Brown began recapping the agreement he had made with Special Agent 
Metzger. But when one of the agents realized Brown was wearing a 
wireless microphone, he stopped the conversation short.

"Do you have a microphone on?" the agent asked as he reached toward 
the microphone clipped to Brown's shirt. Brown backed away and 
continued talking, but the agent interrupted him again.

"Can you do me a favor?" the agent asked. "Can you take the 
apparatus off that you have on? I'd like to speak to you privately."

Brown complied, but only after summoning his wife to serve as a 
witness to the conversation with the agents. Out of the camera's 
view, and believing they could not be heard, the agents challenged 
Brown about the presence of the media.

"They were belligerent, at that point, with me. They weren't 
threatening me or pushing me around or touching me or anything like 
that, but their mannerisms and attitude quickly became offended and 
belligerent," Brown recalled. "I was thinking to myself, 'See, this 
is what I was afraid would happen if you guys came into my house, 
especially if I was alone.'"

'Don't You Know People Are Dying?'

Parts of the conversation picked up by the camera's long-range 
microphone confirm Brown's account of what happened next.

"Why didn't you give us a chance to do what we said we were going 
to do instead of ambushing us with the media? Why didn't you trust 
us?" one agent asked.

Brown said it was not so much the words the agents used, as their 
attitude and body language that made him uncomfortable.

"There was some lecturing about it," he said recalling one comment 
that did unnerve him.

"One thing they said was, 'Don't you know people are dying and 
we're just trying to do our job?'" Brown recalled, "Of course, the 
inference was that I didn't care that there were people dying and I 
was trying to interfere with them doing their job."

During that conversation, the agents reportedly admitted that they 
had seized other rifles, allegedly with permission, to compare them 
to the ballistic evidence gathered from the crime scenes.

"They said, from some people, they do 'request' to take the gun 
with them and do 'ballistic fingerprinting,' as they call it," 
Brown recalled. "I just did not want to have my gun disappear."

Pratt believes the agents "developed an attitude," because Brown 
challenged their attempts to violate his constitutional rights.

"The FBI is trying to put this guy on a guilt trip because he's 
'not cooperating' with the system but it's a totally useless 
system," Pratt argued. "They just assume that gun owners [are] all 
a bunch of suspects just for being gun owners and they should 
behave accordingly."

'They Were Doing It On Purpose'

At the request of Special Agent Metzger, Brown instructed the media 
to stay outside his home, where they could see what was happening 
through a plate glass window. Brown had the unloaded weapon 
displayed in plain sight for the inspection.

The agents followed Brown and his wife inside and confirmed the 
serial number on the rifle as they had said they wanted to do. But 
that was not the end of the encounter.

"After they checked, they started [questioning Brown again], and 
that's when my wife stepped in and told them to leave," Brown said, 
noting that his wife formerly worked in law enforcement.

Mary Brown believed the agents were attempting to agitate her 
husband, hoping he would say or do something to justify their 
confiscation of his rifle.

"I could tell that they were doing it on purpose and I didn't like 
what they were doing to you," she told her husband. "So, I decided 
to just jump right in."

The agents left the couple's property, as they were ordered to do.

Jeff Brown does not believe the agents' reaction to the presence of 
the media, or their "brow-beating" tactics were justified.

"I'm not here to make them feel happy. I have to make sure my 
rights are not violated. I wanted to help, but this is not Nazi 
Germany," he explained. "I looked [Metzger] right in the eye and 
said ... 'I don't care whether you're upset about being ambushed by 
the media. I felt I needed some witnesses here with me.'"

Brown, a member of the National Rifle Association and former 
candidate for public office in Maryland, was also upset by what he 
perceived as a lack of honesty on the part of the FBI.

"[Metzger] wasn't upfront with me, and I didn't have any guilty 
feelings about [contacting the media]," Brown said. "They weren't 
truthful with me. They didn't tell me all the truth. They only told 
me the part they wanted to hear."

A Message to Gun Owners?

Debbie Weierman, a spokeswoman for the FBI, said the bureau would 
not respond to any questions about the encounter, because the probe 
into the multiple murders was still in progress.

"We're not going to be able to get into any kind of a dialogue with 
you regarding any aspect of our investigation," she said.

Pratt believes the response of the agents to the presence of the 
media shows that their main focus was not on finding the "Beltway 
Sniper," but rather on sending a message to gun owners.

"They know it's not about crime control because, if they were 
really interested in finding the perpetrator they would have kept 
moving. Obviously this guy wasn't the guy," Pratt concluded. "What 
it's really all about is showing that the feds are in control in a 
very totalitarian sense of the word."