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Bay County tightening security at meetings

PANAMA CITY — Bay County is beefing up its security at the County Commission meetings after a man who regularly lashes out at commissioners was charged with possession of a firearm while attending the recent Tyndall Air Show.

A base officer charged Gary Beck on April 12 with possession of a firearm/dangerous weapon in a federal facility and issued a notice to appear in the U.S. District Court. Beck, of 2001 Beech St. in Panama City Beach, was found with a backpack containing a Charter 2000 Undercover .38 special snub-nosed revolver, a knife with a 4½-inch blade, and a 3-foot-long “Black Jack” with a lead weight attached, the citation states. The officer confiscated the weapons.

Starting at its next commission meeting, the county will be searching the purses and bags of people going into the meetings and will use a wand to scan people going into the meetings for weapons, said Valerie Sale, a county spokeswoman. Sale said they will not be frisking people coming into the meetings, just scanning them for weapons with the metal-detecting wand.

“I think it is important for people to know they may want to leave their bags in their car,” she said. “They can bring them in, but they are subject to being searched.”

Sale also said the county is putting in a new, less bulky podium in which it’s easier for commissioners to see whether something is being concealed by the person speaking to them.

Beck commonly vents his rage at the County Commission and Panama City Commission. He frequently has chastised county commissioners for not taking seriously his offer to provide an asteroid-zapping machine he invented, and he regularly lambastes commissioners for “violating his Constitutional rights.”

Beck, who could not be reached for comment Monday, is scheduled to go before a federal judge Tuesday on the charges.

On his Facebook page, he explains he has a legal permit to carry the gun and blames county officials for the incident at Tyndall. He writes that he now has to go in front of a judge “that is related more than likely to Bay County government, who has been trying to frame me and kill me since they stole $35 million from BP for my oil spill inventions.”

“Now they are trying to frame me again because of the corruption I have exposed,” he wrote.

Beck often speaks at the Panama City Commission meetings, as well.

Mayor Panama City Mayor Greg Brudnicki said the commission has decided Beck is so disruptive that he will have to submit his comments in writing instead of being able to speak out at future meetings.

Security elsewhere: Panama City has no metal detector but does have two armed officers at every meeting, Brudnicki said. He said he’s not sure whether the city would follow suit with the county and start checking bags and purses for weapons.

“We may have to do that,” Brudnicki said, adding that the issue should be brought up at the commission meeting.

The potential threat of violence breaking out in a government chambers was highlighted in December 2010, when a disgruntled individual, Clay Allen Duke, fired four shots at six Bay District School board members but missed them all. Duke was then shot several times by a security guard and shortly afterward killed himself with a shot to the head.

Despite that incident, the school district didn’t install metal detectors. A sheriff’s deputy does sit in on the meetings.

“I remember the superintendent saying after that (shooting) happened that we’re not going to build a fortress because it is not going to do any good,” district spokeswoman Karen Tucker said. “People can find a way to do things. They now make plastic guns” that can get through detectors.

The city of Lynn Haven is the only local municipality that makes people going into commission meetings go through a metal detector. Mayor Margo Anderson said residents don’t seem to mind.

“I don’t think it’s been problematic. I think most residents feel OK about it,” she said.

Lynn Haven City Manager Joel Schubert said the city not only has the metal detector but also an X-ray machine that looks for weapons. The machine was donated to the city as government surplus. Schubert said even though the machines are older models, they could detect a weapon.

He said it doesn’t take an excessive amount of time to get into the meeting going through the machines. “We’ve not have one complaint,” he said.

Parker Mayor Rich Musgrave said the city has an armed officer at its council meetings. He said several years ago someone had donated a metal detector and it was used a few times to screen people going into meetings, “but the council nixed it and took it out,” he said.

Springfield Mayor Ralph Hammond said the police chief sits in at the commission meetings. He said he’ll talk to the chief about whether more security is needed.

“Normally, we also have a roving officer close by, whether in the hallway or a police car,” Hammond said.


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