Yellowstream Journaljism At Its Finest

Stickler judge tosses out ex-con's gun and knife arrest

"An ex-con nabbed for carrying a loaded gun in a Brooklyn subway station has been cut loose by a judge who split hairs over a utility knife.

John Irizarry was arrested last March at the Broadway station in Brownsville after an officer saw what he thought was an illegal gravity knife clipped to Irizarry's pants pocket. While searching the suspect, the cop found a .25-caliber semiautomatic with a defaced serial number in Irizarry's jacket.

That arrest was thrown out yesterday by Federal Judge Jack Weinstein, who ruled that the Husky Sure-Grip folding knife - a top-selling item at Home Depot - was perfectly legal.

It was a tool Irizarry used on construction jobs cutting sheetrock, and the judge noted that the 6-inch blade doesn't flick open like a switchblade or gravity knife, which are illegal weapons.

"The instrument which [Irizarry] had in his possession is a common tool ... the equivalent of a carpenter carrying a hammer," Weinstein said.

The ruling tosses out the knife as evidence and effectively junks the gun charge as well since it was found after an illegal search. Irizarry, 44, who is free on $100,000 bail, was indicted in federal court because he was a convicted felon in possession of a gun.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said the officer had legitimate reason to stop Irizarry because the tool could easily be mistaken for a gravity knife.

"Clearly the cutting device and a defaced gun spelled double trouble," Browne said."

This is so simple as to beggar comprehension. Cop looks at common utility knife, cop lets man go about his business. A police officer who doesn't know the difference between one of those, boo-hiss switchblades, and something to be found at Home Depot, needs some training and needs it pronto. The Husky is a Stanley product that goes for around $9, and by the way certainly doesn't have a 6" blade, as that's the length of the entire knife itself, but you know how difficult it is for journalists to understand anything about, well, much of anything.

Irizarry's a felon who shouldn't have been packing heat let alone a mousegun with no serial number because that isn't legal. Neither was the cop frisking him after finding a sheetrock cutter that wasn't displayed in plain sight. The law protects everyone or it isn't the law anymore. It's NYC, weapons are forbidden, and they've no problem finding men to enforce laws that Joe Stalin would be proud of, so pot calling kettle black doesn't cut it.

Even though spokesweasel Paul Browne thinks that a "cutting device" spells TROUBLE. Couldn't call it a carpenters knife because that would have sounded too stupid.