Misdemeanor weapons charges against Seattle police officers dismissed

Criminal charges have been dropped against two Seattle police officers who were each cited with a misdemeanor for carrying firearms into a bar during a motorcycle rally in South Dakota earlier this year.

Seattle police Detective Ron Smith and Sgt. Dennis McCoy have been on administrative leave from the department since Smith shot a member of the Hells Angels during a brawl at the Loud American Roadhouse in Sturgis on Aug. 9. The charges them were dropped on Friday, said their attorney Robert Van Norman.

Joseph McGuire, a Hells Angels from Imperial Beach, Calif., was shot during the bar fight. He was charged with aggravated assault, which can result in a 15-year prison term if he's convicted.

Smith had originally been charged with aggravated assault and perjury, but those charges as well as a misdemeanor count of carrying a concealed weapon without a permit had been previously dismissed, said Van Norman. McCoy was only charged with carrying a concealed weapon without a permit.

Smith told The Seattle Times that he shot McGuire after McGuire and other members of the Hells Angels jumped him inside the Loud American Roadhouse during the annual Sturgis, S.D., Motorcycle Rally. Smith attended the rally as a member of the Iron Pigs, a motorcycle club made up of law-enforcement officers and firefighters.

Smith said that he may have been targeted by the Hells Angels because he testified in a high-profile federal racketeering and murder trial in Seattle last year that sent several former and current members of the gang to prison.

Charges against two other members of the Iron Pigs who were in the bar during the fight also were dropped. U.S. Customs and Border Inspection officers Scott Lazalde, 38, of Bellingham and James Rector, 44, of Ferndale, Whatcom County, had been charged with carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, Van Norman said.

Van Norman said that a judge in Meade County, S.D., agreed with his argument that the four officers are protected under a federal law that allows off-duty law-enforcement officers to carry weapons anywhere they choose, including a bar. The federal law requires that the weapons handler is not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Regardless of the federal law, Meade County State Attorney Jesse Sondreal still pursued charges against the law enforcement officers.

"The Law Enforcement Safety Act of 2004 pre-empted any application of the state law to prohibit these officers from carrying concealed weapons in these circumstances," Van Norman said this morning. "This reinforces what everyone in law enforcement assumed was the law. The charges in this case were really a jolt to a lot of law enforcement officers."

Erik Pingel, 35, a firefighter from Aurora, Colo., a fellow Iron Pig who was carrying a gun that night, still faces the misdemeanor weapons charge because federal statute does not allow firefighters to carry a weapon inside a bar. Van Norman said Pingel's case is pending.

Smith and McCoy had been placed on administrative leave following the incident. Seattle police said this morning they were unsure when they would return to work.

Smith couldn't be reached for comment this morning, but Rich O'Neill, president of the Seattle Police Officer's Guild (SPOG), said "this is a day of vindication for Detective Smith and Sergeant McCoy."

"As SPOG stated when this incident first happened, we knew that once all the facts were known, the officers involved would be vindicated and absolved of any wrongdoing," O'Neill said in a news release.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com