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SLO police want charges against man who found chief’s gun

August 13, 2019

Skeeter Mangan

The San Luis Obispo Police Department referred its investigation into the man who found the chief’s gun in a bathroom to the District Attorney’s Office for consideration of charges on Monday. [Cal Coast Times]

Police are asking prosecutors to consider charging Skeeter Mangan of Los Osos with grand theft of a firearm, possession of stolen property and carrying a loaded firearm in public.  Prosecutors have not yet taken a position on the request, according to District Attorney Dan Dow.

“The District Attorney’s Office is obligated under law to review this investigation, and all of the evidence contained in the investigation, in order to make a determination of whether a crime was committed and whether there is sufficient evidence to prove the crime, and if so, whether it would be in the interest of justice to pursue charges,” Dow said in an email.

At about noon on July 10, Chief Deanna Cantrell left her pistol in the bathroom of an El Pollo Loco restaurant. A short time later, Mangan walked into the bathroom and discovered the loaded and unattended firearm on top of a toilet paper dispenser.

Mangan put the gun in his pocket, left the restaurant, rode his moped scooter home, and put the firearm in a dresser drawer.

After spotting Mangan on the news on July 11, as the person suspected of having the chief’s gun, Mangan’s brother-in-law, Sean Greenwood, drove to Los Osos to ask Mangan about the firearm.

“My dear brother-in-law not only found a loaded and chambered Glock (a pistol with only one safety, on the trigger) in a public restroom, he removed it moments before a 10-year-old boy entered the room,” Greenwood said. “I asked my brother-in-law about what had happened, he explained to me he didn’t know what to do with the gun so he placed it in a drawer and contemplated how to find the owner.”

Greenwood then called the SLO Police Department and spoke with a dispatcher who sent officers to Los Osos to collect the firearm. The officers thanked Greenwood and Mangan, and said they did not plan to charge Mangan based on Penal Code 485, Greenwood said.

According to Penal Code 485, a person is guilty of theft if they find property, and appropriate the property for their own use, “without first making reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to the owner.”

It was only after reading a Tribune article that claimed Greenwood turned his brother-in-law in, that Mangan’s family discovered the police department had asked the SLO County District Attorney’s Office to consider charging Mangan with possession of a stolen firearm.

“Little did Skeeter know, he would be ridiculed and labeled by media and some, to me, quite broken souls commenting about his appearance. When really, if you stop and think about it, he quite possibly saved a child’s life by removing the firearm,” Greenwood said.


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The Tribune’s Wednesday story made it sound like Skeeter’s autistic. If that’s true I find it hard to believe that the DA could ever convict him of three felonies.

Sounds like a sure loser of a case to me.

The charges should be dropped in both of these cases before any more havoc is done.


14

Never underestimate the cruelty of police. Nowadays, most sign up so they can boss people around, go on power trips, feel important, and LEAVE THEIR MARK ON PEOPLE’S LIVES. Ditto DA’s.


8

If we’re charging Mangan according to the strictest interpretation of the law Cantrell needs to be charged too. She is clearly more guilty of a firearms offense. Maybe Mangan should have reported finding the weapon immediately. Maybe Cantrell should have reported it lost immediately, which she did not. Mangan is apparently developmentally disabled. What’s Cantrell’s excuse? So he takes the rap and the SLOPD gets a pass for all their blatant, panicked, illegal coverup activity? Mangan did the responsible thing and kept the weapon safe, and the loaded gun with no safety was not there when the ten year-old boy went into the restroom.


21

1. Strict interpretations of the law are only adopted if they help prosecution.

2. Laws do not apply to police. They all enjoy general immunity to all crimes committed in the line of duty. Cantrell may very well have been “on duty” when she left her gun on the toilet paper dispenser gun safe at the police station….er….El Pollo Loco.

3. Cantrell cannot be ‘guilty’ of anything. She is a costumed government employee who enjoys general immunity from crimes committed in the line of duty.

4. Mangan and everyone in the restaurant would have been in grave danger for his lives if he put the gun on the counter top and told a worker, “I found this gun in the restroom.” A SWAT team would have been deployed, steroid-taking goons would have shown up itching to shoot someone…..

5. Mangan’s mental status makes him EASIER to prosecute because it is much easier for him to be led into self-incrimination, etc.


It is specious reasoning based on whimsical, reality-detached idealism that concludes that Nobles and serfs are both equal under the law.


Cantrell is above the law. Mangan is not. It is only the mercy of Dan Dow that can keep Skeeter out of jail.


5

To the chief,

It was you, it will always be you and you can’t change that. How many lives have to be ruined to make you feel better about what you did?

I have a prediction, you will cost the city money that could be better spent than in lawsuits against you for bogus arrests, bogus family separation, and now bogus theft of your gun.

You left your gun unattended, you would possibly be up on charges of manslaughter, at minimum, had the ten year old boy picked up the gun, or a real criminal, and the gun had killed one or more people, you seem to fail to see the gift you have received in skeeter picking it up and taking it out of harms way.

What is wrong with you people?

Do you really think that you and yours are above the law?

I’m awed and your lack of decency,

You know what, go home every night, cuddle up with your honey, and find a topic to talk about that will distract both of you from the real you. Eventually, you will not be able to,

You can still change that, by doing the right thing. innocent lives are being affected by your actions, directly.

I’m praying for you


36

This poor guy, Skeeter, just can’t win. If he had left the gun in the bathroom, and the 10 year old child had walked in and shot himself, I feel certain they would have prosecuted him for that, too.


Leave it in the bathroom – get prosecuted.

Remove it from the bathroom – get prosecuted.


In the meantime, the person who created this extremely dangerous and irresponsible situation – the SLO Chief of Police – completely escapes prosecution. How the hell does that work?????


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