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This is just unreal.

Wayne County Worker Fired after Finding Gun on the Job

John Chevilott found a gun, secured it, brought it back to the road yard in Westland, which is Wayne County property, before he turned it into police. That seems to be where the problem lies because right now in Wayne County there is not a policy describing what to do if an employee finds a gun on the job.

Hidden in weeds in Detroit's Brightmoor area, Chevilott and his Wayne County crew discovered a loaded, snubnosed revolver as they were mowing the lawn mid-morning on May 3.

I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Guy finds a gun on the grounds of county property he was maintaining. He removes it from the bushes, with the intent of handing it over to the police the first chance he gets. Failing to find a police officer, and still being on the job, he waits until the end of his shift and then turns it in to his local PD. And then he gets fired for having a gun on the job.

A gun he found while working.

I'm trying to picture what the pinheads in charge thought he should have done. Leave the gun there? In the interest of saving his job, should he have just left the gun where he found it, and too bad if some kid stumbles across it? Should he have called the police and waited for them to show up? Under the circumstances, it's hard to imagine what he could have done differently - and given that his supervisor was disciplined, it sounds like he asked what to do and the supervisor told him to take it home.

On its face, the story is absurd. This worker found something potentially dangerous, took steps to secure it and keep folks safe, and is facing punishment for it. Here's a guy who literally took a gun off the street (well, park), and he lost his job just two years shy of retirement for it. He's paying a heavy price for doing the right thing - great precedent you're setting there, Wayne County...

There's just got to be more to the story - stupidity this strong can only come out of Massachusetts...

That is all.

Another dispatch from...

(image courtesy of Robb Allen)