A familiar face just came on the channel 11 news tonight. Traffic chopper regular, Bob Pettee was arrested today by the ATF for illegal possession of two HK MP-5 sub-machine guns. There was something mentioned about a friend trying to sell them to an undercover cop. I hope it's all BS. It rare enough to see a pro-gun guy in the media, now he may go to the big house. I have a feeling that it's another stupid case of semi-autos mistaken for a Class 3.

Holy shit, I remember him...

Hey, didnt he used to be a LA County Sheriffs Reserve Deputy?

Bob Pette used to be the heliocopter pilot for Los Angeles base KNBC Channel 4 news [url]http://www.nbc4.tv/[/url]. His lawyer has denied all allegations and that his client is innocent.
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http://www.kfwb.com/news/local/l110614.html

Former Helicopter News Reporter Arrested on Federal Firearms Charges  
(KFWB) 11.06.01, 6:25p -- Former KNBC helicopter news reporter Bob Pettee was arrested and charged with conspiring to sell two fully automatic weapons for $5,000, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. He was arrested on the federal charges Monday morning and is out of jail on $25,000 bail. Pettee, 51, allegedly supplied the machine guns to another man who was arrested after making the sale to an undercover Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent, said Thom Mrozek of the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Pettee is due back in federal court to face arraignment Dec. 3. He faces 10 years in prison if convicted. Pettee's lawyer, Charles Mathews, says his client has no criminal culpability in this case.

Channel 4 says Pettee has not been affiliated with the station since late September and has no knowledge of the circumstances surrounding his arrest. Mrozek says the AFT investigation began in early August.

Sounds like another victimless crime arrest to make the streets of California safer...

[b]November 7, 2001 L.A. Times
LOS ANGELES
Ex-News Helicopter Pilot Held on Weapons Charges
 
By ERIC MALNIC, TIMES STAFF WRITER

Former news helicopter pilot Robert Pettee has been arrested on suspicion of illegally providing two machine guns to a friend who later sold them to undercover federal agents, the U.S. attorney's office said Tuesday.

Officials said Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents and Los Angeles police officers took Pettee, 51, into custody near his Mount Washington home at 8:15 a.m. Monday.

Pettee, perhaps best known to television viewers for his flamboyant handlebar mustache and his exuberant KNBC accounts of breaking news, was booked on federal charges of unlawful possession and/or transfer of a machine gun. He was released on $25,000 bail. The onetime Vietnam War pilot is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles for arraignment Dec. 3, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office.

Pettee's lawyer, Charles T. Mathews, said his client was innocent and called the whole affair "a colossal misunderstanding."

He said Pettee's friend, Jeff Miller of Van Nuys, was contacted last summer by undercover ATF agents posing as would-be purchasers. Miller told the agents he had a friend who was interested in selling a couple of machine guns, according to a federal affidavit filed in connection with the case.

On Aug. 20, Mrozek said, Miller sold the agents a Heckler & Koch SP-89 and an MFR .223--fully automatic weapons classified as machine guns.

After two more months of investigation, the agents arrested Miller. "They asked him where he got the guns," Mrozek said. "He said, 'I got them from Bob Pettee.' "

Miller, indicted on the same counts as Pettee, is scheduled for arraignment next week.

Pettee started working as a freelance news helicopter pilot in 1978. Covering everything from the destructive Baldwin Hills fire in 1985 to the Northridge earthquake in 1994, he became well known to Southern California television audiences. For more than a decade, he worked for KNBC, but the television station said he "has not been associated" with it since Sept. 28.[/b]

So can anyone tell me what an MFR is, and does anyone have an image of one they can post? [?]

(Edited to fix spelling mistake in my question.)

I thought the SP-89 was a SEMIAUTOMATIC version of the MP-5.

It's certainly a CALIFORNIA "Assault Weapon", but not a machinegun either state or federal.

Unless the press got it wrong.  Gee, wouldn't THAT be unusual?

[50]

Now I KNOW the feds are full of s#$*  The SP89 was only made in semi-automatic.  The only way it could have been full auto is if it was converted.  I doubt it.  Probably another trumped up charge for brownie points.

BTW, if the ATF approached the individual to make the purchase, isn't that entrapment.

yes a sp89 is a semi mp5k without a foward grip

the media probly fubared as usual or it had a auto sear or something in it

It is a Pre-ban Olympic Arms CAR-15 clone.

Sounds like the government may have a hell of a time proving this one.  Two ordinarily non-automatic weapons in the possesion of a third party...hmmm.  Even if Pettee aknowleges ownership of the weapons he can claim that the guy who posessed them converted them to get extra cash from the sale to keep for himself(assuming they even are converted).  The poseesor sounds like a terrible witness.

Imagine what will happen if it turn out they are not automatic.  That will be very interesting.

Maybe I'm just too cynical right now, but if they aren't full-auto, I doubt the agencies involved would admit they're wrong. Then there'd be the matter of getting the guns back, assuming they were properly registered semi-auto AWs. Can you say, "Fat chance!"? At least not without extensive outlays of cash and time to spend wallowing in the legal system. [:(!]
(Edited to add icon.)

So this ponkass 'friend' drops a dime on your boy Pettee? He'll probably try to swim to Catalina with his lucky concrete block tied to his feet.

Don't know why he was released by KNBC, but news copters, have been banned in the LA area since 9-11