Protest statement: Farr seeks to come armed to Palouse City Council session

Palouse citizen Jim Farr wants to bring a gun to Palouse city council meetings as a visual protest against what he views as incompetent government.

He has yet to apply for a gun permit from the county sheriff’s office, saying there are several issues on his record he must have expunged first.

Farr said several times in an interview with the Gazette Oct. 1 he had no intention of discharging the gun at a meeting but simply wanted to make an overt visual protest against the workings of the city by wearing it.

“I told him [city police chief Jerry Neumann] I intend to make a visual protest by wearing an open-face fire arm to a council meeting,” Farr said. He explained the expression “open-face” refers to wearing a gun out in the open.

Farr pointed out he has a life-long history of being a responsible gun owner.

“The whole thing with firearms is you can’t brandish them or point them at people. But you can carry them in a responsible and safe manner,” he said.

Neumann said Farr contacted him Sept. 15 about obtaining a concealed pistol permit because he wanted to come to a city council meeting armed.

Neumann said he directed Farr to the county sheriff’s office for a permit because Farr lives outside the city limits. He told the Gazette he took Farr’s comments about the gun as a threat and ran a background check, which turned up a felony on Farr’s record.

Neumann later called Farr back to say he had run a background check on him and he didn’t think Farr could get a permit because he had a felony.

“Because of what is contained in his history, he would be felon in possession of a firearm,” Neumann said.

During that second phone call, Farr alleged Neumann threatened to arrest him if he saw him with a gun at a meeting. Neumann confirmed to the Gazette he has told Farr he will be arrested if seen with a gun, because he has a felony conviction.

Farr sent a letter of complaint about the background check and the alleged arrest threat to the city’s Police, Fire, and Safety Committee and to Palouse Mayor Michael Echanove Sept. 16.

“It’s just a pure act of intimidation on his part,” Farr said of Neumann. Both the committee and Echanove wrote back to Farr saying his complaint was unfounded.

Farr has sent several letters to the city warning them of an impending visual protest that “will be loud and visibly public.”

One letter read, “onlookers will come from miles around to see what a lowly citizen can do when government steps on the little guy.”

Sheriff Brett Myers said Neumann contacted him in mid-September asking Myers to perform a background check on Farr. Myers told the Gazette he has no grounds for a background check on Farr until he applies to the county for a gun permit.

“I don’t think there’s been any direct or specific threat our office can act on,” Myers said.

The state laws surrounding a concealed weapon’s permit require a background check to determine if an applicant has a felony record.

Neither Farr nor Neumann would specify Farr’s criminal history. Neumann did confirm he has a felony.

Farr has been in a two-year struggle with the city over running water and sewer service to some property owned by his friend Nicole Wood near Breedings Addition in Palouse. He has made extensive public records requests to the city, which he believes is a corrupt agency.

Palouse councilman Randy Zehm said in an e-mail to the Gazette that if Farr is not a convicted felon, which has not yet been made clear, he has the right to have a concealed weapon permit. If he is a convicted felon and he is found with a fire arm, Zehm wrote, “then he should be arrested and that should be the end of it.”

“I know Jim Farr has been vocal in how he does not like government in the city of Palouse. I know that he had made complaints about the city, the mayor, councilmen and the planning commission. But that does not translate into a threat toward any one person. In America he has the right to complain about government regardless if the things he says or complains about are right or wrong,” Zehm wrote in an e-mail to the Gazette.

Zehm served with Palouse Police Department in the late 1990s and is currently a deputy sheriff with the county.