almost arrested for "false documents"

[SilverStone641]

Hey all. I had a bit of a harrowing experience last night. background, i live in texas and took my texas CHL and my Utah CHL, but for financial reasons i only sent in my Utah documentation. anyways, i get pulled over in rockwall for running a stop-sign and failing to signal intent to turn. The office requested my DL and naturally i gave him my CHL as well. he later told me he assumed it was a second drivers license and didn't pay it any attention. he came back to my car nearly 20 minutes later and asked if i had my weapon on me, i said that i did.

by now there were three cars and four officers on scene. thats when things took a turn for the worse. i had some paintball guns lying on the floor of the back seat. the secondary officer noticed the butts sticking out and immediately went into threat mode. they drew weapons and pulled me and my brothers from the car, frisked us all and sat us on the curb. they took my gun and pocket knife away at this time and put it in the squad car.

by now their sergeant had showed up on the scene, now we're looking at four cars total. they talked amongst themselves for a long time and finally an officer came over and said "look, we can't verify that your CHL is valid or even legit. theres no swipe-strip on the back. we called utah and there is no record of you(it's 0130) at this point you're looking at falsifying government documents(my brother told me later that he overheard the officers as each other if they were gonna need the cuffs. they said thats what it looks like.

they asked me exactly how i obtained the CHL and if i had ever lived in utah(they asked this at least 3 times) i told them i had taken the dallas course and that the instructor had offered the Utah class and i thought it was a good idea. he claims that utah is NOT reciprocal with texas and that the CHL isn't even valid without a Utah ID. they then went on to tell me that my utah CHL was most like a fraud and that i was taken. even though i told them that my CHL instructor stamped it with his licensing stamp and that i sent off all application documentation myself and not him. they still said that all this could be faked.

finally they told me i was free to go, but they kept my weapon, two spare mags and the Utah CHL.(which i thought was against the law if i wasn't under arrest, but i wasn't about to argue)

>basically my question is this. is a CHL that i recieved while living in texas(even though i've never held residence in utah) valid for carrying a weapon in texas? was i taken?

any help or advice would be excellent.

[gdcleanfun]

I'm not an LEO, nor an instructor, nor do I live in either Texas or Utah, but it seems to me that they confiscated your personal items unnecessarily! I do wish you luck and a speedy recovery of your property. Might you think about retaining a lawyer?

[SilverStone641]

i thought about going the lawyer route, but i'm not in custody(i'm very happy about this!) and they weren't rude or unprofessional. Basically i just want my Sig Pro back and to get a valid CHL.

one of the officers kept telling me that he had been with the department for ten years and had never heard that a utah CHL is valid in texas. out of all 5 officers that were on scene, none of them had heard of the Utah CHL being valid. I would have thought that at least one would have!

[BamaBoy]

Well, whether Texas recognizes a Utah CCW permit isn't a matter of speculation or opinion. It does, and that's the law.

However, even if Utah or Florida or whatever covers your state, you should still have a CCW permit from your home state.

LEOs are not always up to date on laws that apply to situations they don't deal with every day. If they stop a Texas resident and see a Utah permit but no permit from Texas, they might think you're trying to get away with something.

You may well need a lawyer to get your gun back.

The police told you that everything could have been faked? Right. The Utah Department of Safety is well known for running scams.

[SilverStone641]

they said i'll need to come to the station to retrieve the weapon from the property room. they also said i should bring all documentation about the utah license.

does anyone have official(not wikipedia) documents or websites that i could use as confirmation that it is indeed legal for me to carry under my Utah license?

btw, i am going to get my texas license asap, i was just being negligent about the paperwork

[gdcleanfun]

Originally Posted by SilverStone641

they said i'll need to come to the station to retrieve the weapon from the property room. they also said i should bring all documentation about the utah license.

does anyone have official(not wikipedia) documents or websites that i could use as confirmation that it is indeed legal for me to carry under my Utah license?

btw, i am going to get my texas license asap, i was just being negligent about the paperwork

Your instructor should be able to provide some type of documentation, yes?

[BamaBoy]

Do you have a CCW permit issued from the State of Utah?

If so, it has your picture on it, and number that can be verified with the Utah Department of Public Safety, which issued the permit. They can verify that it is not a fake, hasn't expired, and hasn't been revoked, just as they can with a Utah driver's license.

Texas state law says that such Utah permit is honored in Texas, whether you live in Texas, Utah, or East Overshoe, Maine, or moved to Texas a year ago from Hawaii. Your instructor has nothing to do with this now.

[SilverStone641]

i do have a permit. but again, they claimed they called Utah on the spot and they had no record of me. i put in an email to the Utah Department of Public Safety that originally licensed me to carry in the first place. hopefully they'll be able to provide me with something to help.

they also said that the pictures on my permit and my DL weren't similar(the DL is when i was much younger) And said that seemed suspicious

[Glock Fan]

On the back of the UT CFP there's information to verify the validity of the permit. Call BCI at: 801.965.4446 to verify the permit. The documentation you're looking for can be obtained from BCI by calling: 801.965.4445. You can also check out their website: Utah Department of Public Safety

According to the BCI website, UT has a formal reciprocity agreement with TX.


Good luck!



gf

[SilverStone641]

excellent! this is all very encouraging! thank you all for you help. i'm gonna get the documentation from Utah and get this straightened out. Hopefully i'll be able to educate the officers in the process