A local news station in Baltimore broadcast a story about a man in Severn, Maryland protesting recently-enacted gun restrictions in the state by carrying an AR-15 near an elementary school bus stop.
Tolly Taylor, the WBAL-TV reporter who covered the story, teased the segment on Twitter before it aired:
“Tonight on @wbaltv11: A man with an AR-15 has been showing up for weeks to a school bus drop off for local elementary school students. Parents say their kids are afraid, the man says he’s protesting @GovWesMoore’s new gun control law. You’ll hear from both sides at 5+6pm.
Taylor’s framing of the story as one in which “both sides” would be heard from did not sit well with many, but more on than in a moment.
“This is the intersection where parents typically pick up their kids from the bus,” Taylor’s report began. “Because of the man with the AR-15, the elementary school decided to delay dismissal on Monday.”
The report aired cellphone video captured by a parent showing a school bus dropping off children at the stop while a man across the street held a long gun, which is legal to open carry in Maryland.
The parent, Jamie Sparrow, said the man has been there for three weeks.
“I feel like if we don’t do something about it now, then we’ll be talking again,”
He then relayed a recent comment McAdory made to him and his children.
“He said, ‘You guys are looking at me like a bunch of scared bowling pins,'” Sparrow recalled. “Wow. Bowling pins. You know what I mean? I guess you’re the bowling ball if we’re the bowling pins.”
Taylor spoke with the armed man, J’Den McAdory.
“I really wasn’t coming out here for the kids,” McAdory said. “I was coming out here to show people that this is legal.”
“For parents who might ask, ‘Just because you can do this, does that mean that you should do this?'” Taylor asked.
“No, it does not mean that,” he replied. “But I think that if I do this enough, that it will create enough deterrence from crime in the area.”
McAdory told Taylor that on Thursday, he came to an agreement with school district officials and he will no longer protest during school pickup or drop off times.
In recent days, police have upped their presence in the area to “ease growing concerns” among kids and parents, Taylor said.
Taylor’s aforementioned tweet teasing the report did not sit well with some on Twitter, especially in light of the most recent mass shootings in the U.S. – wherever they may
Watch above via WBAL-TV.