lil_freak and I agreed during the day to get together downtown about 5:30, after I got off work. We planned to meet at the Capitol, since it's right across the street from where he was meeting with the LPD Chief.
Unknown to us, there was a seemingly liberal pro-immigration group rallying there also. Not that it's horribly relevant, but most of the participants seemed of Latino or middle eastern decent. The shortest way by far to get to lil_freak, once I spotted him, was past the crowd. We met each other and walked about the Capitol building once or twice. We were standing by his car, about 30' from the crowd talking when one of them (who had a loud speaker) played a Police Siren noise. I looked over and it became evident to me at this point that one of them was taping us. I waved and smiled.
We walked on, from the East Side of the Capitol building where lil_freak was parked, around to the South side to make another lap. As we were walking down the southern sidewalk, lil_freak noticed a uniformed MSP on his way across the Capitol lawn, on an intercept course with us. I reached for my iPhone and pushed record.
As he neared us, I held up my iPhone. He said he didn't have a problem with what we were doing and let us know that some of the pro-immigration people felt threatened by our firearms. He let them know we weren't doing anything illegal. I shook his hand as he walked away. The LEO encounter lasted not more than 30 seconds.
On our next lap back (it was time for freak to go) we handed out a few MOC pamphlets to the immigration people and told them a little bit about the right to open carry in Michigan.
I'm sure in their (pro-immigration folks) version of the history book, we were Neo-Nazis there to intimidate them. Which clearly, we were not. If anything, they tried to intimidate us with their siren tactics. Neither freak nor I had any knowledge of their rally when we planned our meeting around 2:00-300. Indeed, we weren't even downtown at the time.
