Police Find Arms, Alleged Threat to Clinton

The bizarre discovery of three ducks shot with a crossbow led police Thursday to a cache of high-powered weapons in Camarillo and a handwritten threat against President Clinton, authorities said.

Police arrested James Carl Brown, a 21-year-old phone company technician, on suspicion of cruelty to farm animals after finding duck feathers and crossbows at the Camarillo apartment he shares with his wife and infant daughter.

The search also turned up about 20 semiautomatic rifles, handguns “and ammunition for every one of those weapons,” Port Hueneme Police Sgt. Jerry Beck said. Also seized were pieces of “militia-type paraphernalia and propaganda,” he said.

Of particular significance was a newspaper clipping of President Clinton with a handwritten threat toward the president, Beck said. Brown’s father-in-law, Greg Brown, said the threat consisted of a target scrawled on a newspaper photograph of Clinton.

That brought the U.S. Secret Service into the investigation. Brown was questioned Thursday afternoon by Port Hueneme police and Secret Service agents, then booked into Ventura County Jail.

Family members described Brown as a former Marine who turned to the militia movement when his tour of military duty ended.

However, once he discovered the political overtones of certain militia groups, he avoided them, Greg Brown said.

“He loved the esprit de corps of the Marines, the disciplined lifestyle a Marine lived,” Brown said.

Among the “militia-style” propaganda authorities found at the home was a small poster showing an agent, presumably from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, dressed in protective gear and holding a firearm. The headline reads “Coming to a Home Near You.”

Greg Brown said the threatening photo of President Clinton was an innocent joke made by someone who loves target practice.

Brown defended his son-in-law’s sketch, saying it varied little from what some people did in the ‘60s.

“Unfortunately, the events taken together have spiraled out of control,” Brown said. “But nothing has been done wrong.”

As for the alleged shooting of the ducks, Greg Brown said, “If he did shoot any ducks, he wasn’t thinking.”

James Brown’s wife, Danielle, said her husband likes guns and uses the ones he keeps at home primarily for target practice.

On the day the ducks were injured, she said, James went off with a friend and did not say where he was going.

“My husband is not some psycho weirdo,” she said. “He does not plan on hurting anyone.”

As the day came to an end, a visibly distraught Danielle Brown, holding her infant daughter, Christine, said, “All I want to do is put my baby in between Jim and I and go back to sleep.”

The ducks, popular with schoolchildren and residents of nearby condominiums alike, inhabit the Bubbling Springs Corridor creek near the Dorill B. Wright Cultural Center on Surfside Drive.

On Saturday, Port Hueneme police received several calls from residents about ducks being wounded with arrows, Beck said. The shootings occurred about 6 a.m.

Residents said four ducks had been injured; animal regulation officers found three, which suffered injuries so grave they had to be killed. The fourth has not been found, Beck said.

After investigating the call, Port Hueneme Police Officer David Dickey remembered stopping a car for an inoperable taillight earlier that morning. Inside the vehicle he saw arrows and crossbows, Beck said.

“The guy gave a valid reason for having them,” Beck said, adding that the weapons are not illegal.

Police then used the information to obtain a search warrant of Brown’s apartment Thursday, Beck said. What they found were duck feathers nailed to a piece of plywood, and other evidence linking him to the crime, Beck said.

The weapons discovered in his home were not, in themselves, illegal and none had been altered in any way, Beck said. “But they’re a lot more weapons than one person needs,” he added.

The threat against the president drew the attention of the Secret Service agents, but Brown had not been charged with any federal offense as of late Thursday. He was booked into Ventura County Jail on suspicion of felony animal cruelty. Bail was set at $5,000.

Port Hueneme Mayor Pro Tem Anthony Volante said he was outraged at the assault on the ducks, which have long been an attraction for the city.

“As long as the Bubbling Springs Corridor has been open we’ve been getting ducks,” he said. He estimates the creek, which runs from Bard Road to the beach, attracts hundreds of ducks.

“I know the incident was a very sensitive item to all the residents in that area,” Volante said. “I’m just pleased the Port Hueneme police acted so swiftly to apprehend the suspect.”

Beck said it was an unusual case. “We get calls quite often about people who chase them, or kids who shoot at them with BB guns, but nothing like this has ever happened,” he said.