Westword.com:

Earlier this week, we shared new reports about the investigation into Noah Harpham, who police say shot and killed three people before dying in a gun battle with officers. A neighbor, Naomi Bettis, said she’d called 911 after seeing Harpham with a gun but was told there was nothing police could do owing to open carry laws; see our previous coverage below.

Now, the Colorado Springs Police Department has responded with a detailed account of what took place during the ten-minute period between the first 911 call and a second, during which Bettis revealed that a man, later ID’d as bicyclist Andrew Myers, was dead, and also released audio of the conversations in question. We’ve shared the links here.

The CSPD insists that the first report wasn’t shrugged off. However, it was initially given a lower priority because lives weren’t thought to be at risk.

Bettis’s first call came in at 8:45:40 a.m., with the department noting that it “reported a suspicious male walking into a building carrying gasoline cans and a rifle” on the 200 block of North Prospect Street in the Springs.

The emergency response technician, or ERT, speaking with Bettis initially classified the report as a “priority 3” — near the middle of its six-point prioritization system. (Priority 6 is the least threatening designation, priority 1 the most serious.) However, about one minute into the two-minute call, the ERT upgraded the circumstance to a priority 2 under the theory that Harpham might be planning to commit a burglary.

Regarding the open-carry mention, here’s the transcription: “Well, it is an open carry state, so he can have a weapon with him or walking around with it. But, of course, having those gas cans does seem pretty suspicious, so we’re going to keep the call going for that.”

To listen to the first 911 call in its entirety, click here.

And commenter John P. Koury blames open carry laws.

Was walking into Walmart on 8th, two guys right ahead of me strapped with handguns. Mentioned it to the clerk, who started quoting open carry laws and said that it was their God given right. I walked out.

How does anybody know if these guys were robbers, thugs, angry punks or just bad-looking so called “good guys”? Open carry is nuts. If you are so paranoid that you think you have to carry a gun wherever you go, you probably are too unstable to have one.

And if open carry had been illegal, the shooter, if he had in fact decided to perpetrate evil, would have used a pistol, or several pistols, or an SBR hidden under a coat.  The caller wouldn’t have called in because there would have been nothing to call about, and hence no one could have blamed open carry.  Said another way, if open carry had been illegal, the shooter wouldn’t have carried openly else he would have been caught before perpetrating his evil action.  Evil men aren’t mentally deficient and unable to reason – they are just evil

Do you see the point?  Let’s use Aristotle’s categories in metaphysics and ontology to help us.  Open carry is an accident of this event, not essential to it.  It was essential to the shooter to be evil and to have shot.  The mode of transportation for himself or his weapon was not essential.  Understand?

As for Johnny boy, he doesn’t get to decide whether my carrying a gun disqualifies me from carrying a gun (Johnny needs to study tautology a little better, no?).  Because … I have guns and can stop Johnny.  Understand?