New Jersey prosecutors have dropped a felony gun charge brought against a security officer who was pulled over while transporting his firearm home from work.
The Union County prosecutor’s office dropped the last of two charges leveled against Roosevelt Twyne on Friday, according to Newsweek. County prosecutors had accused Twyne of illegally transporting a firearm and possessing illegal ammunition.
The charges stemmed from a traffic stop in early February in which officers pulled Twyne over on his way home from work for driving a vehicle with allegedly tinted windows. Officers found Twyne, who works as a security guard for the armored transport company Brinks, with his gun not stowed in a lockbox and carrying hollow-point ammunition.
“I was simply a block away from getting home after work,” Twyne said. “I never thought I would be arrested, charged, and have my life turned upside-down over New Jersey’s convoluted gun laws, especially when I was a fully licensed, trained security officer.”
Prosecutors dropped the ammunition charge after finding that Twyne did not violate the law. The county prosecutor’s office declined to pursue the second charge on Friday after finding “it is not in the interests of justice to continue his prosecution,” according to a statement from the office.
“This Office has elected to exercise its prosecutorial discretion and has administratively dismissed all charges pending against Mr. Twyne,” the statement said.
Twyne’s attorney, Evan Nappen, argued that Twyne’s case is an example of an otherwise law-abiding citizen getting caught up in the labyrinth of New Jersey state gun laws.
“What’s happening here is the befuddlement of New Jersey gun laws,” Nappen said in an interview on Tuesday. “The problem is, you hear a lot about victims of gun violence. We don’t hear about … victims of gun laws — the laws being so convoluted and so messed up in terms of trying to do the right thing.”
Attorney Dan Schmutter, who regularly argues cases over the state’s gun laws, backed up Nappen’s argument.
“New Jersey gun law is drafted terribly and contains many seemingly inconsistent and contradictory provisions,” Schmutter said. “The state’s gun laws are a mess. And it has many traps for the unwary.”
