Deputies called over museum donation

PALM BEACH, Fla., June 17 (UPI) -- A retired police chief said sheriff's deputies were called to the Palm Beach County, Fla., courthouse when he took a rifle to give to the building's museum.

William Barnes, 87, who served as police chief in West Palm Beach, Fla., for two decades until his retirement in 1980, said he made arrangements with a curator at the Historical Society of Palm Beach County to donate a rifle once owned by notorious gangster John Ashley to the Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum, The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post reported Tuesday.

"I didn't want anything to happen to it," Barnes said of the rifle, which was given to him by a nephew of Ashley's nemesis, Palm Beach County Sheriff Bob Baker, in the 1940s or 1950s. "I didn't want anybody selling it on eBay."

However, he said the receptionist at the courthouse called for sheriff's deputies when he showed up with the gun, which wasn't loaded.

The deputies "just kept coming," Barnes said. "They were polite and everything but they wouldn't listen to me. I understood they were just doing their job."

Barnes said none of the deputies drew their weapons and a museum curator was eventually able to back up his story.

The Historical Society said the rifle will be displayed with another gun once owned by Ashley.