Orlando FL June 17 2021

Disney World has seen a spike of people arrested and charged with carrying concealed firearms guns during the pandemic.

Planning to go to a firing range later, Mustafa Alameen, an Iraqi immigrant, said he forgot he had 100 rounds of ammunition and a handgun in an otherwise empty stroller when he arrived at Disney Springs this year.

The 21-year-old stepped through the security detector and when an alarm went off, he realized his mistake. But it was too late, and he was arrested.

Disney World, the biggest theme park resort on the planet, has seen a spike of people arrested and charged with carrying concealed firearms over the past year, despite being closed for months and operating at reduced capacity because of the COVID-19 epidemic.

Some guests are forgetting about their handguns in purses, backpacks, fanny packs, or in one case, a diaper bag, where Orange County deputies found two guns at Epcot last summer. A handful of times, visitors left their weapons in their pockets or strapped to their waist, unaware that Disney bans guns, as they strode up to security.

“Is there a problem?” asked Luis Piloto Serrano, 31, of Hillsborough County, when he was stopped and arrested for wearing a loaded 9mm pistol on his right hip at Magic Kingdom security just before Christmas, according to a sheriff’s report. He didn’t have a concealed permit.

While gun charges remain extremely rare, at least 20 people were arrested on them at Disney in 2020, compared with four arrests in 2016, according to sheriff’s reports over the past five years obtained through an Orlando Sentinel public records request.

The arrests are on pace to keep rising. This year, deputies have already arrested at least 14 people at Disney for carrying concealed firearms through mid-April, the records show.

Experts point to several reasons why gun arrests are on the rise. For one, there has been a flood of new gun owners across the country in 2020, a trend spawned by the pandemic and political unrest. Disney also is screening more people than it did five years earlier and upgraded its security checkpoint technology in 2020.

“We clearly communicate that guns are not allowed anywhere on our property,” spokesman Avery Maehrer wrote in an email. “We appreciate the commitment of law enforcement and our security teams and the measures they take in helping protect our guests and cast members.”

In all, nearly 75% percent of the arrests during the pandemic happened at Disney Springs, the resort’s free-to-enter entertainment and restaurant complex, sheriff’s records show.

Until last year, Disney Springs didn’t have bag checks because of its multiple entrances, said theme park analyst Bill Zanetti, who teaches theme park design and management courses.

The Sentinel found past cases where people were caught with guns inside Disney Springs in a retail dressing room, outside bars or by a food truck, according to arrest reports from 2018 and 2019. But during the pandemic, people were almost always caught with their guns at the security checkpoints before they could enter the complex.

Alameen’s attorney, Brian Byrd, said many people arrested are just like his client: They purchased their guns legally and have no felony records. They walked through the security detector with a gun, which Byrd called an honest mistake. He argues his client shouldn’t be charged with a crime in the first place.

“These are people who don’t have any ill intent . Most of these people are not bad people,” Byrd said. “It’s not just Disney. People get caught with guns accidentally at the courthouse, at the airport. It happens all the time.”

Others say the arrest reports raise concerns.

“If you don’t know where it is all the time, should you really even have a gun?” said Len Testa, co-author of “The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World.” “That just seems like one of the responsible things to gun ownership: To know where it is all the time.”

These arrests, though, don’t tell the whole story of how many guns are actually brought to Disney World.

Visitors with concealed carry permits aren’t typically arrested if they bring guns to Disney, such as the case of a South Florida man who packed his AR-15 rifle and a 9mm handgun in his luggage when he checked into the Polynesian Village Resort during Labor Day Weekend with his wife and their 3- and 5-year-old children.

The 43-year-old man, who was white, told authorities he brought the guns to protect his family because he was concerned about Black Lives Matter protests, according to the sheriff’s incident report. Disney stored the man’s guns in safes and allowed him to stay. The Sentinel isn’t naming him because he wasn’t arrested or charged with a crime.

Law enforcement also has discretion whether to make an arrest if someone is caught with a concealed gun and no permit.

For instance, a 52-year-old Georgia man wasn’t arrested in February after he was caught trying to enter Hollywood Studios without a valid permit with the gun his brother, a police officer, had given him as a gift, according to a partially redacted report. The sheriff’s office took possession of the gun for evidence, and the man went into the park with his family.

A month later, a 36-year-old Georgia woman, the only adult watching a 1-year-old, 2-year-old and three other children wasn’t arrested either when she was stopped with a gun in her bag at Disney Springs, a partially redacted incident report said. She was banned from Disney property, however.

Sheriff’s spokeswoman Michelle Guido said the department forwarded both cases to the state attorney’s office. The Sentinel isn’t naming them since no charges appeared to have been filed, according to online court records.

Disney World has built up a sturdy reputation as a safe place, Testa said, adding the most dangerous part of going to the resort is probably driving on Interstate 4 to get there.

And certainly, the gun arrests make up only a minuscule fraction of the millions of people visiting Disney World every year.

Yet, having weapons at the world’s biggest tourist attraction can still pose issues for Disney and law enforcement, public records reveal. A Lake Mary couple accused a North Carolina tourist of pointing a gun at them in a fight over a parking space at Animal Kingdom in 2019. The state attorney’s office decided not to press charges last year.

Central Floridians accounted for about one out of every three arrests at Disney while the rest were tourists who were in-state travelers or came from primarily Southern states such as Georgia, Texas and Alabama, according to the arrest reports.

The Sentinel found only one arrest involving a worker on Disney property. A chef at the Walt Disney World Dolphin Hotel was caught with a stolen gun in his pocket in September, according to the arrest report.

Eric Collazo, 35, of Kissimmee, who worked for the non-Disney-run hotel, was arrested on multiple charges and in April was sentenced to two years probation and a $618 fine after pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, court records showed.

The issue extends beyond Disney World.

Regional amusement parks across the country are reporting people bringing concealed weapons and have responded by strengthening security at their gates, said Dennis Speigel, a theme parks consultant and CEO of International Theme Park Services.

“I’m hearing it from everybody,” Speigel said. “It’s the world we live in.”

Even so, at Universal Orlando theme parks, the Orlando Police Department didn’t make any arrests for concealed carry in 2020, according to the department’s response to a Sentinel records request.

Gun issues still arise from time to time at Universal, such as an employee who worked for a third-party contractor and left his loaded gun in his duffel bag after going to the shooting range. When he got caught at Universal security in October, the 30-year-old Orlando man was banned from Universal for a year but not arrested, according to Orlando Police records.

Universal spokesman Tom Schroder said park entrances have secure weapons lockers for guests with concealed carry permits to use for safe storage. If someone doesn’t have a permit and is caught with a gun at the security detectors, Universal contacts the Orlando Police Department.

Gun sales have soared in 2020 during a time of uncertainty and stress across the country. The FBI conducted 40 million background checks for gun sales that year, an all-time high.

“Certainly one reason that people are carrying weapons is because they’re afraid. Another reason is that they’re angry,” said Joel Dvoskin, a clinical psychologist who served on the American Psychological Association’s task force for reducing gun violence.

There was much to be fearful and angry about in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic spread and shut down the economy, George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer sparked Black Lives Matter protests and America held a tense presidential election.

Then in January, rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Gun dealers ended up selling more than 2 million firearms that month, the biggest-selling January on record, the Associated Press reported.

First-time gun owners made up for about 20% of all gun sales in 2019-2021, according to preliminary data from researchers at Northeastern University and the Harvard Injury Control Research Center.

Some new gun owners don’t fully understand the legal ramifications of owning their weapons in a country where the gun laws can also be confusing, said Warren Eller, an associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“Disney gets people from all over the country,” Eller said. “And the problem is every state has a different set of gun laws, and sometimes those vary by local region. … so the huge, huge variance of rules across the country creates all kinds of problems.”

At the same time, Disney added cutting-edge technology at security checkpoints at the theme parks and Disney Springs last summer

Known as the Evolv System, the walk-through weapon detectors use artificial intelligence to determine what a person is likely carrying whether it’s a cell phone, a gun, or something else — and where the item is located on that person.

“That’s one of the beauties of the Evolv company philosophy and the latest iterations of detection equipment is that it can be more precise,” said John Pistole, a former FBI deputy director who sits on Evolv’s advisory board and is president of Indiana’s Anderson University.

Many visitors immediately noticed Disney’s security upgrades since they no longer had to take off their backpacks to go through the security detectors.

Disney security has always been good, said union leader David Hickey.

Now, his security officers are getting even better tools to do their jobs, said Hickey, who runs the Michigan-based union that represents Disney World security guards locally.

He called the rise in arrests good news since that means weapons aren’t getting past the gates.

Alameen grew up in Baghdad, Iraq, in a city under siege As a boy, he immigrated to America and became a naturalized citizen in 2018. Alameen, 21, of Kissimmee, started a family and worked his way up to become a restaurant general manager, Byrd said.

Just before Valentine’s Day, Alameen went to International Drive and then headed to Disney Springs, according to the arrest report. His next planned stop was the firing range, his attorney said.

By the time he arrived at Disney, he forgot about the 9mm handgun, loaded but with no round in the chamber, that he had stored in a bag in the bottom of a stroller, the arrest report said. His attorney said no child was in the stroller at the time. The bag also held five magazines, which included two fully loaded 31 round magazines.

Sometimes Alameen put the gun in a bag in the stroller to ferry his weapon from his home to his car so he wouldn’t alarm his neighbors, according to the arrest report. Alameen also had brought the gun in the stroller for protection out in public, his significant other said in the arrest report.

Alameen went through the Evolv security detector and then had what Byrd refers to as an “‘Oh my God!’ reaction” when he realized his gun was on him.

“My client was very, very shocked and immediately wanted to return it (to his car),” Byrd said.

A deputy stopped him as Alameen headed back to the parking lot.

Alameen told authorities he had applied for a concealed carry permit a month earlier and was waiting to receive it, the sheriff’s report said.

Alameen was initially charged with a third-degree felony that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Yet, rarely, if ever, do the people arrested at Disney face serious time behind bars, according to a Sentinel review of the closed cases since 2016. People are usually fined a few hundred dollars, although some still end up with a felony record.

Serrano, the man arrested before Christmas at the Magic Kingdom, was accepted into a pretrial diversion program last month, so his charge could be dropped if he successfully completes it.

Alameen’s case is still pending.

“He certainly will never make that mistake again,” Byrd said of Alameen.

orlandosentinel.com

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