William Hugh BarbeeA Ringgold police officer said he found 14 long guns and four handguns in the trunk of a Ford Taurus last week, even though the driver legally cannot have any firearms.
Officer Anthony Martin wrote in a police report that he pulled up to William Hugh Barbee's car around 2 a.m. on Wednesday because he saw it stopped behind the Price Ringgold Drug Company on Nashville Street. He thought it odd that the car and driver were sitting there so late at night. As soon as he approached the car, Martin said he smelled marijuana.
The officer asked Barbee why he was there so late.
"He advised, very frantically, that some people had been following him earlier," Martin wrote. "He then advised that he had been to see a female on Graysville Road in Catoosa County earlier and when he left seeing her his GPS had gotten him turned around. He also spoke of someone prowling around his residence earlier in another county, how he felt some guys were after him in order to kill him."
Catoosa County Deputy Carmi Smith arrived for backup, and Martin asked Barbee to get out of the car. Martin said Barbee then seemed "very frantic and fidgety." After he asked Barbee to calm down several times, he put him in handcuffs. He wasn't under arrest at the time, but Martin wrote that Barbee's wild motions were a threat.
Martin popped the trunk, and he said Barbee immediately told him, "Those guns ain't mine." He supposedly told the officer that the guns belonged to his father, J.B. Barbee. He didn't know how the guns got into the trunk.
Martin said he called J.B. Barbee, who told him he didn't put the guns in the car. According to the incident report, William Barbee cannot have firearms because of a previous felony conviction.
The report does not say what crime William Barbee, of Trion, Georgia, has been convicted of. But a search of the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit website shows that he was due in Chattooga County Superior Court in February 2016, facing charges of aggravated assault, simple battery and obstruction of officers.
The Ringgold Police Department charged William Barbee with 18 counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, as well as charges of loitering and possession of marijuana.
According to the Catoosa County Sheriff's Office website, he is still at the jail this evening, held on a bond of $48,500.