Say hello to Dion Jamar Cooper, 33, of Kent, Washington, who recently set a new standard for gun trafficking in Washington State, and who will begin a three-year stretch in the federal pen next month for — are you sitting down? — personally straw-purchasing 133 guns and, according to the U.S. Attorney in Seattle, handing them over to people who shouldn’t have guns.
This guy, according to a statement from Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg, “was the largest known straw purchaser in the history of the western district of Washington.”
Mr. Cooper’s misadventure began back in 2021. His attorney’s explanation for the misbehavior moved the needle toward the surreal. As reported by KOMO News, public defender Sara Brin explained, “Dion’s mindset when he committed these crimes was that everyone had a gun, everyone needed a gun, and he was making sure that people he cared about and the people they cared about weren’t caught out there without one. His mindset now is almost the complete opposite — everyone does not need a gun, and, in fact, the more guns out there, the more dangerous his community is.” Sure, many people have “Come to my senses” moments when they get caught and are sent to the slammer.
Alas, for Cooper, one of his companions was De’Ondre Lamontia Phillips, a convicted felon who drove Cooper around to various gun shops. He’s also now in prison for a seven-year stay on drug charges. Amazing how such folks sort of gravitate toward one another, eh?
The undoing of this little enterprise started with an attempted carjacking two years ago when three thugs tried to take a car from a woman. She was able to flee and call for help, and in the melee, one of the suspects dropped a gun in her car. Oops! When Seattle’s finest checked the gun’s origin, up popped Cooper’s name and when agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives snooped into his activities, they discovered he had purchased 107 guns between June 2021 and that day in early 2023.
So far, 54 of Cooper’s guns have been recovered by police, but more than 70 are still in circulation, and nobody knows who has them.
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