Man Arrested After Allegedly Walking Around Brooklyn With Assault Rifle Sticking Out Of Rolling Suitcase

The AR-15 semi-automatic rifle that police found in Anthony Morgan's suitcase.

A man was arrested in Brooklyn earlier this month for allegedly toting around a loaded semi-automatic AR-15 rifle in a rolling suitcase. When stopped by police, the man threw the suitcase, gun and all, at the cops, according to a March 12th complaint filed with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Police responded to a call around 10:50 p.m. on March 1st that a man was walking down the sidewalk in Bed-Stuy near Marcy Avenue and Halsey Street, with a rifle sticking out of his bag.

After arriving on the scene, an officer spotted "the stock of a firearm clearly protruding from the luggage," prosecutors say. The man, identified as Anthony Morgan, allegedly started to run but stopped and tried to pull the rifle out of the suitcase. The gun wouldn't immediately come out of the bag, though, so Morgan "threw the bag" at one of the police officers and made a run for it, according to the complaint. He was then arrested.

Morgan later stated that he had retrieved the rifle, which was loaded, from a "stash" at a friend's house, following an incident where he'd been "jumped" at a party that same night. He'd planned to return to the same party and use the gun there, the complaint reads.

Officials found several other rounds of ammunition inside the bag. They also unearthed a bump stock, an instrument that people attach to semi-automatic rifles in order to fire multiple rounds after pulling the trigger once—as Patch Brooklyn notes, this attachment is banned as of today, following Stephen Paddock's 2017 Las Vegas shootout that left nearly 60 people dead.

Morgan had previously been convicted for attempted robbery back in 2001.

The Post reports that Morgan was slated to appear for a bail hearing on Monday.