By Dave Workman
A member of Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey’s administration has been arrested and charged with drug and gun law violations, and a leading grassroots gun rights organization has taken the Democrat governor to task for eroding citizens’ gun rights while criminal activity was apparently happening right under her nose.
Facing charges is LaMar Cook, until recently deputy director of Healey’s Western Massachusetts office. In court, he pleaded not guilty to the charges, according to The Hill. He was immediately fired after he was arrested. Cook was scheduled to be back in court Friday for a hearing.
While it may have satisfied Bay State media, it didn’t pass muster with the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb made that clear in a statement to the media.
“That may have gotten Healey some good headlines and sound bites,” Gottlieb observed, “but law-abiding citizens shouldn’t be suffering from the anti-gun whims of the state’s top politician while she obviously wasn’t keeping her own house in order.”
He said the firing “doesn’t really square accounts with Massachusetts gun owners, who have seen their rights eroded by the governor, ostensibly to prevent gun-related crime.”
“Published reports suggest we’re not talking about some minor offense, either,” he added. “Authorities have reportedly seized several pounds of suspected cocaine, and other charges against Cook include carrying a firearm and ammunition without a permit. Taken in total, we’re looking at some pretty serious allegations involving a senior staffer in the Healey administration.”
According to Fox News, Cook “was arrested for cocaine trafficking after investigators intercepted packages with the drug slated to be delivered to a state office building where he worked, prosecutors said.”
The suspect was also reportedly carrying a gun and ammunition without a permit.
“The drug allegations are definitely serious,” Gottlieb stated, “but for an official in Healey’s administration, which has been fanatical about restricting the Second Amendment rights of Massachusetts citizens, to be accused of violating the very gun laws his boss has championed is an insult to every gun owner in the Commonwealth.”
The Hill reported that a shipment of “nearly 8 kilograms”—about 16 pounds—of drugs were “intercepted” last weekend and subsequently undercover officers and carried out what was described as “a controlled delivery operation” to Cook’s Springfield office building.
WGGB/WSHM (Western Mass News) offered further details on the case. Prosecutors allege Cook received drug shipments over the course of several months to two locations, the state office in Springfield where he worked and a former workplace at Hotel UMass in Amherst.
