WHITE CO., Ill. - A man from Kentucky, who claimed he was "waiting on family" in the Maunie area of White County, was taken into custody Tuesday afternoon after he wasn't quite truthful about a weapon he'd been seen with.
White County Sheriff Doug Maier, along with Sgt. Craig Poole and Sgt. Byrd Huber, responded to a report out of Maunie of a man walking the streets of that village with a weapon. One resident on Pumphrey Street had called the sheriff's office reporting that a male subject had walked up to her residence and told her he was looking for a man; she told dispatch that he then walked south from her residence and she thought she saw a gun in his pants. She told responding officers that he had also noted he was "looking for a ride to the sand pits." This woman, Jackie Oberlander, said that her DCFS caseworker was also there at the time and she also thought she saw a gun on the man. He was described as tall, with dark hair and wearing a blue shirt.
A short time later, Sheriff Maier saw a subject along County Road 1800E on the south edge of Maunie at the road to the sand bar. The deputies met up with Maier, and all observed a male subject standing in the edge of a wooded area. Maier started to approach the man along the sand bar road, Poole approached straight at the man, and Huber moved to the south and approached along the railroad tracks. As Huber approached the man, he pulled a firearm and kept it down to the side of his holster, yelling at the man to come toward him on the gravel along the railroad tracks.
Huber then told the male to get on his face once he reached the gravel from the wooded area, but the male kept coming toward Huber, while Huber kept telling him to get on his face. The man finally did, getting on the ground face-down. Huber approached him, patted him down for a gun, and while the man continued to tell Huber he had no gun, Huber determined that at least there wasn't one on him.
Huber allowed the man to get on his feet, and questioned him as to why he was hiding in the woods. The man said he was "trying to go around the gate," and explained that his family was in the area, and that he didn't have a gun.
Because the subject kept moving around, he was handcuffed. A run of his ID showed him to be Jason Allen Attebury, 41, of Hanson, Kentucky.
And as his ID was being run, Maier and Poole located a handgun in the wooded area where Attebury had been standing.
Attebury didn't deny that the gun was his, but insisted that he was just walking in the area and kept the gun on him, stating he didn't know it was illegal to do this. When asked if he had a concealed carry permit, Attebury said he didn't know he had to have one.
His license came back clear but suspended from Kentucky, at which time he told the officers that his truck was broke down by the tank batteries south of town. That truck, it turned out, matched the description of a suspicious vehicle in Maunie earlier: A brown truck with Kentucky plates.
Attebury was transported to the White County Jail with charges of Unlawful Use of Weapons, stemming from the .22 magnum revolver found at the scene, as well as .22 magnum cartridges found in his pockets. A run of any criminal history on Attebury came back that he did have a felony criminal history, but whether that will play into any local charges is unknown at this time.
As of this morning, Attebury was still jailed in Carmi.