Teen who carried rifle through Birmingham found not guilty

18-year-old Sean Combs got a hug from his mom Thursday after the jury handed down a verdict of not guilty.

Combs made headlines when he was accused of brandishing a weapon and disturbing the peace back in April after walking around downtown Birmingham with a rifle strapped to his back.

"I wanted to long gun carry once to say I've done it, and I had no intentions of ever doing it after that night," said Sean Combs.

Does he now?

"I don't know.  I got to think about that, but now I have the right to, for sure, if I ever want to again."

"The open carry movement has been growing and growing over the last few years," said defense attorney James Makowski.  "This is just another victory for them."

He successfully defended his client's right to open carry.  As controversial as it is, it's the
law.

"No one was really scared of it, so we weren't getting much reaction from the public," said Lia Grabowski, Combs' girlfriend.  "It was like, okay, this isn't going to be a big deal, and then it was.  So we were kind of surprised, very surprised by the reaction of the cops."

She was with Combs when he walked around with his weapon.  Prosecutors accused him of
disturbing the peace when a crowd gathered when he refused to show Birmingham police his I.D. confirming he was 18, the legal age to carry the rifle.

Ultimately, the jury ruled he committed no crime.

"I just think everyone needs to know the laws before we start making arrests, and I would like to see that in the future," said Pam Mytnik, Combs' mother.  "He's not down there shooting up the City of Birmingham.  People don't usually show what they're going to do before they do it."

Combs, the son of a retired police officer, just graduated from Troy High School.  He says he
plans to attend Oakland Community College in the fall, and he'd like to study law or engineering.

Was this worth the hassle, one reporter asked Combs.

"I think so.  I kind of became the poster child of it, but it kind of shows that it's been tested over and over and over," he said.  "It just proves again that it's not a crime to open carry."