Man arrested in Madison Twp. with guns in car

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

A Kentucky man picked the wrong place and the wrong time to fall asleep in his car with two handguns and 700 rounds of ammunition.

Butler County Sheriff’s deputies found Bryan Miller, 23, “passed out” in his car with the weapons inside at 7 a.m. Thursday in the 5600 block of West Alexandria Road, about 1,200 feet from Madison Jr./Sr. High School, the site of a school shooting on Monday. Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones said Thursday there is no evidence linking the man to the school, but they are “not taking any chances whatsoever.”

Miller was arrested and charged with improper handling of a firearm in a motor vehicle and operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, according to the sheriff’s office. Both charges are misdemeanors.

Jones said Miller had about 700 rounds of ammo in the car. When he was awakened by deputies, he told them “he always carries around ammo in the car, and in Kentucky, you can do that.”

“The deputies said, ‘Well, you are not in Kentucky anymore,’” Jones said.

“We do not know what his intentions were at this time, but we are not taking any chances whatsoever,” the sheriff said. “There is no evidence linking the suspect to the Madison School District, but it is being actively investigated.

“We are not ruling anything out. He was removed promptly from the area. The guns and ammunition were confiscated and he is in custody, where he needs to be,” Jones said.

Major Mike Craft, of the sheriff’s office, said Miller is familiar with the area and said he was there to visit a friend.

Sheriff’s officials notified the Madison Local Schools District about the situation following the arrest.

“They assured us there was nothing for us to be concerned about,” said AJ Huff, the district’s coordinator of school-community relations. “We were told that from the get-go. It wasn’t a concern.”

Huff said that’s the reason why district parents weren’t immediately notified of the incident. It was only after inaccurate information began circulating in the community, and parents became concerned that the district had to respond with accurate information to parents through robo-calls, to teachers via email and to students over the public address system.

“We had to correct the false information that was out there,” she said. “It’s unfortunate. It just made for another hard day for all of us.”

Butler County detectives will continue the investigation into Miller, the sheriff said.

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