GOD SPEED GARY TUDESKO! A Second Amendment Success Story

Copyright © 2012 Michel & Associates, P.C., All rights reserved.  - Republished with permision

Gary Tudesko, an unlikely civil rights hero to Second Amendment advocates, is stepping off into a bright, promising future. This year he graduated from Willows High School, an accomplishment that almost did not happen due to anti-gun political correctness, "zero-tolerance" policies, and anti-gun prejudices. On June 25, Gary got on a plane and headed to Texas to begin a term of service in the Air Force.

Gary’s going away party was held June 16, 2012, and Ginny Simone with NRA News who has been covering the story from the start, was there to cover Gary’s send off party. You can see that coverage [here.]You can read the legal briefs and see the media coverage of Gary’s fight for justice athttp://michellawyers.com/gary-tudesko. Additional videos about the case are posted athttp://michellawyers.com/significant-cases/firearms-cases/.

Tudesko made national headlines in 2009 with his Second Amendment success story. That year, then sixteen-year-old high school student Tudesko was expelled for having unloaded shotguns in his pick-up truck that he had legally parked on an off-campus, public street near the Willows High School campus. The high school is in a small, rural community north of Sacramento, California, and is known for good water fowl hunting. The unloaded shotguns were in his truck because he had gone duck hunting in the early morning hours before school.

The shotguns were discovered in Tudesko’s pick up truck by scent-sniffing dogs during a questionable search. Police ran the license plates and determined Tudesko was the owner. They then called Tudesko out of class. Tudesko cooperated and told the school Principal about the shotguns, and about his early morning hunting trip. Despite the explanation, despite the fact that the truck was off campus, and despite the fact that the principal acknowledged that Gary was not a threat, Tudesko was suspended pending an expulsion hearing.

Tudesko’s mother, Susan Parisio, ably defended her son during the November 19, 2009, public hearing on his expulsion. She challenged the school district’s legal jurisdiction to enforce the Education Code’s prohibition of guns on campus to her son having unloaded shotguns locked in an off-campus vehicle parked on a public street. Nonetheless, Willows High Principal Mort Geivett told the local School Board that, as a matter of law, it had no choice but to expel Tudesko. The Board did just that. The case then garnered national media coverage as an example of zero-tolerance policies run amuck.

Tudesko appealed the local school district’s expulsion order to the Glenn County Board of Education. To help Tudesko, the NRA and the CRPA Foundation joined forces to provide legal assistance in Gary’s fight to be readmitted to Willows High School. Tudesko was represented by lawyers with the Long Beach law firm of Michel & Associates, P.C., which represents the NRA and CRPA Foundation in California. Michel & Associates attorneys worked pro bono on the case.

The hearing before the Glenn County Board of Education was held on January 19, 2010. On January 21, 2010, the Board of Education reversed the decision of the Willows Unified School District and Principal Mort Geivett, and it reinstated Gary Tudesko at Willows High School.

Tudesko’s reinstatement was a great victory for law-abiding gun-owners, particularly young adults who wish to enjoy their rights, over nonsensical zero tolerance policies. If it hadn’t been for the help he received from the NRA, CRPA Foundation, and the lawyers at Michel & Associates, P.C., Tudesko would have been a statistic, another sad footnote in the story of politically-correct, bureaucratic authority unchecked.

Tudesko has made the most of his reinstatement, successfully graduating and now heading off to serve his country.

You can wish Gary well at gtudesko@gmail.com. You can support similar efforts by donating to CRPAF athttp://store.crpa.org or NRA-ILA at www.nraila.org.