Somewhere, Officer Brad Fox is looking down and smiling today.
Fox, a policeman in Plymouth Township, Montgomery County, was gunned down in the line of duty - by a man who had acquired the gun in an illegal straw purchase.
The resulting uproar resulted in passage of the Brad Fox Law in 2013. It mandates a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for anyone convicted of engaging in a straw gun purchase.
Yesterday, a Chester woman became one of the first people to feel the wrath of those still mourning the loss of Brad Fox.
Staci Dawson was the first person charged - and convicted - in Delaware County under the law.
Delaware County District Attorney Jack Whelan made his office's position clear.
"There are no negotiations by this office with regards to these cases," he said after the verdict, which came after an earlier trial in which the jury failed to reach a verdict and acquitted Dawson of lesser charges. "If you're going to engage in the illegal exchange of firearms in this county, we are going to prosecute you and you are going to spend a substantial amount of time in a penitentiary."
No doubt Brad Fox would concur.
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