In July, Robert Manson, a unit chief in the F.B.I.'s international terrorism section, had his Glock .40-caliber handgun, a $6,000 Rolex watch and $60 in cash stolen from his room at the Westin hotel in Charlotte, N.C., according to a police report.
The episode is an embarrassing mishap for the F.B.I. As a unit chief assigned to the bureau's headquarters, Mr. Manson oversees all terrorism investigations in the Midwest and the Carolinas. An F.B.I. spokesman, Michael P. Kortan, said the incident was the subject of an internal investigation and declined to give additional comment.
Mr. Manson and other senior agents were in Charlotte for training, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the episode. The agents later told the police that they had been drinking with women who said they were exotic dancers, according to a second person who was briefed on the investigation but, like the first, was not authorized to discuss it publicly.
The police report filed by one of Manson's buddies because he was still too rat-arsed to do it himself
At 6:30 the next morning, police officers for the department were called to the hotel. Mr. Manson was incapacitated because of alcohol, according to the police report, which he did not file himself. A fellow agent, Kevin Thuman, gave the report, which says the theft happened from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. The hotel bar closes at 2 a.m.
The gun was identified in the police report as a Glock 27, a compact model that is easy to conceal. Federal law allows agents to carry concealed weapons while off duty, but not while they are intoxicated. It is unclear where Mr. Manson kept the gun. F.B.I. rules prohibit agents from leaving their guns in unsecure places. Every room in the Westin is equipped with a safe.
No arrests have been made and police officers have not recovered the gun. The report provides scant details and identifies the thief only as "an unknown suspect." The report does not mention Mr. Manson's work for the F.B.I. Mr. Tufano said Mr. Manson "was not acting in a law enforcement capacity at the time of the incident."
Comment: oh no? We thought it was very much in the job description of an FBI agent to act like a complete ass in public.
One F.B.I. agent was cited in an internal review this year after a family member accidentally shot him. Last year, an assistant special agent in charge was charged with drunken driving, and an internal review found that he had improperly carried his gun while intoxicated.
Comment: It really is heartening to know that a person tasked with "overseeing all terrorism investigations in the Midwest and the Carolinas" is of such a high caliber. And people wonder why everyone with half a neuron firing doesn't believe a word the FBI said about the Las Vegas shooting.