A 59-year-old Clovis California man, Albert Sheakalee, is a retired budget director of Fresno Community Hospital. His criminal record is clean, he owned a retirement home, and he also maintained a federal firearms license for more than 20 years. He is considered a normal upstanding citizen of the community by most standards. Sheakalee also legally bought, sold, and collected firearms.
In 2014, Sheakalee went through mental health treatment. What Sheakalee didn’t know was that his treatment automatically placed him in the DOJ’s Armed Prohibited Persons System (APPS) database. That placement striped him from firearms ownership rights. It also prompted a 12-hour raid on his home by Bureau of Firearms Special Agents which ended in his arrest for possessing illegal firearms.
Although Sheakalee’s FFL was still technically valid at the time of the raid, California authorities seized some 541 guns from his home in 2015 after he was considered a prohibited firearms possessor. Authorities seized 209 handguns, 88 shotguns, 234 rifles, 181 standard capacity magazines, 10 high capacity magazines, 100,521 rounds of various ammunition, and 10 firearms registered with the DOJ as “assault weapons” including a .50 caliber rifle.
No charges were ever filed against Sheakalee, who entered a two year battle with Kamala Harris’ Department of Justice to get his guns returned. Finally, the guns have been given to a licensed dealer to give back to Sheakalee, following a court order. Kamala Harris has since moved on to Washington as a U.S. Senator but Sheakalee’s attorney, Mark Coleman, feels the whole thing was showboating and that this was a political move on behalf of Harris to gain media exposure.
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