Several guns, including assault rifles, stolen from local gun collector; suspect charged

CHARLOTTE — Thousands of dollars in firearms were stolen from a local gun collector, including assault rifles.

Officers with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department say the person responsible is currently behind bars, but the guns are still out on the streets.

Veteran crime reporter Glenn Counts spoke with the robbery victim, who says the person who stole from him was someone he once truly trusted.

Erik Johnson works for himself, buying items at cheap prices and selling them. He told Counts he’s naturally a very trusting person, a trait that recently caught up with him in a bad way.

“I like guns, so when I was little, I used to go to the library and look through the gun magazines, little books, and things. ‘Oh, I like that one, I like that one.’” he said.

Johnson said he thought of 42-year-old Josie Alison Compton as a friend. At the end of April, he allowed her and her fiance to stay at his home for a few days while he was out of town on a business trip.

When he got back, he said the couple had gone along with many of his firearms. He told Counts that he immediately reported the stolen weapons and that not knowing where they were had truly unsettled him.

“I’m very concerned; that’s part of the reason I had to report them immediately because I don’t want that coming back to me,” Johnson said.

The batch of stolen firearms includes several different assault rifles, like a Ruger AR 556 and a G-Force Arms GFY-12 gauge barrel shotgun; six pistols were also taken.

Johnson told Counts he feels betrayed and isn’t sure that Compton will receive the proper punishment for her crimes.

“One of the reasons people feel they can do that is because if they don’t have very much consequence behind it, then this is what you’re going to get,” he said.

A large part of the lesson in Johnson’s case is to choose your friends wisely, but Johnson says this bad experience isn’t going to cause him to give up on people.

“I can’t really tell each person, don’t trust people, right? That’s a terrible thing to say to people because that doesn’t solve the problem,” he said.

Compton was arrested on nine larceny charges and placed in jail under a $75,000 bond. She is currently out of jail on pre-trial release.

Officers told Counts there have been no signs of the guns so far.

This is a developing story; check back at wsoctv.com for updates.

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