Shane J. Carr

A Harrisville man was arrested after state police say he was caught with a loaded pistol and its serial number removed.

The defendant, 26-year-old Shane J. Carr, also did not have a concealed carry license for the handgun last week, when police stopped him in a car for speeding on Interstate 79 in Muddy Creek Township.

Carr was arraigned on a pair of felony weapons charges and two misdemeanor drug charges and placed in Butler County Prison on $25,000 bail.

Police said they were running a radar check at about 6:30 a.m. Friday on I-79, about one mile north of the Route 422 interchange, when they clocked Carr’s car traveling 93 mph in a 70 mph zone.

The officer looked into the vehicle, noticed a semi-automatic handgun on the front passenger seat and drew his service pistol, police said.

The gun’s serial number also had been filed off.

Carr told police that he found the pistol earlier that morning, on top of a trash can, when he stopped for gas at a convenience store in Harrisville.

An inventory search of the car subsequently turned up a small amount of marijuana and two marijuana pipes.

In yet another version, documents said, Carr claimed he found the gun along the road somewhere and had it for about a year.

Carr is charged with altering or obliterating marks of identification on a firearm, possession of a gun without a carry license, possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia, speeding and not wearing a seat belt.

The full story can be found in Wednesday’s Butler Eagle.