LANCASTER, Ohio - The armed civilians who have been guarding a military recruitment center here are gone, ordered off the property after one of them accidentally discharged his rifle on Thursday. No one was injured. U.S. Properties Group Portfolio Four LLC, the owner of the shopping center near the River Valley Mall that includes the multi-branch military recruitment center, ordered the armed volunteers to leave just hours after the shot was fired. 
 
 LANCASTER, Ohio � The armed civilians who have been guarding a military recruitment center here are gone, ordered off the property after one of them accidentally discharged his rifle on Thursday. 
 
 No one was injured. 
 
 U.S. Properties Group Portfolio Four LLC, the owner of the shopping center near the River Valley Mall that includes the multi-branch military recruitment center, ordered the armed volunteers to leave just hours after the shot was fired. 
 
 A Lancaster police officer delivered the order to several of them outside the Armed Services Career Center, saying, �God bless you,� but they had to leave. 
 
 The armed civilians have been guarding the center since Monday. 
 
 One of them has been charged with a misdemeanor after he accidentally fired his AR-15 rifle. Someone from the recruiting center at 1530 River Valley Blvd. flagged down an officer at 12:01 p.m. to report the incident, Lt. Shane Wilson said. 
 
 The shopping-center owner issued a statement saying it was decided that �for the safety of tenants, customers and construction personnel working in the immediate vicinity of the Military Recruiting Center, it would be best to request the removal of the armed individuals.� 
 
 Christopher A. Reed, 28, of Lancaster, was charged with discharging a firearm in the city limits, and was issued a summons to appear in Fairfield County Municipal Court on Tuesday, according to the police incident report. 
 
 Reed told police that he was holding his rifle outside the recruitment center when someone asked if he could take a look at it. Reed agreed, and while he was trying to clear the ammunition from the weapon, he accidentally fired one shot into the asphalt pavement. 
 
 The only damage was a hole in the pavement. The rifle was taken from Reed pending his appearance in court, the incident report says. 
 
 Conviction on the fourth-degree misdemeanor is punishable by a maximum of 30 days in jail. 
 
 Reed was convicted of the same offense in 2013, and was fined $50, court records show. 
 
 Some armed civilians have been guarding military recruiting stations in Ohio and elsewhere after the fatal shootings of five service members at a military recruitment center in Tennessee. 
 
 �I�m nobody special,� Reed said in a telephone interview on Thursday. �I�m just a guy doing my job because my own government wouldn�t do it.� 
 
 Reed said he is not a military veteran. He described himself as an active gun enthusiast who makes a living working side jobs. 
 
 He downplayed what happened. �It is what it is,� he said. �Nobody got hurt.� 
 
 A Marine recruiter at the center said he was not authorized to speak to reporters. 
 
 Before their eviction, armed civilians discussed why they were there. None was present when the rifle discharged. 
 
 �Government ain�t going to do it,� said Kenneth Casteel, a 67-year-old Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam and sat in a folding chair with his M-16 rifle propped against it. �They won�t give these guys any weapons to carry or keep in a safe. If we don�t do it, who is going to do it? It�s a matter of safety.� 
 
 �We are not a redneck group,� the Lancaster resident added. �We are prior military.� 
 
 Passerby Lei Ashbaugh hailed the group. �Thank you, God bless you, Semper Fi,� she said, noting Casteel�s Marines ball cap. 
 
 Ashbaugh, 48, of Lancaster, whose husband is a Marine veteran, said she was heartened to see the volunteers guarding the recruitment center. 
 
 �We have recruiters who can�t defend themselves. Thank God for these people willing to defend them,� she said. 
 
 mlane@dispatch.com 
 
 @MaryBethLane1 ||||| After four Marines and a sailor were killed by a lone gunman last week, armed civilians have volunteered to stand guard at military recruiting stations around the country — but troops are being warned to keep their distance and alert law enforcement of their presence. 
 
 In a memo published Tuesday that was obtained by Marine Corps Times, Lt. Gen. Mark Brilakis, the head of Marine Corps Recruiting Command, advised troops not to support the "armed citizen" volunteers in any way. 
 
 "These citizens' presence, while well intentioned, will be counterproductive to our recruiting operations," Brilakis wrote. 
 
 Maj. Garron Garn, a spokesman for MCRC, confirmed the authenticity of the memo. 
 
 "We are concerned for the safety of not only our Marines, but the public as a whole, and while most armed citizens have the best intentions at heart, it is not unrealistic to assume a possible incident like a negligent discharge may occur," he said in a statement provided to Marine Corps Times. "Additionally, we are concerned that armed citizens may detract interested individuals from entering our offices, which ultimately negatively effects our recruiting mission. We ask that these concerned citizens show their support in other ways that are less impactful on our mission attainment." 
 
 If armed volunteers appear in the vicinity of any Marine Corps offices, Brilakis wrote in his memo, Marines should immediately call local law enforcement to deal with them. 
 
 "Inform [law enforcement officers] that the Marine Corps did not request nor do we support [armed citizens] being in proximity of our facilities," he wrote. 
 
 Marines were also instructed to call the relevant Army Corps of Engineers representative to notify the lessor of the recruiting office property of the presence of the armed individuals. 
 
 Troops should not interact or engage with the armed citizens, Brilakis wrote, unless "absolutely necessary." If such an interaction is unavoidable, he wrote, Marines should tell the volunteers their intent is appreciated, but their presence is unnecessary, and disruptive to ongoing recruiting operations. 
 
 Under no circumstances should Marines allow an armed citizen to enter the recruiting office, or handle the citizen's weapon in any way, he wrote. 
 
 The memo was distributed as a Fast Response on Short Transition, or FROST call — a system used by Marines to disseminate information rapidly throughout a command or series of commands. The Army has issued a similar warning to its recruiters, Stars and Stripes reported. 
 
 Marine Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan, Lance Cpl. Squire K. Wells, Staff Sgt. David Wyatt, Sgt. Carson Holmquist and Navy Logistics Specialist 2nd Class Randall Smith were killed in the July 16 shooting, which took place at the Navy Operational Support Center in Chattanooga. The shooter, Mohammad Abdulazeez, also fired rounds into a nearby recruiting station, wounding one Marine in the leg. 
 
 Since then, incidences of civilians guarding recruiting stations have been reported from Colorado Springs to Texas. Two veterans' organizations, the Oathkeepers and the Three Percenters, have actively encouraged their members to guard local stations in an effort they're calling Operation Warrior Guardian. 
 
 Oath Keepers Greg Schillen, left, and Adam Bulder stand guard in front of the military recruitment offices on July 22 in Burlington, Wash., with Schillen's two dogs Clyde, left, and Buddy. 
 
 Photo Credit: Scott Terrell / Skagit Valley Herald via AP 
 
 In Lancaster, Ohio, an armed man guarding an Army recruiting office was charged with a misdemeanor after accidentally firing his AR15 rifle on Thursday, the Columbus Dispatch reported. 
 
 Marine veteran Bradley Toler was one armed volunteer who was asked to leave the premises of a local recruiting station. A former infantry lance corporal who left the Marines in 2013, Toler went to his local Marine Corps recruiting office in Jacksonville, North Carolina, on Wednesday armed with a Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifle and a Taurus Judge revolver. 
 
 He stood outside the station for about two hours. During that time, Toler said he was thanked by civilian and military passers-by and offered bottled water by passing drivers. Ultimately, though, property owner Coldwell Banker notified the Jacksonville Police, who asked him to leave. 
 
 While Toler said he left willingly, his belief in the effectiveness of armed volunteers was unshaken. 
 
 "The great thing about this county is we stood up without wanting anything," Toler, 25, said of the grassroots effort to guard recruiting stations. "The biggest way to substantially lower the possibility of an attack is to have your presence there." ||||| COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Gun-toting citizens are showing up at military recruiting centers around the country, saying they plan to protect recruiters following last week's killing of four Marines and a sailor in Chattanooga, Tennessee. 
 
 In this photo taken Tuesday, July 21, 2015, David Walters, left, and Chip Beduhn, both of Baraboo, Wis., stand guard outside an Armed Forces Recruiting Center in Madison, Wis. Walters and Beduhn are part... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo taken Monday, July 20, 2015, a man who would only give his name as J.R., from Norfolk, Va., stands with his sidearm as dozens of people, some armed with weapons and some carrying water,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Jerry Blakeney stands guard with other members of Operation Hero Guard outside a U.S. military recruiting station in Cleburne, Texas, Tuesday, July 21, 2015. Gun-toting citizens are showing up at military... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo taken Monday, July 20, 2015, a civilian from Huntsville, Ala., who did not wish to be identified, holds a gun while standing watch in front of the Armed Forces Career Center in Huntsville,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Terry Jackson, left, and Jonathan McCroskey, members of Operation Hero Guard, stand guard outside a U.S. military recruiting station in Cleburne, Texas, Tuesday, July 21, 2015. Gun-toting citizens are... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo taken Tuesday, July 21, 2015, Allen Bowles, left, and Clint Janney stand guard outside a military recruiting center in Columbus, Ohio. The men are members of the 3 Percent Irregulars Militia,... (Associated Press) 
 
 The citizens, some of them private militia members, said they're supporting the recruiters, who by military directive are not armed. 
 
 "We're here to serve and protect," Clint Janney said Tuesday, wearing a Taurus 9mm handgun as he stood in a parking lot across from a recruiting center on the west side of Columbus. "What the government won't do, we will do." 
 
 Similar posts have been set up outside recruitment centers in several cities around the country, including Madison, Wisconsin; Hiram, Georgia; Phoenix; and several sites in Tennessee, including Murfreesboro. 
 
 There's no evidence that such centers are in danger, and the government isn't changing how they're staffed, although some governors have temporarily moved National Guard recruiting centers to armories and several have authorized Guard personnel to carry weapons at state facilities. 
 
 Janney, 38, who runs his own garage door company, is a member of the Ohio branch of the "3 Percent Irregulars" militia. He was joined by four other members of the militia, some of whom arrived just Tuesday and others who'd been there since Friday. In Ohio and many states, it is legal to carry an openly displayed handgun or rifle. 
 
 The men sat in lawn chairs, occasionally dipping into a cooler for bottles of water, or stood around talking. Some people came by to thank them; others didn't seem aware of their presence in the large plaza. 
 
 Franklin County Sheriff Zach Scott said that as long as the owner of the plaza didn't ask them to leave, the men were not violating any laws. Scott has instructed deputies to check on recruiting centers, but not the volunteer guards. 
 
 Employees of a medical supply center next door to the recruiting center said they understood the volunteers' intentions but weren't thrilled about their presence. Customers leaving the store said they appreciated the volunteers but thought professional security guards would be better. 
 
 "They could just go crazy with the shooting. You just don't know their state of mind," said Kimm McLaughlin, 44, of nearby Grove City. 
 
 On Tuesday, the founder and president of Oath Keepers, a Las Vegas-based Constitution activist group made up of current and former veterans and first responders such as paramedics, issued a national call to members to guard centers. Many were already guarding centers in Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma, president Stewart Rhodes said. 
 
 Rhodes said it's "absolutely insane" that recruiters aren't allowed to be armed. 
 
 "They're sitting ducks," Rhodes said Tuesday. "They'd be better off if they were walking down the streets of Baghdad, because at least in Baghdad, they could move. Here, they're stationary." 
 
 Capt. Jim Stenger, a Marine Corps public affairs officer for the recruiting district that includes parts of seven Midwestern states, said he hopes the gun-toting civilians will go home. 
 
 "While we greatly appreciate the support of the American public during this tragedy, we ask that citizens do not stand guard at our recruiting offices," Stenger said in an emailed statement. "Our continued public trust lies among our trained first responders for the safety of the communities where we live and work." 
 
 A 1992 Department of Defense directive restricts weapons to law enforcement or military police on federal property, which would include recruiting centers. The U.S. Army Recruiting Command doesn't have a position on the citizens' actions as long as they aren't disrupting the recruiting centers, spokesman Brian Lepley said. 
 
 He said that while tragic, such incidents have happened only twice in six years at recruiting centers: in Chattanooga last week, and in Little Rock in 2009 in a shooting that killed one solider and injured another. 
 
 "Recruiting stations need to be out in the public; we need to be out where young people are," Lepley said. Most recruiters are Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans well trained in dealing with shooters, he added. 
 
 A group of veterans and their supporters began guarding a Navy-Marine recruiting station in Madison, Wisconsin, on Friday. 
 
 "Just civic pride," said David Walters, a 30-year-old Army veteran from Baraboo, north of Madison. "It's good to show that people can still come together." 
 
 He took his turn in front of the station Tuesday with Chip Beduhn, a 44-year-old security guard also from Baraboo. Walters said he was carrying a concealed weapon and would be comfortable with violence if someone tried to attack the station. 
 
 In Arizona, armed members of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's volunteer posses patrolled Tuesday around Army Reserve offices in Buckeye, about 30 miles west of downtown Phoenix. 
 
 The sheriff said he decided to have three posse members patrol after an Army Reserve captain requested extra security. Posse members are patrolling the area just outside the Reserve grounds, but Arpaio said they would enter the property if extra security was needed. The sheriff has used posse volunteers for similar patrols in the past. 
 
 In Hiram, Georgia, about 30 miles northwest of Atlanta, a group of four or five people stood outside a recruiting office Friday with their personal firearms as a show of support. They had a pop-up tent, a few lawn chairs and American flags, Police Chief Todd Vande Zande said. 
 
 "If it makes them feel better as American citizens and they're not doing anything illegal, then I'm all for it," he said. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Kantele Franko in Columbus, Kate Brumback in Atlanta, Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin, and Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix contributed to this report. ||||| Note: This article has been corrected. 
 
 WASHINGTON — The Army has warned its recruiters to treat the gun-toting civilians gathering at centers across the country in the wake of the Chattanooga, Tenn., shooting as a security threat. 
 
 Soldiers should avoid anyone standing outside the recruiting centers attempting to offer protection and report them to local law enforcement and the command if they feel threatened, according to a U.S. Army Recruiting Command policy letter issued Monday. 
 
 Armed citizens — some associated with activist groups and militias — were standing vigil outside recruiting centers in Wisconsin, Georgia, Tennessee, Idaho and elsewhere this week, saying they want to provide protection to servicemembers barred from carrying firearms on duty. Four Marines and a sailor were killed by Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, a 24-year-old Kuwait-born resident of Tennessee, during an attack Thursday on a strip mall recruiting center and a Navy facility that is being investigated as an act of terrorism. 
 
 Abdulazeez fired into the front of the recruiting station but there were no casualties. The five servicemembers were killed during an attack on the Navy Operational Support Center. A Navy officer and a Marine reportedly fired at the gunman, although it is unclear why they were armed. It is against Defense Department policy for anyone other than military police or law enforcement to carry weapons on federal property. 
 
 “I’m sure the citizens mean well, but we cannot assume this in every case and we do not want to advocate this behavior,” according to the Army Command Operations Center-Security Division letter, which was authenticated by the service. 
 
 Recruiters were ordered not to interact or acknowledge the armed civilians, who have been greeted by a mix of concern, indifference and gratitude by the public. 
 
 “If questioned by these alleged concerned citizens, be polite, professional and terminate the conversation immediately and report the incident to local law enforcement …,” the command advised. 
 
 As the incidents crop up around the country, police could be asked to confront the civilians with guns on the Army’s behalf. 
 
 “Ensure your recruiters clearly articulate to local police the civilian may be armed and in possession of a conceal/carry permit,” it told the centers. 
 
 The command said recruiters should also immediately fill out an Army security report. 
 
 Kelli Bland, a spokeswoman for Army Recruiting Command, said the service has been increasing vigilance following the Chattanooga shooting and that local residents can help in other ways. 
 
 “Local communities can support our security by reporting suspicious activity, particularly around recruiting centers,” Bland wrote in an email to Stars and Stripes. 
 
 Concerned citizens began gathering at the centers shortly after the shooting in Tennessee, and governors in some states ordered recruiters to armories or to be armed for protection against potential terrorist attacks. Congress has also pushed for the Defense Department to lift its current policy. 
 
 The founder and president of Oath Keepers, a Constitution activist group based in Las Vegas, issued a national call Tuesday to guard centers, while members were already guarding centers in Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma, president Stewart Rhodes told the Associated Press. 
 
 Rhodes told the news service it’s “absolutely insane” that recruiters aren’t allowed to be armed. 
 
 “They’re sitting ducks,” Rhodes said Tuesday. “They’d be better off if they were walking down the streets of Baghdad, because at least in Baghdad, they could move. Here, they’re stationary.” 
 
 In Lewiston, Idaho, three men with a group known as “3 percenters” — a national alliance with members who prepare “for any situation, man-made or natural” — were standing watch outside a recruiting office this week, the TNS wire service reported. 
 
 “They supported us, and now we’re here showing them that we support them,” said Matt Dillard, of Clarkston, Wash., who was among the men. 
 
 tritten.travis@stripes.com 
 
 Twitter: @Travis_Tritten 
 
 
 
 Correction: An earlier version of this report misidentified the location of Clarkston. It is in Washington state.
– Out of all the things that could go wrong with armed citizens guarding military recruitment centers, this was pretty minor, but it was enough to have the volunteers ordered away. Police told a group of volunteers to stop guarding a recruitment center in Lancaster, Ohio, after one of them accidentally fired a shot into the pavement, reports the Columbus Dispatch. Christopher Reed, 28, told police that his AR-15 rifle went off while he was taking ammunition out so he could show it to somebody who asked to look at it, the Dispatch reports. He was charged with discharging a firearm within city limits after somebody from the recruitment center called police. Similar groups have turned up at recruiting centers across the country in the wake of last week's Chattanooga shootings, though the Army has ordered recruiters to treat the "alleged concerned citizens" as a security threat and avoid interacting with them, Stars and Stripes reports. A Marine Corps Recruiting Command spokesman tells Marine Corps Times that while volunteers may have the "best intentions," they're not welcome, and Marines have been told to call police if they turn up. In Spanaway, Wash., volunteers guarding a recruitment center were told to leave a few hours after the Ohio incident, reports Q13 Fox. One volunteer says they were told that the landlord was worried about insurance issues.