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Man who threatened roadie goes to jail for 10 days BY CHRIS BRISTOL A sleep-deprived Jacksonville man who became something of a local hero for his Wild West approach to noise control got 10 days in jail Tuesday for threatening to shoot a Britt Festival road crew that woke him in the middle of the night. Jeff Linde, 43, also was sentenced to three years of supervised probation on a no-contest plea to a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Jackson County Judge Daniel Harris gave him a week to report to jail. "I'm not pleading guilty," a defiant Linde told the judge. "I'm pleading no contest." Linde's arrest last summer presaged a series of complaints from neighbors in historic Jacksonville who have grown disenchanted with the noise, traffic and trash generated by the oldest outdoor concert series in the Pacific Northwest. The growing number of complaints about Britt, which began as a small classical event in 1963 and now attracts big crowds for big-name acts, culminated in a petition to the City Council last September and led to a number of voluntary restrictions offered by a mediation team, including quicker trash collection and sound-level monitoring for a year. Police arrested Linde in connection with a late-night confrontation involving the road crew for country music star Vince Gill. The 11-time Grammy winner wowed the crowd last July with his old-time guitar sound -- and his state-of-the art-sound system. According to police, Gill's road crew was busy packing and loading the set hours after the show when a visibly agitated man armed with a handgun appeared about 2:30 a.m. and issued the following threat: "If you don't stop, I will have to come back over here and put a cap in somebody's a--." The man never pointed the gun at anybody, police said. "Cap" is gang slang for a bullet or the act of shooting. Apparently the crew did not immediately report the incident. Linde was arrested about 10 hours later, after a Britt official heard about the confrontation and notified authorities. Police seized a Colt .45 that belonged to his girlfriend. In court Tuesday, the hearing nearly ground to a halt when Linde denied he ever had a gun. After a brief discussion with his public defender, Linde pleaded no contest to the firearms charge. In exchange, prosecutor Holly Smith dropped a second count of menacing. According to Smith, Linde has a previous drug-related felony conviction in California. Locally, he has three convictions for drunken driving and hit-and-run. Under the terms of his sentence, Linde is to have no contact with Britt Gardens. If he successfully completes probation, his conviction will be reduced to a misdemeanor. Harris told Linde his girlfriend can sell it, but she can't have it back from the police. Regardless of complaints that neighbors have about Britt, Smith said Linde's response was criminal. "This guy took it over the edge," she said. "Actually taking a gun and threatening to kill people is never a good idea. Cops get very angry about that kind of thing." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA