Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 3, 2012

While the Bible?s Book of Isaiah condemns those who make people ?a sinner for a word,? under the doctrine of ?officer safety? a silent man can be charged with multiple felonies. Just ask 58-year-old Fredericksburg, Virginia resident David Loveless, who was arrested and charged with two felony counts for allegedly pointing a finger at police detectives.

According to police spokesperson Natatia Bledsoe, the finger-pointing was intended to ?intimidate? two detectives who had testified against Loveless?s 22-year-old son in a robbery case.

 ?I don?t see how I was pointing my finger,? Loveless told a reporter for local ABC affiliate WJLA. ?If anything I was reaching into my pocket to get a pack of cigarettes.?

Loveless, who has no criminal record, was charged with two felony counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer through intimidation and two misdemeanor counts of obstruction of justice.

These were almost certainly cover charges filed by the detectives as official retaliation for the unforgivable offense called ?contempt of cop?: Loveless had reacted disdainfully to what he perceived as perjured testimony by the detectives.

With punitive arrests and other forms of police retaliation against ?disrespectful? citizens becoming commonplace, Loveless is not likely to be the last person to be made a criminal for something he didn?t say.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 2, 2012

In an internal e-mail memorandum written on March 30, Lt. Frank Schirillo of the Connecticut State Police described a ticket-writing binge ? a contest to see which unit could write the largest number of citations in a 24-hour period, with the winners treated to pizza.

?I am asking that everyone, myself included, contribute to this effort,? stated the e-mail. ?[W] have to issue at least 60 infractions / Misdemeanors each shift for a total of 180 infractions...[I]f we happen to issue 350 tickets in one day that would be stellar.?

Ironically, some of the most pointed criticism of the ticket quota was offered by Andrew Matthews of the state police union.

?Whether it?s motivational or a quota, it?s disturbing to us because at a time when the taxpayers are out of work ?cause they?re unemployed, or gas is $4 a gallon and unemployment is like around 9%, now is not the time to be just issuing tickets to generate revenue.?

Actually, there is no proper time to use tickets as a revenue stream. The practice is forbidden by statutes in every state ? and quietly carried out by police departments in every jurisdiction.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Willl Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 30, 2012

In New Mexico and at least a few other states, police officers placed on administrative leave after a shooting are given small but substantial checks from their unions. Twenty Albuquerque police officers involved in recent shootings received checks ranging from $300 to $500 ? a system criticized by many observers as akin to payment of ?bounties.?

To his considerable credit, Fred Rice, a corporal in the Idaho State Police and chairman of its union, thinks that this is a horrible idea.

?[I]f I gave ? an officer involved in a shooting a $500 check, someone might think, `Oh, that?s a quick way to make money,? Rice told  the AP.

Albuquerque resident Mike Gomez, whose unarmed son was fatally shot in the back by the police last year, characterizes the payment arrangement as a ?reward system, a bounty.?

That description may be considered an exaggeration. It?s not likely that most officers involved in a shootout consciously think of the prospect of a financial bonus. However, following most officer-involved shootings, the policeman is put on paid leave and doesn?t need additional financial help.

A better approach would be to minimize the potential for officer-involved shootings by re-acquainting police with the practice of de-escalating confrontations.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 29 2012

Michael Morton came home from work on a summer day in 1986 to find the Sheriff at his house, and the lifeless body of his wife in their bedroom. A few days later, he was arrested for the murder.

There was no weapon or other direct evidence connecting Morton to the crime. Nonetheless, an ambitious prosecutor named Ken Anderson convinced a jury that Morton had brutally murdered his wife because she had withheld conjugal relations from him. Anderson?s office also refused to carry out its legal responsibility to provide full discovery to Morton?s defense counsel, withholding a key police report in which the only witness, the couple?s three-year-old son, testified that a large man with a distinctive mustache had killed his mother.

Morton was sent to prison. Anderson was named prosecutor of the year and then appointed as a district judge in the same court that had convicted Morton. Earlier this year, Morton was exonerated through DNA evidence pried from a reluctant DA?s office by the Innocence Project ? and another suspect, a convicted felon, was arrested for the murder.

Under the Bible?s standard of equity, Ken Anderson should serve the balance of the life sentence he knowingly inflicted on an innocent man.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 28, 2012

Asked about the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, President Obama remarked: ?If I had a son, he?d look like Trayvon.?

If it were possible to give human form to Mr. Obama?s philosophy of lethal force, the result would resemble George Zimmerman, the vigilante who pursued and eventually shot Trayvon Martin.

Zimmerman, who aspired to be a police officer and had taken part in a citizen?s patrol sponsored by the local Sheriff?s Office, called 911 to report that Trayvon ? an invited guest in the gated community who was minding his own business ? appeared ?suspicious.? Told by a police dispatcher not to follow Trayvon, Zimmerman did anyway. He confronted Trayvon, provoking a fight he apparently began to lose before pulling a gun and killing the unarmed teenager. Despite the fact that he was the unambiguous aggressor, Zimmerman claimed to act in self-defense, and wasn?t arrested.

Millions of people are understandably outraged by the needless death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. How many of them have heard of 16-year-old U.S. citizen Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, who was murdered in a missile strike ordered by Barack Obama? That crime resulted from a decision-making process not much different from the one followed by George Zimmerman, with such tragic and unnecessary consequences.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 27, 2012

U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups has described as ?astounding? the FBI?s claim that critical video of the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing has simply gone ?missing.?

The ruling was issued in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue, whose brother Kenney was murdered by federal agents in Oklahoma shortly after the 1995 terrorist attack. Kenney Trentadue was mistaken for Richard Lee Guthrie, a member of a white supremacist bank robbery ring who was implicated in the bombing. Guthrie, like Kenney Trentadue, died in federal custody in a convenient and highly suspicious ?suicide.?

Jesse Trentadue was informed of this case of mistaken identity a decade and a half ago. When he started looking into his brother?s death, a deputy attorney general took a personal interest in covering up the matter. That official, Eric Holder, is now the U.S. Attorney General.

In addition to concealing the Justice Department?s role in the murder of Kenney Trentadue, Holder is concealing an ongoing operation called ?PATCON? ? a campaign to infiltrate and radicalize elements the so-called right wing in order to create a politically useful government-controlled domestic terrorist ?enemy.? The OKC bombing was the most murderous product of the FBI?s PATCON operation. It most likely won?t be the last.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 26, 2012

Since 2006, reporter Neil Shea has spent a great deal of time embedded with U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan. Prompted, in part, by the recent murder spree allegedly committed by SSgt. Robert Bales ? who is accused of slaughtering 17 Afghan civilians, including at least nine children ? Shea has published in The American Scholar an unvarnished account of his experiences with a unit he calls the Destroyer platoon. Shea?s essay is an unbearably vivid depiction of the wages of permanent war.

The soldiers whose company Shea kept, he writes, ?were men who enjoyed demolishing Afghan houses, men who shot dogs in the face.? One member of the platoon recalled that the rules of engagement in his last deployment were ?Make sure nothing lives. Cows [are] Taliban food. Sheep [are] Taliban food. Donkeys [are] Taliban transportation. Kill everything.?

The basest and most vicious impulses of fallen human nature had been laid bare by what Shea calls the ?subhuman wash of aggression.? When not on duty, the troops amused themselves with ?homoerotic jokes? and idle talk about abusing or killing their wives and girlfriends back home.

As the platoon sergeant said, ?This is where I come to do f***ed-up things so I don?t do them at home.? That habit, once acquired, will be difficult to break.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 23, 2012

Terrance Huff of Hamilton, Ohio was heading home from a Star Trek convention last December when he and his friend had the misfortune of encountering a Collinsville, Illinois police officer named Michael Reichert. Officer Reichert spied Huff?s vehicle ? a late-model SUV with out-of-state plates ? and engineered an excuse for a traffic stop.

Reichert falsely claimed that Huff had failed to maintain his lane. This was the first of an incessant barrage of lies the officer employed to create what he considered ?reasonable suspicion? sufficient to justify searching the van. After obliquely threatening to impound the van and arrest Huff, Reichert deployed his drug dog, tapping on the vehicle to prompt the animal to ?indicate? that drugs were inside.

A search of the vehicle yielded nothing ? yet Reichert insisted that there was evidence of marijuana residue on the floorboards. This was another lie, as Huff ? a professional filmmaker ? was able to document in a short video he made about the encounter.

Several years ago, Reichert was fired for lying. Last year he received two awards from the department, including Officer of the Month, for his proficiency in manufacturing drug stops using the same tactics that once got him fired. Michael Reichert is an incorrigible liar and, apparently for that reason, an exemplary cop.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 22, 2012

Mitch Faber of Burnsville, Minnesota was arrested on his way to work, booked into jail without bond, and then released to house arrest. He has never stolen anything or harmed another person, nor did he have unpaid traffic tickets or even an overdue library book. His supposed offense was a failure to finish the siding on his home.

Five years ago, Faber received a notice from the self-important functionaries who run the municipal government ordering him to finish the siding on his home. Faber received several additional letters insisting that his efforts were unsatisfactory. Two years ago ? after spending more than $12,000 to upgrade his home -- he received a court summons. In November of last year, he was shanghaied by Sheriff?s deputies and taken to jail.

?[I was] walking around in a green and white jump suit, I had to shower in front of a sheriff, I was shackled, my wrists were handcuffed to my waist ? for siding,? Faber recalls.

Like practically everybody else, Faber has suffered severe economic hardship, which explains his failure to finish a project that was nobody?s business but his own. Faber?s experience demonstrates the capacity for unfiltered tyranny inherent in every government of any size.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 21, 2012

Civilian disarmament advocates have implicated Florida?s ?Stand Your Ground? self-defense law in the shooting death of 17-year-old Miami resident Trayvon Martin by self-appointed crime watch ?captain? George Zimmerman on February 17. The Sanford, Florida Police have refused to charge Zimmerman.

Martin, a young black man, was entitled to be where he was; he posed no threat to Zimmerman, who had no legal right to detain him. Martin was unarmed; Zimmerman, who had a gun, outweighed the victim by more than 100 pounds. Several witnesses described Zimmerman as the aggressor; for some reason, the police ignored those accounts, going so far as to contradict one witness by saying that it was Zimmerman, rather than Martin, who had cried for help before the shooting took place.

According to ABC, ?The Sanford Police Department says it stands by its investigation, and that it was not race or incompetence that prevented it from arresting Zimmerman but the law.? This is patently untrue ? but that claim certainly fits the prejudices of both civilian disarmament groups and police unions, all of whom oppose ?stand your ground? laws recognizing the right to armed self-defense.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.