Santa Claus, also known by his friends as James Peterson, was arrested after spreading holiday cheer and chalk with young people in front of the Texas capitol building on the 21st. An occupy activist who was giving out chalk to children while dressed as Santa was well received in the plaza, but as he left, Texas DPS officers chased him down and handcuffed him. The crowd appears shocked, one woman yelling out in confusion, “You’re arresting Santa Claus?!”
The jolly red man asks numerous times, “Why am I being arrested?” After a minute, they tell him that he was chalking the sidewalk. A few in the crowd having filmed the entire time tell police that everyone was chalking, to which a female officer states, “You’re the only report that we got of chalking.” (more…)
The Ridley Report has recently been publishing continued analysis of the court victory for the independent journalist following his arrest in May of 2011. Three months later, Ridley was acquitted at a bench trial of a misdemeanor charge of trespassing, and a detailed summary of the trial was posted to Free Concord the following day.
A playlist on the Ridley Report youtube channel documents all of his own coverage beginning with the arrest and protests shortly thereafter, and continuing with analyzed video from the trial of key moments. On December 1 of this year, a video published which described a possible continuation of the case into legal land, this time in the form of a civil lawsuit against the Nashua police. Illustrated with claymation produced by another youtube content creator, the video entitled, Nashua police reject demand for groper’s dismissal linked to this information posted to a public forum by Ridley.
As you may recall, Nashua police arrested me while I was trying to film their actions outside a hotel in which Joe Biden was speaking. In the process of searching me, the arresting officer Denis Linehan touched my genitals. After our defeat of trespassing charges in court, my lawyer Stephen Martin has helped me issue a pair of demands. If met, we would drop suit. The initial demand called for monetary damages in the $15,000 range. When the city rejected that we represented that firing Linehan would be enough to prevent the suit. As expected, city attorney Brian Cullen has rejected that offer too. The city has however indicated a willingness to accept some other non-monetary settlement.
Throughout this month, four additional videos of highlights from the criminal trial have been uploaded. You can see even more edited portions of the trial created in 2011 on the playlist. (more…)
It comes as a modest victory that the case of State v Garret Ean, relative to a bicycle headlamp violation dating back to June 2011, was closed without a guilty finding on December 18. Judge M. Kristin Spath issued the order which I received on the 20th stating that, “The court is using its discretion pursuant to RSA 262:42 and placing this complaint on file without a finding for a period of six months…” This ‘neither guilty nor not-guilty’ ruling is a legislative creation for New Hampshire courts which reads, “A complaint against a person…may be placed on file at the discretion of the court, if the violation appears to have been unintentional, or if no person or property could have been endangered thereby.” This provision applies most to the ambiguous motor vehicle statutes and some other infractions that do not fall under the more straightforward criminal code. While I complete a summary article on the entire court performance, here is a brief history of the case chronicled with court documents.
The first court appearance I had for this incident was in September 2011, when I received discovery from the state and traded with them my evidence and witness list. The case was continued a number of times while my witness was traveling. When a date of late September 2012 was set for the trial, I was concerned that my witness may not have returned to New Hampshire by this time. Before I had a chance to file another continuance request, I received one from the state’s attorney Heather Flanner, which requested the trial be moved to a date later than October 25. I did not object to the continuance, but apparently it must have been withdrawn by the prosecution, because on September 28, I received a Notice of Fine from the court, claiming that I had been found guilty in abstentia for a trial date that I had missed on September 25. (more…)
Ridley has released the second half of his ambush interview with Department of Homeland Security spokesman Aaron Snipe. Part 2 begins where the first left off, with Snipe denying that US forces tortured a taxi driver in Afghanistan to death. Ridley responds emotively when Snipe repeats, “That’s not true” with, “He wasn’t tortured to death?! He’s dead!” The suited handler, who at this time is walking in advance of Snipe calls over his shoulder, “Do you really want to respond to this?” While Snipe continues to play politician and give fluffy, pro-US policy answers, Ridley lets his frustration show but surprisingly does not cause the spokesman to flee into the camera-free zone. He gets another 90 seconds of dialogue, including a response noting that “President Obama has banned torture, the United States does not torture. That’s core to American foreign policy.” Text flashes on the screen interjecting that if he were thinking on his feet, he would have asked how Obama’s supposed torture ban meshes with the mistreatment of Bradley Manning.
The remainder of the video features polite security guards, and Dave considering on camera whether to conduct a second ambush interview after the closed event or consider the first complete. Walking out, he explains his reasoning. Independent of how Snipe painted roses around the empire, he maintained the utmost professionalism doing it.
Yesterday an appearance on Peace Love Liberty Radio from last week was released as an isolated segment. Today was published another radio appearance by Garret Ean on the Ladies in Keene program, which airs Saturdays from 11pm to 1am on the Liberty Radio Network. In the first of two segments, hosts Cecilia and Shaunna welcome Garret to discuss videos recently produced in the area. The second segment of the program finds them on the subject of UAV drone warfare. The 18 minute piece has been illustrated with relevant videos. You can hear the entire December 11 episode as linked.
