It has been one year since the 2014 Keene Pumpkin Festival and subsequent riot which spilled into the streets through the following morning. While snipers perched above the festivities for the second year in a row, no one was aware at the time that the riots would spell the end of PumpkinFest as a downtown Keene tradition. This saturday, the Cheshire Fairgrounds in Swanzey as well as the city of Laconia will be hosting their own independent Pumpkinfests. With few places to position snipers at the fairgrounds, unless special towers are brought in, there will likely not be such a militarized presence there. The situation in Laconia is more likely to host police with rifles, as also the organizer of previous Keene Pumpkinfests, ‘Let It Shine’ is also coordinating this year’s Laconia event.
In the time since last year’s chaos, I had since discovered two different articles hosted by the Blaze and Vocativ which feature content from facebook posts I had made that day. While I was unsure whether or not I had in fact captured an image of someone pointing a firearm in my direction, upon seeing the image as presented in the Vocativ piece, it appears to very clearly be a rifle aimed at the are where I was filming from (which was a heavily populated area at the time).
Laconia police are likely stocked up on riot gear as part of their preparation for the motorcycle weekend sponsored there each year. With luck, the relocated festival won’t deteriorate into a glass bottle war, and riot squads will not make an appearance.
Sadly, Ademo did not realize this as he’d not seen any official paperwork the entire time he was in custody in Kansas. Considering he was expecting to be held until extradition to Indiana and further held in Indiana’s jail pre-trial, he decided to have his friends and supporters bail him out. Only while he was getting bailed did he discover that he was not actually facing any felonies. So, his friends unknowingly paid $800 to a bail bondsman (non-refundable) to likely have him released a day early. (His hearing in front of a judge was to be Monday, where he’d likely have been released, as Noblesville will not extradite for that misdemeanor charge.) Ademo commented in an extended interview on tonight’s Free Talk Live that had he been fully informed, he’d have chosen to sit in jail and not be bailed out. We had him on-air to discuss his situation for most of our second hour (click here to jump straight to the interview).
Cop Block’s Mobile Accountability for Cops tour will hit the road again soon, though the previously planned stops will have to be rescheduled as they still have to clear up the warrants in Indiana (there’s one for Ademo’s tourmate, Brian Sumner as well). Stay tuned to Cop Block’s MAC Tour page for the latest.
Early this morning, Free Keene broke the news that Cop Block founder Ademo Freeman was arrested on a warrant for felony “criminal mischief”. We now have a copy of the case summary from Indiana, which shows the charge is only a class B misdemeanor, not a felony.
So, that’s the good news. The bad news is he’s still in jail, likely until Monday afternoon’s scheduled court appearance in Kansas, where he was arrested for the warrant that the Shawnee, IN police claimed was for a felony.
The War on Chalk continues nationwide with tonight’s arrest of Cop Block founder and Free Keene blogger Ademo Freeman. Ademo has been arrested in Shawnee, KS on a felony warrant purportedly for “criminal mischief” charges over chalking the Noblesville, IN police department a couple of weeks ago. Ademo is expected to be arraigned on Monday and whether he’ll be extradited to Indiana remains to be seen.
The Noblesville PD chalking incident happened the day before Ademo and Brian Sumner kicked off the Cop Block Mobile Accountability for Cops (MAC) tour. According to their post about the incident, Cop Blockers visited Noblesville police department and used liquid chalk to write various messages directed toward and about the police. Later on, they are threatened by multiple Noblesville cops in a parking lot – see the video here. The gang members detain Ademo and Brian for a quarter-hour and claim that one of “their group” used real paint during the chalking outside the PD.
Now Ademo is in Johnson county jail in Kansas on a felony warrant. As a result, requests for calls to the jail and PD rang out on Facebook. Initially, the jail denied having him and police on the phone played games like one claiming his first name was “deputy” (I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard that one.):
Should you wish to call the jail and/or police and express yourself, here are the numbers: Shawnee PD: 913-631-2150. Johnson County Jail: 913-715-5100. Here’s the agency that issued the warrant, Noblesville PD: 317-776-1588
If you think the massive call flood that these arrests trigger is awesome, then imagine what it would be like if those people willing to call a jail in favor of setting someone peaceful free from captivity were instead willing to move to the same geographic area. Imagine the cop blocking that could be possible. Rather than call the jail, you could go there with others. You could even go to the homes of the people who kidnapped Ademo. Ademo moved to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project. Here are 101 reasons why you should consider doing the same thing.
The criminal gang known as the “city of Portsmouth” is now openly threatening to ticket illegal UBER drivers like Christopher David, who has pledged ongoing civil disobedience. Christopher’s already lawyered up and is ready to record any encounters with Portsmouth police.
Portsmouth city councilor Brad Lown, in an article at Seacoast Online, claims the city gang, “want UBER to be here”. No, what they want is for UBER and its drivers to bow to their unnecessary regulations. They want CONTROL. They want money. He also probably doesn’t want the negative press they’ll get when the cops eventually target Christopher and anyone else brave enough to face a $500 ticket.
The Portsmouth city attorney claims they’ll begin enforcing the ordinance on UBER drivers in the, “very foreseeable near future”, whatever that means. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest in this saga.
Darryl and I went to today’s meet-n-greet event at Panera in Keene for yet another presidential candidate in Keene, this time former New York governor George Pataki. Unlike most candidates and to his credit (he doesn’t deserve credit for much else), Pataki actually answered both of our questions. Darryl asked about general election debate restrictions and I inquired why he was having his campaign event at a gun-free-zone. Here’s the video:
