A report this morning by Kat Kanning relays the unfortunate news that Russell Kanning has been arrested on federal warrants on what are likely chalk related charges (or failure to pay fines related to chalking).
Suddenly alone in a truck stop in MO. We had a headlight go out. They found warrants for Waco and NH chalking incidents. Background checks hadn’t found the warrants, so Russell thought they’d been dropped. Too late at night for me to talk to anyone. They say there’s no bond, they’re dragging him off to TX or NH.
Russell has been arrested and ticketed for chalking FREE BRADLEY MANNING on a retaining wall at the federal building in Concord, NH and he was arrested in Waco, TX while chalking in support of Nazry Mustakim, who was facing deportation at the time but has since won his freedom to remain in the US. Kat was the first person videorecorded being arrested on FreeConcordTV in the blog’s debut video Federal War on Chalk Begins.
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…)
The best quote in the piece is, “It’s really disturbing to think about what 20,000 of them – assuming they are all serious about coming here – could do to New Hampshire.”
The statists know we are making a difference, and they are frightened to death of more liberty activists coming here. Remember, we’re only just getting started, with only about 1,100 liberty activists here for the FSP.
If it wasn’t obvious that the FSP is the most effective movement for liberty in existence, this article should solidify it. No other liberty migration can claim this success. No other liberty movement can claim this impact. If you love liberty, you need to be here. Please join the Free State Project today and move ASAP.
Aaron Gill sees an inherent contradiction in the Free State Project and what he believes to be its stated mission, which is to get 20,000 people to move to New Hampshire from other states in order to establish a libertarian utopia where limited government exists only to protect individual rights – and little else.
It’s a project that Gill, a Democrat, believes will backfire on the Free State movement and its participants. (more…)
Attorney Knowlton has told me that Assistant US Attorney Emery Hurley is a pretty cool guy, so please remember the things he writes are done on behalf of his client. The man could be a staunch civil libertarian for all we know, but his client happens to be the US of A at the moment.
CBP is hands-down the most powerful of any law enforcement agency in our country because they’re located at the border. No one can film what they do, they “lose” exculpatory video evidence when it suits them, and with officers doing things like this, they deserve some serious enhanced public scrutiny.
If you’d like to share with me your opinions (good or bad), please feel free to do so by emailing me at bbraduma at gmail dot com. If you’d like to do so anonymously you can easily find an anonymous email provider through Google.
Kind donations to fund the litigation can be made to the chip-in… or if you prefer the “super secret squirrel funding method,” through Bitcoin: 19vQDqJzXZWkxHTCtgpoYJwnvGYghHu4AE
