Last weekend, he struck again. This time against a peaceful homeless-awareness chalking event on Central Square. Members of the Unitarian Universalist church had come out and traced outlines of their bodies to bring awareness to the 42 deaths of homeless people in New Hampshire in 2014. According to a report by the Keene Sentinel’s Martha Shanahan and Alyssa Dandrea, shortly after the event an unidentified man came out of a local business and attacked the chalkings with a brush and water. Despite being confronted by witnesses who asked him to stop, he continued his destruction.
Homeless Awareness Chalking: Pre-Attack Photo by Susan MacNeil
I reached out to witnesses in the case and showed them a picture and video of local chalk hater Matthew Schmidt in action and they confirmed that yes, it was him. I wasn’t surprised, of course, but I wanted to wait until I’d confirmed it with the witnesses rather than post an article speculating it was him. So, consider it confirmed.
Does Schmidt hate homeless people? Does he hate artwork? Does he hate children? He sure seems to have plenty of hate, for whatever reason. I hope someday he finds peace.
Local government bureaucrats in Keene are infringing on my right to bear arms.
In July I applied for a concealed carry license. One man, Ken Meola, denied it. I appealed, and this week the news came back: Judge Burke denied my appeal.
Judge Burke’s decision means that while it is perfectly legal for me to carry a firearm openly, it is a crime for me to conceal that firearm, for example by putting on a winter jacket.
The next step is to move on to the State Supreme Court. I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to do that, but I’ll give another update when I speak with my attorney.
I’m disappointed about this decision, but I’m not surprised. The State is a many-tentacled beast, and the different facets of it protect each other. First the legislators did their part by camouflaging a restriction as a right: they call NH “shall issue” but ultimately leave the power of permission to one man working for the police. Then the police did their part to deny my rights, essentially arguing that they are restricting my freedoms because I don’t respect them. Finally, appeals are made to lawyers who also work for the State.
Irregularly for weeks, Matthew “Boston Strong” Schmidt has driven by the intersection of Leverett and River streets in his Amari Plumbing work truck and personal vehicles, laying on his horn and screaming “Get a job!” at the top of his lungs. Rich Paul, who lives in one of the homes at the intersection, decided to go down and confront Boston yesterday after he again drove by honking angrily.
To be clear, Boston has been engaging in this un-neighborly behavior long before his wife Jennifer Schmidt was recently issued a temporary stalking order for allegedly threatening to kill a 10-year-old boy with a knife. WMUR covered that story after it broke here on Free Keene, but WMUR did not mention any names in the case. WMUR also said that Jennifer Schmidt would not talk to the media until they speak to their attorney. In the video of Rich’s confrontation taken by activist David Crawford, Matthew broke the family’s silence in the case, alleging the boy in question was a bully, presumably towards their daughter.
When informed multiple times that his honking had disturbed children from their slumber, Boston was unapologetic. In fact, he further promises to, “make their lives a living nightmare.”
Despite seeming to have some grievance against what he calls the “shithole” on the corner, the Shire Free Church-owned LRN.FM studio and Keene Activist Center, Boston seems to think that all the neighbors who aren’t liberty activists really appreciate his loud honking and screaming. At one point he even claims, “Everybody loves what I’m doing. They love it.”
This delusion is typical of the local hater – because the people who they are close to appear to agree with them, they believe that “everybody” agrees with them. The reality is that people have different opinions. Some people in Keene dislike some things activists do, but like others. Some people like some activists but dislike others. Some love what we do. Some hate what we do. Anyone who’s not in an echo chamber of hate would understand that. Of course if any of his friends or acquaintances actually disagree with him, they probably keep their mouths shut for fear of his wrath.
A prominent member of local hate group, “STOP FREE KEENE!!!“, Jennifer Schmidt has been issued a temporary stalking order by Keene district court’s judge Edward J Burke. Schmidt is alleged to have stalked and threatened to kill a ten-year-old boy with a knife. She has been ordered to stay 300 feet away from the boy in question and to have no contact with him, pending a full hearing in court on December 29th at 1:30pm.
In the stalking petition filed on December 5th by Anne M. Tallon, it is alleged that Schmidt, aged 40, began to stalk a boy, aged 10, (whose name I’ve redacted from the PDF) in October by coming to Fuller Elementary School and glaring at the boy while he was on the playground and when he got out of school. The petition says school admins attempted to bar Schmidt from the playground and parking lot but were unsuccessful. A couple of weeks later, the same day that Keene school district assistant superintendent Dan Black informed Schmidt she was prohibited from being on the playground during school hours, Schmidt allegedly approached the boy in Hannaford and told him to, “Fuck off”. Later in November, Schmidt is alleged to have come to the boy’s home and given him the finger. Finally, on December 1st, Schmidt allegedly approached, brandished a knife, and threatened to kill the boy if he didn’t stay away from her daughter.
Matt “Boston Strong” Schmidt
Schmidt, who is the owner of Embellish Floral Studio in Keene, lives down River street from the boy and Ms. Tallon and a few houses up the street from the Keene Activist Center. She is better known as the perennially angry-looking wife of Matthew “Boston Strong” Schmidt, who has obsessively gone on a one-man mission to destroy peaceful chalkings drawn by children and adults alike in downtown Keene. Matthew regularly drives by the Keene Activist Center yelling “Get a job!” at the top of his lungs, to the detriment of the peace of the neighborhood.
These allegations are further examples of the violent and dangerous nature of many of the SFK!!! group‘s participants. Community members should be on alert for this potentially dangerous couple who moved to Keene from Boston several years ago and appear to have brought along their big government ways of threats and intimidation.
The headlines are all over New England media: Keene Police have released photos of suspects from the Pumpkin Fest 2014 riots. Inevitably, critics of liberty activists in Keene, and those who are confused and angry about Cop Block will tend to think liberty-oriented people are anti-police, because we so frequently criticize them for various things. It’s a common misunderstanding.
Many in the freedom movement, including myself, value the idea of protection services, which is what the police are supposed to be. While I’d prefer competition among protection agencies and consent-based funding of the agencies, while we have a monopoly provider, as we do today, I’d prefer they investigate real crimes, and I support them when they do.
Once upon a time the government’s police were referred to as peace officers, but now they are “law enforcement officers”, which is a whole different role and mindset.
During the Pumpkin Fest riots, peace officers would have acted to stop the violence (bottle throwing, fighting), property destruction (destroying street signs, tossing cars and dumpsters), and trespass (people going unwanted, onto private property). Law Enforcement Officers, on the other hand, arrest people for all kinds of nonsense things like open container, underage drinking, cannabis possession, and various other “malum prohibitum” victimless “crimes”. Every moment they spend harassing a young person for drinking or smoking is a moment they can’t be investigating actual crimes that have victims.
Should you, dear reader, want to assist in identifying those culpable of violence and destruction of property, here are the raw videos that I used to make the finished video news package you saw here a few days ago. The vids are uploaded in full 1080p so IDing people will be a little easier than by trying to use the 720p package I put out on the main Free Keene youtube channel. Click to see all the videos on Fr33manTVraw.
If you want to reach Joel Chidester at Keene police with an ID of one of the aggressors you see in the raw videos, you can call him at (more…)
Pumpkin Fest organizer Ruth Sterling made international headlines this weekend when during a live broadcast from her event on Cheshire TV by local newsman Jared Goodell, she stormed onto the set, grabbed at his microphone and threatened to take him off the air. With over 100,000 views and climbing, the original clip is one of the top five most popular videos of all time on the Free Keene youtube channel.
Sterling was interviewed this morning on WKBK by Dan Mitchell where she complained that the original viral clip did not show the context of what made her storm the set. If you recall from the clip, she alleged that Jared had been “inciting” people, “alarming” pumpkin fest attendees, and “self-promoting”. As you can see in this clip which shows what came before the original, he’s doing none of those things – he’s merely reporting what he’s heard and reading a statement from the president of Keene State College. All I’ve edited out of the following clip is the commercial break, which lasted for about 1 minute:
