It’s all arbitrary. In Keene, sometimes activists are arrested for wearing hats, sometimes not. Sometimes people are threatened and arrested for using video cameras in the court lobby, sometimes not. Here’s video of Free Talk Live host Mark Edge taking a speeding ticket to trial and being found guilty. You’ll also see court security attempting to intimidate Liberty on Tour’s Pete and Ademo into removing hats and gum. They fail. Chief of security Lance Walton instructs the lumbering goons to back off and let the robed man decide, then the robed man ignores the hats and gum.
Derrick Horton is a newer mover to Keene from Philly. He was out at the court yesterday doing outreach when he heard his friend Ademo Freeman was arrested for talking to Edward Burke, Keene district court’s robed man. Derrick went to investigate with his video camera, and was threatened and arrested for recording video in the same court lobby where videographers Dave Ridley and Sam Dodson have also been arrested for the same thing. Here’s his video of what happened, which also includes activist Jason Repsher being threatened by the same court security officers that arrest Derrick later. Why was Repsher not arrested when Derrick was? I’d speculate because Repsher is twice the size of Derrick. The court bullies picked on the little guy:
Derrick has been charged (and released) with the old standby, “disorderly conduct”.
Lori Stabile from Masslive.com reports from Palmer, MA, where Josh Noone‘s brother Jay, a fireman, has never paid property tax on his home. Or, what he thought was his home. Now the town government people are preparing to steal it and throw Jay’s family out into the street. Activists drove down from Keene on what was supposed to be the day of eviction in a show of support. The government people did not make a move on Jay yesterday, but it’s probably only a matter of them waiting until the supporters drop off. Unlike the government guys who threaten and steal for a living, we actually have to be productive in the market to succeed. Here’s masslive’s story:
PALMER – As the town prepared to hold a tax-title auction on Tuesday at the Town Building, a group of people gathered at the home of Joseph F. “Jay” Noone at 3157 Main St. in Bondsville to protest his eviction notice over non-payment of $23,000 in taxes.
During the auction, two men from Keene, N.H., videotaped the proceedings; beforehand, they asked questions of Police Chief Robert P. Frydryk about what was happening.
Pete Eyre, wearing a T-shirt that said “I don’t talk to police, I record them,” said they are part of libertyontour.com, which, according to its website, advocates for self-governance, personal responsibility and consensual interactions. They left the auction after the first sale to join the group at Noone’s. (more…)
Local Keene-native liberty activist Kate Ager has written a blog post on her facebook regarding this morning’s kidnapping of Ademo Freeman and Derrick Horton:
I woke up this morning (Tuesday June 28, 2011) to a Keene 411 text message alerting me that, “Ademo Freeman just got arrested at city hall,” so I went down there. When I arrived, I passed Jason Repsher downstairs who was doing Don’t Take the Plea outreach and proceeded to the second floor where the first thing I saw upon opening the door was a Keene Police officer grabbing Derrick Horton’s arm; he was ordered to put his camera on the counter, placed under arrest and taken into a back room. Ademo, who was being held in the conference room, was taken to a room off to the side where I could see him through the window and spoken to by multiple police officers. After their encounter, Ademo was taken to the Keene Police Department. Jason Repsher stayed at the Keene District Court to watch Derrick’s proceedings while Rich Paul and I went to the police department to gain further information about Ademo. At the police department, the woman at the front desk said that she did not know any information and would speak with the arresting officer when he was free for a moment. We checked in with her multiple times, but she did not follow through. About forty-five minutes after arriving, I was standing outside with Rich and Jason, when Officer Short drove into the parking lot and informed us that Derrick had been transported to the police department and would be released shortly, and Ademo was being charged with a Class B Felony, Improper Influence [*]. (more…)
Yes, it is a crime to feed people in public in Orlando. Heroic civil disobedients continue to return to a public park where each time they attempt to feed homeless people and other hungry folks, the local bicycle gang rides in and kidnaps the servers. Here are multiple videos of the various abductions over the last two weeks, courtesy Orlando Copwatch. Orlando’s John Kurtz will be at Porcfest next week along with other Orlando activists: (It’s also worth noting that I don’t agree with the chant heard in these videos of, “Food is a right, not a privilege”. Food is neither. It’s a product that should be able to be sold or given away in whatever non-fraudulent way the people who have it want. It would be more accurate to say that the ability to give away or sell food is a right, not a privilege. That said, one need not agree with the liberty viewpoint to do attention-worthy civil disobedience. These activists are courageous to continue going back and getting arrested again and again.)