Feds Remarkable Investigations Lead to Several Arrests

In a time where many people protesting and are vandalizing wearing protective virus face coverings, Federal law enforcement is doing extraordinary work to identify the criminals. Several arrests have been made and ATF is asking for the public’s help to assist in more identifications.

WASHINGTON, DC — Four men were charged with destruction of federal property in connection with an attempt to tear down a status in Lafayette Square, according to federal prosecutors. Only one has been arrested so far, and he will appear Monday in U.S. District Court related to the attempt to tear down the statue of Andrew Jackson.

Prosecutors said one of the suspects — Lee Michael Cantrell, 47, of Virginia — was seen on video using a wooden board and yellow strap trying to pull the statue off its base June 22.

Graham Lloyd, 37, of Maine, handed a hammer to an unknown person and was seen pulling on ropes, according to authorities. He also is accused of breaking off and destroying the wheels of cannons that were on the statue’s base.

Connor Matthew Judd, 20, of Washington, D.C., was trying to pull down the statue, while 37-year-old Ryan Lane of Maryland attached a rope to one part of the statue and pulled on another roped tied elsewhere, prosecutors said, citing the video.

Judd was arrested Friday, appeared in Superior Court of the District of Columbia Saturday and will appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robin M. Meriweather Monday. Prosecutors said the three other men have not been taken into custody yet.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt said Judd was arrested at home “without incident.”

All were charged by criminal complaint, which is a formal accusation for establishing probable cause and not evidence of guilt., officials said.

While the U.S. Park Police and FBI took the lead on the investigation, the Metropolitan Department provided “significant assistance,” according to a statement from prosecutors. More here.

*** An exceptional piece of work has led to the arrest of the ring leader. His name is Jason Charter. A look at his Twitter feed was likely an easy pathway to identification.

This is his Twitter banner and he describes himself as: Political activist/organizer. #IAmAntifa #SmashRacism

So, Jason: Image you were in fact found and arrested eh? Care to comment now?

 

Then Jason thought it was cool to re-Tweet this:

 

***

Law enforcement sources tell Fox News that Jason Charter was arrested at his residence Thursday morning, without incident, and charged with destruction of federal property. These sources add that Charter has connections to Antifa and was in a leadership role on the night of June 22 when a large group of protesters tried to pull down the statue.

Protesters try to topple Andrew Jackson statue in Washington's Lafayette Park

“They were very organized,” a federal law enforcement official said. “Charter was on top of the statue and directing people … they had acid, chisels, straps and a human chain preventing police from getting to the statue.”

Charter is expected to make an appearance — likely virtual — in U.S. District Court in Washington on Thursday, Fox News is told.

Protesters say the Andrew Jackson statue is offensive because he was a slave owner and because of his treatment of Native Americans. Another man, Graham Lloyd, 37, turned himself in for similar charges in Portland, Maine, and had an initial appearance in federal court there on Wednesday afternoon. Lloyd is also accused of destruction of federal property for his role in the attempt to take down the Jackson statue. Source

 

 

 

The Fault Lines of Cutting Law Enforcement Budgets

Los Angeles Mayor, Eric Garcetti has been working to trim the budgets of LAPD since 2017 and now in 2020 the proposed cuts are in the range of $150 million and passed the city council vote by 12-2.  He got major support from progressive groups for certain including CAIR-LA. He also had the support of Senator Kamala Harris (CA-D). The money is not a savings to local taxpayers but rather is being routed instead to helping communities of color. Tuesday’s unanimous city council vote to replace police officers with unarmed crisis response teams for nonviolent emergency calls. A portion of the money will be used to limit the furlough of municipal employees. In April, Mayor Eric Garcetti proposed furloughing 15,000 civilian employees due to the revenue shortfalls brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. This comes after the L.A. Unified School District Board of Education voted Tuesday night to slash the school police budget by $25 million, or 35%. According to city documents, the city’s revenue for 2019-2020 is estimated to be $6.32 billion, about $253.5 million below the 2019-2020 proposed budget.

Fault line is the consequence to public safety and leaving schools vulnerable to chaos instigated by gangs and unruly students, even more of a soft target.

In 2018, Minneapolis already cut the police budget by $1 million. Reclaim the Block, a grassroots organization that has been trying to divest the police department’s budget into crime and violence prevention programs. More cuts still to come to law enforcement while the reprogramming to prevention programs since 2018 have failed.

Reclaim the Block's demands weren't met, but organizers call this a step in the right direction.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced a plan to reduce the city’s police budget and reallocate those funds to social programs that benefit black communities. The plan does not specify how much it plans on cutting, but comes amid a $1.7 billion budget shortfall for the city.

In Philadelphia, the Mayor Jim Kenney is proposing cutting the city’s main civilian police oversight board while adding $23 million in new funds to law enforcement, according to WHYY.

In Phoenix, activists are requesting a 25 percent reduction in the police department’s budget but the city council has refused to consider the motion, according to the Arizona Republic.

Mayor Jenny Durkan proposed cutting the Seattle Police Department’s budget by about 5% through the rest of the year, but some elected officials and protesters say that falls far short of what they are demanding. Durkan said the city needs to “rethink and reimagine policing.” Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best similarly said more needs to be done to “maintain the trust of the community.”

Then there is the big one, New York. The New York City Council voted to pass an $88 billion budget just after midnight on Wednesday morning, in which funding for the NYPD was cut by roughly $1 billion.

The city faces a roughly $9 billion budget shortfall because of business closures stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. Mayor Bill de Blasio has insisted that cuts to the NYPD will not be detrimental to public safety, even as shootings have risen in the city since the beginning of 2020.

The mayor had two goals for this budget: maintain safety and invest in youth and our hardest-hit communities.

Not one mayor or city council has defined these social programs that will be funded by the re-routing of police department operating funds reductions. Yet, as we have civil society breakdown across the country and peace in cities and neighborhoods across the nation being replaced with gun fire, riots and looting, those unknown social programs don’t address public safety or incarceration of criminals arrested and found guilty of hundreds of unlawful acts.

source

Defunding law enforcement is not going to stop protest road blocks causing major jams in traffic and the ability to move freely. Defunding law enforcement is not going to stop defacing private business or government property and the threats to private citizens at their own homes.

‘Black Lives Matter did not hold a protest yesterday': BLM ...

Fear is the fault line and the threat matrix builds when it comes to college campuses, small business, community events and even inside the work place. The burden of restoring law and order is not that of the Federal government but rather at the state and city level. The Federal government can make arrests when it comes to inter-state crimes or racketeering and can stop grants to states in violations to local and federal law. Citizens must challenge local leaders to protect and defend.

 

Executive Order to Protect Historic Monuments

When mob rule exceeds at grabbing power over law and authority, anarchy is real. Such is the case in several cities across the country where mayors have failed at the duty of public safety and protection. Sadly, the President has to issue an Executive Order to preserve historical monuments. Sure, perhaps there is a time for some to be moved and replaced but not by anarchists. It should be considered by a vote, that is the American way.

Trump issues warning amid vandalism, effort to topple ...

There is already a law that protects Federal property, meaning that of antiquity and assigned to the National Parks Service. So, one must challenge the mayor(s) and District Attorneys at this point. If even Al Sharpton says justice must be equal….heh…so be it…make it equal and applied as such.

“We are looking at long-term jail sentences for these vandals and these hoodlums and the anarchists and agitators, and call them whatever you want,” Trump said. “Some people don’t like that language, but that’s what they are. They’re bad people. They don’t love our country. And they’re not taking down our monuments. I just want to make that clear.”

The executive order as Trump described it appeared to be largely symbolic. Existing law already makes it criminal to destroy “any structure, plaque, statue, or other monument on public property commemorating the service of any person or persons in the armed forces of the United States.”

18 U.S. Code § 1369. Destruction of veterans’ memorials

(a)

Whoever, in a circumstance described in subsection (b), willfully injures or destroys, or attempts to injure or destroy, any structure, plaque, statue, or other monument on public property commemorating the service of any person or persons in the armed forces of the United States shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
(b) A circumstance described in this subsection is that—

(1)

in committing the offense described in subsection (a), the defendant travels or causes another to travel in interstate or foreign commerce, or uses the mail or an instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce; or
(2)

the structure, plaque, statue, or other monument described in subsection (a) is located on property owned by, or under the jurisdiction of, the Federal Government.
As reported by HuffPo in 2017:

Several states have laws that make it extremely difficult to remove Confederate monuments. Here are five of the strictest.

North Carolina

In 2015, then-Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, signed a bill that gave the North Carolina General Assembly full power over public “objects of remembrance.”

Earlier this week, a group of protesters toppled a Confederate statue in Durham, and on Thursday, dozens of people lined up to turn themselves in for the “crime.”

The current governor, Democrat Roy Cooper, has said that the monuments “should come down” and that he wants the state law repealed.

Alabama

Alabama’s law is new. In May, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act of 2017, which forbids “the relocation, removal, alteration, renaming, or disturbance of any architecturally significant building, memorial building, memorial street, or monument on public property which has been in place for 40 or more years.” Many of the nation’s Confederate monuments were erected in the early 20th century.

 The Committee on Alabama Monument Protection created by the act approves any modification to monuments.

Mississippi

 A Mississippi law says that statues, monuments, memorials or landmarks from previous wars cannot be removed unless they are being moved to another location or they obstruct drivers’ vision.

 Rep. John Moore (R-Miss.) told WTOK-TV in Meridian that he supports the law because the memorials can used to learn about history.

 “That’s one of the things about history,” Moore said. “If we cease to learn from it and don’t have reminders, we are doomed to repeat it.”

Georgia

 A law in the Peach State protects publicly owned military monuments from being relocated, removed, concealed, obscured or altered unless doing so would protect the monument or aid in its interpretation. A petition currently calls on state lawmakers to change the law.

Virginia

 In Virginia, ground zero of this latest iteration of the Confederate statue debate, it is illegal to disturb or interfere with any war monuments or memorials. There is an ongoing lawsuit over the Charlottesville City Council’s vote to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee that white supremacists and neo-Nazis gathered to defend. Opponents claim the removal of the statue is illegal under state law.

 

Meet the Law Firm(s) Representing Black Lives Matter

It is important as a primer not to conflate ANTIFA with Black Lives Matter, although there is certainly video evidence that ANTIFA has allied with BLM in many situations. By the way, for your pleasure, here is the author of  The Anti-Fascist Handbook, Mr. Mark Bray.

ANTIFA does however receive grants from Soros and likely Tom Steyer.

 

Anyway, so the objective here is to concentrate on Black Lives Matter as the movement has become much more aggressive and radical.

George Floyd and Black Lives Matter Protests: Live Updates - The ... source NYT’s

Meet the National Lawyers Guild.

According to historian Harvey Klehr, the NLG was allied with the Communist Party; in the 1930s a significant number of NLG founders had been members or fellow travelers of the Communist Party USA,[14] including Riemer and Joseph Brodsky of the CP’s International Labor Defense auxiliary.[10] During the McCarthy era, the NLG was accused by Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. as well as the House Un-American Activities Committee of being a Communist front organization.[15]

In 1937, Allan R. Rosenberg joined the NLG and remained a member as a late as 1956 during his second appearance before HUAC.[16]

Page scan of sequence 227

And that same radical platform is here today.

The National Lawyers Guild DC Chapter is involved in progressive, radical, and left-wing struggles, causes, and movements right here in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Legal observers and mass defense attorneys have assisted the Black Lives Matter movement, the Occupy DC protests, environmentalists opposed to area fracking and oil pipelines, immigrant rights activists, anti-war demonstrations, labor unionists and workers. The Chapter testified on behalf of marijuana legalization in D.C. and has launched a major investigation into mistreatment of prisoners at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison.

Guild attorneys, legal workers, law students, and other members continue to collaborate in sharing experience and expertise in the form of working groups, study groups, and social groups. Chapter events like happy hours and the annual Disorientation workshop for law students at area law schools, provide an environment where progressive, radical, and left-wing attorneys can network, share experience, and pass on wisdom.

Guild members are defending activists, representing immigrants facing deportation, testifying in federal and state legislatures against civil liberties cutbacks. They are using their experience and professional skills to help build the 21st Century grassroots movements that are and will be necessary to protect civil liberties and to defend democracy now and in the future.

There are chapters across the country. When San Francisco elects Chesa Boudin to District Attorney when he is a member of the NLG, you must determine if the DA in your area is as well. You see, they have events where Chesa Boudin is a keynote speaker:

Progressive Law Day is a free day-long conference, organized and led by law student members of the National Lawyers Guild, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, and open to legal workers, lawyers, activists, and anyone interested in learning about radical lawyering and legal work.

Radical is right, in fact it is referenced on several of their associated websites.

blair-anderson-lo-ferguson-oct NLG Legal Observer Blair Anderson at #FergusonOctober. (Photo: Cece McGuire)

The Mass Defense Committee (MDC) is a network of lawyers, legal workers and law students providing legal support for political activists, protesters and movements for social change.

MDC members in chapters across the country provide trainings, assistance in setting up temporary legal offices and legal support structures, and materials for supporting activists engaged in mass protests.

Mass Defense Support

The National Lawyers Guild can provide the following legal help to progressive organizations:

  • “Know your rights” trainings/workshops;
  • Meetings with, and advice to, organizers about protest actions, and legal consequences;
  • Legal Observers® at protests and other actions;
  • Help with setting up and running jail and bail support programs;
  • Legal representation in case of protest arrests.

Did you notice the item of legal observers? Well, the NLG does dispatch several observers to protests to not only advise but to capture video in or out of context at protest or demonstration events.

After training          _DSC1446  you can request observers….

Need to request Legal Observers?

Please email the Mass Defense Committee at [email protected]

Then there is the ubiquitous debate, rather attack on ICE.

In addition to calling and tweeting at ICE to demand the release of individuals in detention, for which you can use this FlattenICE toolkit (bit.ly/flattenICE), you now can write letters — no stamps or envelopes needed — with this Google Form!

While acting to #FlattenICE, use this great sustainable call-ins graphic (thanks to Havannah and Hien from APSC, also on p. 8 of the FlattenICE toolkit) and remember to TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.

Perhaps you are beginning to understand this all now right? Hold on there is yet another law firm you should know about.

But first we need to once again introduce Soros in the mix, of course. A nefarious division of his work is the Center for Popular Democracy. Got it? Okay, read on.

Trump demands Gov. Jay Inslee, Mayor Jenny Durkans 'take back' Seattle USAToday

There is this law firm known as Law for Black Lives. Law for Black Lives is a national community of radical lawyers and legal workers committed to transforming the law and building the power of organizing to defend, protect and advance Black Liberation across the globe. Now you know why the protests went world-wide, they are coordinated.

The Executive Director is Marbre Stahly-Butts.

Marbre Stahly-Butts is a former Soros Justice Fellow and now Policy Advocate at the Center for Popular Democracy. Her Soros Justice work focused on developing police reforms from the bottom up by organizing and working with families affected by aggressive policing practices in New York City. Stahly-Butts also works extensively on police and criminal justice reform with partners across the country. While in law school, Stahly-Butts focused on the intersection of criminal justice and civil rights, and gained legal experience with the Bronx Defenders, the Equal Justice Initiative, and the Prison Policy Initiative. Before law school Stahly-Butts worked in Zimbabwe organizing communities impacted by violence, and taught at Nelson Mandela’s alma mater in South Africa. Stahly-Butts is a city council designee to the Board appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

***

Law for Black Lives and the Center for Constitutional Rights hosted a webinar on April 16th focused on the use of militarization, criminalization and surveillance during times of crisis. While many of us work tirelessly to support our families and communities, the Government is laying the groundwork to turn this health crisis into a criminalization crisis. We have already seen the DOJ request additional detainment powers, Congress funnel almost a billion dollars to local law enforcement agencies and cities across the country to use police to enforce stay at home orders. Join us for  a discussion about the current response. Panelists will provide insight about past abuses of power- from Katrina to 9/11. Together we will explore how lawyers and organizers have mobilized to mitigate the harms of criminalization and the way forward in this moment. If you missed the webinar, check out the recording below!

The rest is up to you to connect more of what you find. Perhaps since the United States fought wars to defeat communism, it may be prudent to demand the IRS terminate the non-profit status of the National Lawyers Guild as just a start and counter-measure.

Meanwhile of course, while Black Lives do Matter, the same goes for any life in America. One has to consider if the BLM movement is at the expense to all other races or classes and threat to civil society? Just take a long look at Seattle, Oakland or New York to answer that question. Maybe even the University of Miami Law School can shed some light on the subject. They teach a course.

In Spring of 2018, the School of Law will be convening an interdisciplinary course called “Race, Class, and Power: University Course on the #BlackLivesMatter Movement.”

The course will engage the multiple lenses through which the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and racial justice in the United States might be explored, including policing and criminal justice, comparative inquiry regarding race and identity, theories of social movements, education reform, cognitive psychology, healthcare and medicine, education and child welfare, incarceration and public health, literature and artistic expression, law and legal reform, environmental justice, and more.

Dear General Mattis and the other Flag Officers

General Mattis, your op-ed in the Atlantic was repugnant. Let’s review what you purposely overlooked, shall we?

photo

 

Know your Terrain

It’s the leader’s job to interpret and translate the terrain and operating environment. Know whether you are the bear or the alligator. Leaders must understand their organization’s strengths, weaknesses, and ideal operating terrain before stepping into the fight. There is no “unfair” when dealing with an uncontrollable variable like terrain. Read more here from Sun Tzu on terrain.

You see during the Covid-19 lockdown, America was in fear. The fear doubled and confidence has been shattered with rioting, death, arson and looting. General, you did not offer a solution. But we are learning all the dynamics of the changing terrain in America and it is ugly.

All Enemies Foreign and Domestic

Our rights as citizens are to be protected and the elite members of our Praetorian Guard are designated as politicians at all levels, law enforcement and the branches of the military. So to you Generals and Admirals, to the politicians and law enforcement, who is protecting selected voices from censorship? What about illegal searches and surveillance where we are to be secure in our person, papers and effects? What about our ability to fully protect ourselves from home invasions or burning a building or business where the upper floors are actually apartments? We have gangs operating all over the nation, we have subversive groups doing the same. We have an insurgency upon the country and they are domestic enemies to the general welfare of America. What is your solution if not law and order?

Ungoverned Spaces

You are well aware of places like Idlib, Syria, the Sahel, Libya, Donbass, Ukraine, even the South China Sea and the Strait of Hormuz. General, in America there are thousands of points of ungoverned spaces including public schools, streets in San Francisco, the courthouse steps in Portland, Oregon or the college campus at Berkeley. In recent days, ungoverned spaces included cities and streets across the nation where police are told to take a light touch all while mayors have released violent criminals from prison and what would be felony arrests are considered misdemeanors, letting go the criminal within hours with a mere $120 ticket. General, have you considered this chaos? Are you applying strategic thinking to frontier justice where decent Americans will be forced into vigilante justice? Syrians were forced into that just as Libyans are. We have to fend for ourselves, you omitted that part. So, to you Flag officers, have you a solution war plan to solve this in America?

Domestic Tranquility

While the intent of the Framers intended to quell uprisings and rebellions between states, domestic tranquility is fleeting. When civil society is challenged and criminal behavior goes unpunished, established justice is broken. Peaceful demonstrations are events where the demonstrators put forth their grievances. That is a wonderful and endorsed right. When riots, theft, looting, arson, shootings or otherwise physical harm comes to person or property, law and order is fractured. Placing the National Guard at designated locations is to augment law enforcement. If that fails, a higher more assertive remedy is called for including the consideration of the Insurrection Act. There is not a respectable American that wants conditions to reach that point and that includes President Trump. But just like military personnel in the realm of war-gaming operations, all consideration must be on the desk and they are. In the case of the civilian population, leaders and law enforcement too must consider all options for the protection of public safety.

So General Mattis, you are quoted as saying ‘ If you cannot create harmony, even vicious harmony on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across service lines, across coalition and national lines and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete‘.

That harmony you speak of is lost in America, we are divided. So, General sir…just go home, take the other Flag officers with you.

We are gonna be ‘polite and professional’ in spite of it all, but we are gonna be the guards of our own terrain, personally and professionally and politely.