imported post
Unless one of the following shall occur before the evening of October 7, 2009, I shall begin Fasting For The Rights of The People. The apple will be the last nutrition I shall take until one of the following happens.
[align=left]A. Chief Luke Hecker and the three offending officers shall sign before a Notary Pubic the following confession and, within twenty four hours of the signing, cause it to be filed with the U.S. District Court in Denver and transmit a true copy, including the signatures and notary affidavit and seal, to opencarry.org for publication.
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“We, the undersigned, do hereby depose and swear or affirm that on the evening of October 7, 2008 we did conspire to, and we three officers did in fact, offend The People of the United States and the State of Colorado, the citizens of Loveland, and Mr. Bill Miller individually by the following actions:
1. In the absence of any reasonable articulable suspicion of a crime afoot, we responded to a call that a man with a gun had been seen. In this, we did infringe the right of The People to keep and bear arms.[/i] “Responding” gave the message first to the caller and then to any observers that the carrying of a firearm in public view is somehow suspect. This did infringe the right of The People to keep and bear arms[/i] And,
2. employing methods and utterances designed to dominate, and intimidate, which methods and utterances we had previously discussed among our fellow officers, superiors, and instructors, both in Loveland and elsewhere, we did illegally detain Mr. Miller, seize his sidearm, unload it, examine it, demand his identification, “run” his drivers license number and the serial number of his sidearm, and record the serial number of the sidearm. All of this we did over Mr. Miller’s objections. In this, we did
a. infringe the right of The People to keep and bear arms,[/i]
b. infringe Mr. Miller’s individual right to keep and bear arms,
c. violate Mr. Miller’s right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, and
d. weaken the rights of all of the People to be free from unreasonable search andseizure.
3. In committing the above offenses, we did also
a. violate the free speech right of The People. For,
i. the carrying of a firearm in public view is speech.
ii. In so far as we discouraged Mr. Miller from carrying a sidearm in public view,we did cause a chilling effect on the speech often initiated by people upon seeing his gun, and
b. we did further violate Mr. Miller’s individual right to free speech in that, at the time of our offenses, Mr. Miller made holsters for sale. In so far as we discouraged Mr. Miller from carrying his sidearm in full view, we did prevent him from most effectively displaying his wares.
We are truly sorry for these offenses. We apologize to The People of The United States, The people of the State of Colorado, and the citizens of Loveland.
We call upon all of our fellow officers all across America to quit their “us vs. them” mindset and quit the pretence of “officer safety” and all other such utterances designed to justify or excuse the violation of the rights of the people. We also call upon them to uphold above all The Constitution of The United States, to uphold the constitution of their respective state except where it may conflict with The Constitution of The United States, and to act at all times entirely within the laws of the United States and of their respective states, counties, and cities, and to refuse to enforce those laws that may conflict with The Constitution of The United States. And, we each hereby swear or affirm that we shall do the same."
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B. A lawyer comes forth to represent me in my federal civil suit against Chief Hecker and the three offending officers.
C. The District Attorney takes serious action, as I have asked him to do, to pursue the investigation of possible state criminal offenses by the three officers.
D. The DOJ takes serious action, as I have asked them to do, to investigate possible criminal civil rights violations by the officers.
(As I am not fluent in legalese, maybe some of you can help me with the wording of the above.)
I anticipate that some will say the cops will never sign this. Well. . .
There once was a man named Pete
Who heard of an extinct fleet.
On a river so gross
You must hold your nose.
I’ll get some friends,” said Pete.
“We’ll build a boat like those.
When people come to see’t,
They’ll see floating, all the Shee’t.”
People said, “It can’t be done.
No one will help you, Son.”
They built it,
Did the friends, and Pete.
And the people came and seen,
And made the river clean.
You may not agree with Pete Seeger’s politics, but this shows that people can do amazing things. I’m no Pete Seeger, and I cannot play banjo or sing, but I must do something because nothing is getting done now on the case of the errant cops among the Loveland Police. So, taking a lesson from great leaders in history, I will fast.
(Maybe I need help with my poetry too – Ya think?)
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