The Manufactured Menace from Michigan -- Take Two

"That's it, baby -- strut! The camera loves you!" In a familiar bit of Homeland Security Theater, a law enforcement officer, his arms decorated with gangbanger-style tattoos, swaggers through a search of alleged Hutaree militia member Thomas Piatek's home in Hammond, Indiana.


When the stranger materialized a few years ago, nobody really knew much about him. He seemed like a suitably sympathetic figure and quickly ingratiated himself by offering whatever help he could. No task was too menial for him, and he had a way of finding just what the group needed right when it was required.


Most importantly, he seemed to share the group's antipathy toward the government. If anything, he was just a bit more emphatic than the rest in denouncing official corruption and endorsing violent "direct action" against the state. He seemed eager to shepherd the group in a more militant direction, eagerly out-bidding every expression of outrage and hostility. One of his favorite recurring themes was the idea that a criminal state could only be fought through the use of criminal means.


When the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) staged an armed raid to arrest several members of the group, the helpful stranger was nowhere to be found. He did leave a parting gift, however, in the form of detailed allegations recorded in a federal indictment alleging that the group he had infiltrated on behalf of the JTTF was involved in extensive criminal activity -- most of which was either suggested or directly facilitated by him -- and an ambitious plot to wage war against the United States Government.


In broad outline, this is what most likely happened within Michigan's Hutaree militia during the past couple of years, a period during which -- as federal authorities now admit -- the group was infiltrated by both an undercover FBI agent and a "cooperating witness."


One of the FBI's plants, significantly, "posed as someone who could provide the group with custom-made explosives," observes the Detroit News.


That revelation is critical, since it means that the alleged plot to manufacture of improvised explosive devices -- referred to, with hysterical hyperbole typical of the Regime's pronouncements, as "weapons of mass destruction" -- was quite possibly instigated by the FBI's informant/provocateur.


The "Hutaree Conspiracy" was the second installment in the FBI's ongoing Homeland Security Theater in Michigan. The Bureau's campaign against the Masjid Al-Haqq mosque in Dearborn followed almost exactly the same script. The final act of that earlier melodrama was an October 28, 2009 FBI raid against several of the mosque's adherents that ended with the death of its imam, Luqman Ameen Abdullah.


Initial reports claimed that Abdullah was killed in a "shootout" or "exchange of gunfire" with the Feds in a warehouse allegedly containing stolen goods. The word "execution" might be a more appropriate description in light of the fact that Abdullah was shot at least twenty times, including an entry wound in his back and an oddly specific grouping in and around the genital region.


The imam allegedly provoked the federal fusillade by shooting one of the FBI's "K9 agents." Significantly, the official autopsy report -- a document actively suppressed by the Dearborn Police Department for more than three months -- describes a series of "lacerations" (also described by Wayne County Chief Medical Examiner Carl Schmitt as "puncture wounds") that are consistent with being mauled by a dog.


It's possible Abdullah shot the dog to protect himself. It's also possible that he never fired a shot, and the dog stepped in front of one or more round intended for Abdullah. The official FBI narrative is that "Freddy," the Belgian Malinois killed during the raid, "gave his life in the line of duty" on behalf of "his team." The dog was buried in a solemn ritual and his name was added to the FBI's "memorial wall."


We'll never know the exact circumstances of "Freddy" death. This much has been clearly established, however: Abdullah bled to death with his hands cuffed behind his back while the FBI took the time to arrange an emergency medical airlift for their attack dog.


The most favorable construction one can put on this set of facts is that the feds handcuffed a helpless man who had been perforated by at least twenty gunshots. A grimmer possibility is that he was handcuffed before he was shot. In either case, this juxtaposition -- a handcuffed man bleeds to death while his assailants arrange emergency medical treatment for their dog -- reeks of some malodorous combination of depraved indifference and concentrated malice.


Despite the fact that both the investigation of the mosque and the raid were conducted by the local Joint Terrorism Task Force, no terrorism-related charges were filed against any of the ten men listed in the criminal complaint. The charges include "conspiracy" counts arising from an alleged plot to receive and sell "goods that defendants believed were stolen from interstate shipments"; one count of mail fraud; three counts related to possession of firearms or body armor by a felon; and tampering with automobile VIN numbers.


Attendees of Abdullah's mosque included many men who had served time behind bars. As a younger man, Abdullah was convicted of assault. Like many of this followers and countless thousands of others scattered across the country, Abdullah was converted to radical Islam within the world's largest and most lavishly funded madrassa -- the federal prison system. His friends and supporters insist that Abdullah, despite his criminal history, was a caring, pious, and generous man. The mosque ran a soup kitchen and was involved in other forms of charitable outreach to the economically blighted neighborhood.


A son mourns his father: Omar Regan at the funeral of Luqman Abdullah.


Abdullah was expansively hostile toward the government and deeply suspicious of the police -- what rational person isn't?-- but those who knew him well insist he consistently rejected aggressive violence of any kind.


"My father was a sharp-tongued individual," recalls Omar Reagan, a Los Angeles-based comedian and motivational speaker. "He would talk about his dislike of government -- about how law enforcement wasn't protecting and serving the people. But speaking his emotions and acting on his emotions are two different things."


The "evidence" presented in the criminal complaint unsealed after Abdullah was killed shows that he encouraged his followers to acquire the skills to employ defensive violence to protect themselves from both private and government-employed criminals. He also explicitly and repeatedly refused to condone aggressive action against anyone.


FBI Counter-Terrorism Agent Gary Leone, the author of the affidavit, hurls speculative allegations with the exuberant glee of a caged monkey flinging feces at spectators.


In substantive terms, his criminal complaint deals with a small fencing operation. However, where "anti-government" groups are concerned, the FBI appears to suffer from an institution-wide case of Munchausen by proxy syndrome; this may be why the bureaucratic incentives under which Leone operates dictate that every molehill be described as if it were of Himalayan proportions. Accordingly, Abdullah and his followers are portrayed as nothing less than hardened, battle-ready shock troops of the global jihad:


"The investigation has shown that Luqman Ameen Adbullah, Imam of the Masjid Al-Haqq ... is a highly placed leader of a nationwide fundamentalist Sunni group consisting primarily of African-Americans.... Their primary mission is to establish a separate, sovereign Islamic state (`The Ummah') within the borders of the United States, governed by Shariah law..... [Abdullah] regularly preaches anti-government and anti-law enforcement rhetoric. Abdullah and his followers have trained regularly in the use of firearms, and continue to train in martial arts and sword fighting.... Abdullah preaches that every Muslim should have a weapon, and should not be scared to use their weapon when needed."


Aftermath: An FBI agent near the warehouse in which Abdullah was gunned down in an armed raid by the local Joint Terrorism Task Force.


Even if every word of that summation were accurate, none of what is described above constitutes a crime -- a fact Leone tacitly acknowledged by declining to file terrorism or sedition charges.


Furthermore, the inflammatory dicta in Leone's complaint (which consumes 29 of the document's 45 pages) artfully misrepresents Abdullah's views regarding the legitimate use of violence, as those views were summarized by Leone's snitches within the mosque. The most striking example of Leone's dishonesty deals with an attempt by one of his assets to entrap Abdullah into endorsing terrorist violence.


"Confidential Source S-2," a JTTF plant who allegedly recorded conversations with Abdullah, admits that he offered $5,000 to instigate some kind of criminal violence during the 2006 Super Bowl in Detroit. According to Leone's own summary of the incident, "Abdullah said he would not be involved in injuring innocent people for no reason."


"Confidential Source S-3" alleges that Abdullah described how Abdul Samoor, one of his followers, "printed out several things from the internet including Al-Qaeda training camp materials. Abdullah said he told Saboor to throw them away and cautioned him not to look at things on the internet." This -- like most of the "evidence" assembled by Leone -- was hearsay, but it actually works against the FBI's interest by underscoring Abdullah's refusal to endorse Islamic terrorism.


"S-3" also describes a conversation during a trip to Alabama in which Abdullah commented that he "didn't agree with bombing civilian targets such as buses, which occur in Israel and the West Bank, but said it is fine to bomb police stations."


The awkward diction here suggests that Abdullah was referring specifically to actions taken by Palestinians and drawing a distinction -- for whatever it might be worth -- between terrorist attacks on helpless civilians and what he perceived as defensive insurgent warfare against armed personnel carrying out a military occupation.


One of the most critical disclosures offered by "S-3" deals with a reported conversation on June 19, 2009, in which the imam told an associate that he knew someone in his mosque was "working for the FBI.... Abdullah said that he is hopeful that anyone who is working for the Feds will come to the mosque often to pray, will see the error of his ways, and admit he has been working with the Feds."


Abdullah's conciliatory remarks came on the same day he supposedly said that he would kill anybody "trying to gather information on him." Leone accounts for this contradiction by claiming that the wily imam knew he was being "listened to and targeted by law enforcement so he intentionally [made] conflicting statements in order to protect himself."


How can we tell which reported statements are sincere? Ah, this is easy, Leone would insist: We should dismiss anything that appears moderate and responsible as posturing, and assume that anything incendiary and self-incriminating represented Abdullah's genuine intentions.


The problem here is that all of the "consensually recorded" comments that are directly quoted in the criminal complaint are entirely innocuous. It is only when one of the confidential informants is paraphrasing Abdullah that we are barraged with shockingly detailed references to alleged criminal acts and criminal plots.


Furthermore, the "direct" quotes are not complete: Nearly all of them contain strategically placed ellipses indicating the removal of potentially critical details. Presenting them as direct evidence would be tantamount to perjury through selective editing. And as we've seen, even the accounts provided by Leone's pet provocateurs contain compelling evidence that Abdullah -- whatever he may have planned or done -- was not an aspiring terrorist.


Abdullah was infuriated by the wars of aggression being waged by the Regime in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was also convinced that the FBI was an enemy of American Muslims. Notwithstanding his passionate outrage, and despite Leone's efforts to depict him as an exponent of aggressive jihad, Abdullah -- as described in the complaint -- endorsed violence only for defensive purposes.


"They [are] smashing the Muslims all over the world and then we sit here like everything is all right," stated Abdullah in an October 10, 2008 conversation surreptitiously recorded by "S-3." "`Just leave us alone.' I mean, no. Everything isn't all right. Matter of fact, you better get up from over there and leave them people alone, man. You [are] wrong. It's no threat from the Muslims here. The Muslims here are saying, you know, `Hey, just let us live here and [unintelligible], that's the only thing they [are] worried about.... That's no good, man."


For Leone, the take-away here is that Abdullah maintained "it is not all right to simply get along with kuffars," or non-Muslims -- the insinuation being that Abdullah endorsed militancy and revenge. But Abdullah's discursive remarks actually read like a plea for Washington to desist from its aggression against Muslims abroad, and respect the wishes of American Muslims to be left alone. Those are the sentiments of someone weary of armed violence, rather than someone eagerly courting confrontation.


Abdullah's desire to be left in peace was captured in recorded comments recorded by "S-3" on November 30, 2008. The conversation dealt with the activities of federal agents, who -- according to Abdullah -- were "just terrorizing the people."


"It's a whole organized effort," he asserted. "Organized effort to betray you. But not just you, other people too. It's not just, just Muslims"; it's also people like "McVeigh and them" -- meaning, apparently, non-Muslim "anti-government extremists" targeted for infiltration and manipulation by the FBI.


"It's no question about, he [McVeigh] was involved in getting that stuff done," Abdullah continued. "Even though they [McVeigh and "others unknown"] did what they did, they probably was irked on, and supported in everything, by the FBI." After all, he pointed out, the "first World Trade Center bombing was the FBI."


Bear in mind that Abdullah was describing the FBI's documented history of orchestrating terrorist plots to an FBI informant-provocateur. I'm sufficiently cynical to suspect that this could be what got him killed.


Sure, he's an FBI bureaucrat, but what he really wants to do is direct: Special Agent Andrew Arena, the choreographer of at least two ersatz "terrorism" plots in the Detroit area.


Within a few weeks of that conversation, FBI undercover operatives began a series of ten clandestine operations intended to entice members of Abdullah's congregation into a plot to steal and fence stolen property.


All of those staged pseudo-crimes were instigated by the FBI's assets, who also arranged for the "stolen" goods to be stored at a Dearborn warehouse that was rented by the FBI.


It was in that warehouse that Luqman Ameen Abdullah, a man once known as Christopher Thomas, an ex-con who understood how the FBI's infiltration and provocation racket worked, was shot at least twenty times before bleeding to death with his hands cuffed behind his back.


Although nobody was killed when the FBI rolled up the Hutaree militia, the Bureau's campaign against that "Christian militia" was struck from the same template used against Abdullah's followers. Several of the Hutaree militiamen were seized at an FBI-controlled warehouse
where they had gathered -- unarmed -- to attend what they had been told was a "memorial service."


The FBI's investigative accomplishments are criminally overrated, but in arranging
ersatz terrorist plots it displays choreography skills that put the late Bob Fosse to shame. Recent events in Michigan suggest that the Bureau is staging a revival of its Hoover-era production, COINTELPRO. Don't feel left out; the chances are pretty good that the Bureau's touring troupe of provocateurs will visit your hometown sometime soon.



Be sure to tune in for Pro Libertate Radio each weeknight from 6:00-7:00 Mountain Time on the Liberty News Radio Network.

Dum spiro, pugno!

Casus Belli

Crackdown: State troopers seal off a road as the Feds conduct a tri-state operation to arrest members of the Hutaree "Christian militia."


The first thing that must be understood is that while the murder of any human being is the most serious crime one can commit, it is not necessarily a crime to kill a police officer.


Defensive use of lethal force against criminal aggression is morally legitimate and legally protected, even -- no, make that "especially" -- when the aggressor is clothed in the habiliments of the state's punitive priesthood. This is not the view of some obscure, unsavory self-styled Christian militia group from Michigan. It is the long-established view of the United States Supreme Court as expressed more than a century ago in the ruling John Bad Elk v. The United States.



John Bad Elk, a Lakota Indian living on a South Dakota reservation, shot and killed a tribal policeman named John Kills Back, who attempted to carry out an arrest without warrant or probable cause. Bad Elk was convicted of murder after the Judge instructed the jury (as paraphrased by the High Court) that "the policeman had the right to arrest [Black Elk] ... and to use such force as was necessary to accomplish the arrest, and that [Black Elk] had no right to resist it."



Under the common law, the High Court pointed out, Black Elk was not obliged to submit to an unlawful arrest, and he "had the right to use such force as was absolutely necessary to resist an attempted illegal arrest...." Furthermore, ruled the Court, "the law looks with very different eyes upon the transaction when the officer had the right to make the arrest from what it does if the officer had no such right. What might be murder in the first case might be nothing more than manslaughter in the other, or the facts might show that no offense had been committed." (Emphasis added.)


Simply put: As a matter of law, a citizen has an unqualified right to use lethal force to defend himself against a criminal assault by a law enforcement officer. This is not "sedition"; it's stare decisis.


The federal indictment against the Hutaree "Christian militia" describes the group's alleged preparations for potential armed conflict against law enforcement officers as a "seditious conspiracy." Whether this constitutes a criminal conspiracy of any kind depends entirely on whether the group planned to commit aggressive violence against individuals.



If they were acquiring weapons and developing appropriate skills in anticipation of defending themselves against government aggression, their actions-- while possibly conspiratorial in nature -- don't amount to a crime. This is particularly true in light of our cultural history, in which sedition -- agitation to change the existing political order -- is our proudest civic tradition.



Government is nothing more than the rationalization and exercise of violence. Everything done by government contains at least the implicit threat of lethal coercion. Thus the indictment's description of Hutaree as "an anti-government extremist organization which advocates violence against local, state and Federal law enforcement" is a product of rhetorical onanism.



The same is true of the charge that the militia's members "did knowingly conspire, confederate, and agree with each other and other persons known and unknown" -- great googlymoogly, do federal prosecutors pay their scribes by the syllable? -- "to levy war against the United States, to oppose by force the authority of the Government of the United States, and to prevent, hinder, and delay by force the execution of any United States law."



If Hutaree was preparing for armed defense against criminal actions by government officials, this charge is as pointless as a broken pencil. If their efforts to "prevent, hinder, and delay" various government initiatives were confined to activism, rather than armed conflict, they are -- in that particular -- not substantively different from hundreds or thousands of other groups.



Once again, the gravamen here is the question of aggressive violence. As paraphrased by the Regime's media stenographers, the charges against Hutaree are digested into a "plot to kill law enforcement officers." This would allegedly entail murdering one policeman and then ambushing others who would attend the Soviet-style paramilitary ritual that occurs on those rare occasions a police officer is killed in the line of duty.



Rather than providing specific details, referring to particular witnesses, or alluding to other material evidence, the indictment repeatedly refers to Hutaree's "general concept of operations." To whose "concept" does this refer -- the specific, overtly stated intentions of the militia members, or the way those intentions were conceived by federal authorities or their allied left-wing "watchdog" activists? Was this "concept of operations" committed to print, or captured on an audio or video record? Was there a specific plan, or were there outbursts of ill-considered speculation or depraved wishful thinking?



In studiously vague language, the federal indictment alleges that "one officer in particular" had been identified as a potential murder target. Plotting to murder another human being is a crime, of course, as is preparing to murder others who would assemble for a funeral.



These matters are questions of fact dependent on evidence not outlined in the indictment. Given that cases of this kind often end in plea bargains before they go to trial, it's possible we may never learn what, if any, evidence supports the most serious charges against the group.



Hutaree, we are told, is a violent cult. FBI Special Agent Andrew Arena referred to Hutaree as typical of the "radical and extremist fringe groups that can be found throughout our society." It may well be a dangerous little sect; like nearly everyone else, I hadn't heard of the group prior to yesterday (March 28), so I can't offer an adequately informed opinion of its intentions. At least some of those involved in other citizen militia groups in Michigan were leery of Hutaree, suspecting that it was seeking to provoke a civil war.


Whatever is eventually learned about Hutaree, as things presently stand the indictment against it could provide a template for "seditious conspiracy" prosecutions involving practically any group that endorses the use of defensive force to protect citizens against government aggression.



Indeed, the definition of "conspiracy" used in the Hutaree indictment could make a criminal out of anyone who reads Federalist Paper 46 in public, thereby sharing James Madison's commendably seditious admonition that the people preserve "the advantage of being armed" in the event that insurrection against the central government proves necessary in order to preserve liberty.


The tri-state crack-down against Hutaree, which involved what was described as a "batallion" of state, local, and federal troops (there's little point in using the term "police" any more), is the largest but by no means only recent campaign of its kind.


Last week the Feds reeled in several members of a properly ignominious Connecticut neo-Nazi street gang calling itself the White Wolves.





The White Wolves crackdown followed the familiar outline:


A federal informant (in this case, a convicted felon acting as a "cooperating witness") infiltrates a tiny and all but inconsequential clique of petty criminals, incites them to commit an "overt" criminal act (in this case by asking them to sell him firearms). The feds then draw up a grandiose indictment depicting that the little knot of skinheads as a world-historic menace.


As is true of the case against the Hutaree militia, the White Wolves indictment is a bureaucratic confection -- a wedding cake-sized pile of rhetorical meringue concealing a criminal complaint the size of a small Twinkie.


The objective here -- and, most likely in the Feds' prosecution of the Hutaree militia -- is to induce at least one or more members of the targeted group to join the pool of infiltrator/provocateus for use against other targeted groups.


The dynamics of this routine are a bit like multi-level marketing: The federal handler -- usually an FBI Special Agent assigned to a Joint Terrorism Task Force -- serves as the "upline" to a small stable of provocateurs, each of which is highly motivated to create a large "downline" of similarly compromised assets. As with many other MLMs, nothing of value is actually accomplished, but the people at the top of the pyramid -- in this case, the Homeland Security bureaucrats -- make a very comfortable living.


In times of relative tranquility, that cynical exercise provides career security for Homeland Security functionaries. There's reason to believe that the Feds have expanded and escalated this ongoing enterprise to exploit, and exacerbate, growing public hostility toward an increasingly invasive and esurient government.


Whether it is ever demonstrated that Hutaree intended to "levy war" against the U.S. government, this much is beyond serious dispute: The Homeland Security state is unambiguously preparing for war with the public -- in fact, it has been doing so for a long time.


During a 1997 visit to the Battle Command Training Program at Ft. Leavenworth, author Robert Kaplan frequently heard "discussion of the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids the National Guard to act as a local police force once it has been federalized by the army in a civil emergency," he recalled in his book An Empire Wilderness. "The implication was that turbulence within the United States might one day require the act to be repealed."


Kaplan describes a round-table discussion of potential military action against domestic dissident groups. One Marine Major, referring to the Oklahoma City Bombing (an atrocity carried out by a former federal employee and "others" who remain "unknown"), declared: "The minute I heard about Oklahoma City, I knew who did it -- rednecks, the kind of guys from southern Idaho."



According to Kaplan, that officer and another of the same rank "suggested that `a time might come when the military will have to go domestic.'"


In the strictest sense, that was a treasonable utterance -- a threat, by people in a position with the means to carry it into effect, to wage war against the people of the "united States in Congress assembled."


When talk of that kind is indulged in by members of a tiny, disreputable club, it is labeled "seditious conspiracy" involving "weapons of mass destruction" -- that is, homemade explosives. When such talk reflects the shared opinion of armed functionaries of the Regime -- people with access to the largest and most destructive arsenal ever assembled, and a growing foreign body count demonstrating a willingness to use it -- this is a sober, responsible discussion of Homeland Security affairs.


Apparently, it's sound public policy for the government to wage war against the citizenry, but a federal offense to take notice of that fact.



Be sure to get your daily dose of sedition on Pro Libertate Radio, courtesy of the Liberty News Radio Network.

Dum spiro, pugno!

Resistance

Imperial impunity: Samurai in feudal Japan were invested with Kiri sute-gomen, "authorization to cut and leave" -- a literal license to kill. Yet they were actually more accountable than police in contemporary America.



"Time to end this! Enough is enough!" With those words, Officer Troy Meade of the Everett, Washington Police Department fired seven rounds into the body of Niles Meservey, killing him instantly. At the time, Meservey was stupefied by alcohol and sitting behind the wheel of his Corvette. The car was completely boxed in by other vehicles and a chain-link fence. According to several eyewitnesses -- including another police officer -- the 51-year-old man wasn't going anywhere, and posed no threat to anyone. Meade shot the drunken man not because of any threat to himself or others; he did it because he was angry and frustrated over Meservey's non-compliance.


Just minutes earlier, Meservey had been cut off by the bartender after he had inflicted unwanted attention on a couple of women at a nearby club, briefly dragging one of them onto the dance floor.


Several people were worried about the prospect of the intoxicated man attempting to drive home when he clearly presented a risk to himself and others. One of them, Trisha Tribble, called 911.

“We’re really concerned about a guy leaving the parking lot of Chuckwagon on Evergreen Way — in a white Corvette, he’s extremely intoxicated,” Tribble told the dispatcher.

Several officers from the Everett Police Department soon arrived; among them were Troy Meade, an 11-year-veteran, and Officer Steven Klocker. Meade arrived at about 11:39 PM; Klocker reached the scene a little less than five minutes later.

By the time Officer Meade arrived, Meservey's Corvette was bracketed by cars on either side and cut off by a parking lot fence in front of him. Meade pulled up behind Meservey, effectively boxing him in.

Joanne Hancock, who was smoking outside the Chuckwagon Inn when the police arrived, went inside to share the news with others concerned about Meservey. This prompted a small group of people to go outside and watch the arrest.

By the time Klocker arrived to provide “backup,” Meade had spent roughly five minutes trying to convince Meservey to get out of the car. Klocker would later report that Meade’s tone and attitude toward the intoxicated man were “belligerent,” and that he “used language which made him uncomfortable because of the nearby civilians.”

He's a hero -- aren't they all? Officer Troy Meade, charged with murder in the shooting death of Niles Meservey.

“I don’t know why the f**k I am trying to save your dumb ass,” Meade snarled at Meservey, according to Klocker’s account.

Both Meade and Klocker withdrew their portable electro-shock torture devices (more commonly called Tasers). Meade, who was closest to the driver, shot Meservey with his Taser through the open driver’s side window, inflicting two separate strikes — one five seconds long, the other six seconds’ duration.

“Why in the f**k did you do that?” muttered the drunken man, who — predictably enough — wasn't inclined to endure any further abuse. He reached for his keys and started the car, but he had nowhere to go: The vehicle lurched over a concrete curb and ran into an unyielding chain-link fence.

Bear in mind, once again, that Meservey was entirely boxed in. It was possible, albeit with some difficulty, for Officer Meade to reach through the window and seize the car keys, rather than escalating the situation by using potentially deadly force. Had he done so, it wouldn't have been long until Meservey would have succumbed to unconsciousness.

But this would have meant exercising a modicum of patience, and doing some heavy lifting. It was more convenient to shoot the unarmed, helpless drunk. So Meade — according to Klocker's official account — took up a position near the left rear wheel of the Corvette, pulled his gun, and fired eight shots into the car.

When several other police officers arrived a few minutes later, Meade was seen pacing back and forth near the murder scene.

“I’m out of it,” he blubbered to one of the new arrivals. “I want my Garrity.”

The “Garrity Rule” — adapted from the 1967 Supreme Court ruling Garrity v. New Jersey, which involved a ticket-fixing scandal — is the legal security blanket desperately grasped by police officers who have just committed a serious crime.

Uttering the incantatory word "Garrity" triggers an enhancement of the right against self-incrimination that only the government’s armed enforcers enjoy: Any statements made thereafter can only be used for the purpose of a departmental investigation, not for criminal prosecution.

Scene of the crime: Meservey's Corvette following the lethal shooting (left); an overhead view (below, right).

Klocker, who witnessed the entire incident, pointed out to investigators that when Meservey’s body was pulled from the car, the prongs of Officer Meade’s Taser were still firmly embedded in his shoulder.

“I’m thinking as I'm dragging him … why didn’t we [shock] him again?” Klocker told investigators. If escalation had been “necessary,” Klocker thought, Meade would have used the Taser again, or resorted to pepper spray. “I would never have shot [Meservey]… I don’t think we had reached that level of force yet,” Klocker concluded.

Meservey was neutralized and not long from the comforting embrace of alcohol-induced unconsciousness. Thus it seems obvious to someone not indoctrinated in the state’s view of discretionary killing that there was no reason to use lethal force of any kind in this situation. Using the minimal force necessary to take the keys away from Meservey would have ended any threat the drunk posed to persons and property.

But Meservey had done something more serious than threaten the lives and property of other citizens; he had insulted a police officer through his persistent refusal to submit.

Meade --who was involved in a prior lethal shooting a few years ago -- vaulted up the escalation ladder from confrontational and abusive language to lethal violence within a matter of minutes. In doing so he provided a compelling illustration of the fact that every encounter between police and citizens is pregnant with deadly consequences for the latter. Though useful, such a lesson was not worth Meservey's life.

Meade was originally charged with first-degree manslaughter and placed on paid vacation (aka “administrative leave”).

Unlike a private citizen charged with lethally shooting an unarmed, non-threatening man six times in the back, Meade was set free on his own recognizance. It’s entirely likely that Meade wouldn’t have been indicted if it weren’t for rising public concern over recent police shootings in Everett.

Meade's attorney defended the murder of Niles Meservey as the result of a “split-second decision," although such manifestly was not the case. Trisha Tribble, who summoned police to the scene by calling 911, was mortified by the death of Meservey, whom she described as “this drunken guy, [who] was obviously out of his mind.” "

"There was no reason for him to die,” she commented after the slaying.

On March 24, Meade was charged with second-degree murder for the June 10 killing of Meservey. According to his attorney David Allen, the charge is outrageous, since a police officer has essentially an unqualified right to dispense lethal force: "I don't think an officer who is on duty -- who is sworn to uphold the law -- should ever be charged with a crime like that." (Emphasis added.)



Bear in mind that Allen didn't say a police officer should never commit a crime like that; what he said, in essence, was that a police officer who commits an act of lethal violence should never be charged with a criminal offense. From this perspective, any use of deadly force by an officer is legal by definition.



The claim made by Allen on behalf of Officer Meade is a contemporary American version of what was called kirisute-gomen in feudal Japan. The phrase, roughly translated as "authorization to cut and leave," referred to the power exercised by Samurai, the Shogun's armed enforcers, to kill anyone from a lower caste who insulted them.



"Before the Meiji Restoration of 1868, there was a legal structure in place whereby people of the Samurai class or higher could kill anyone of the agrarian class or lower who insulted them," explained Dr. John Pierre Mertz, a professor of Japanese language at the University of North Carolina, in a phone interview. "The Samurai literally had the power to cut people in two, if they considered the insult to be intolerable. This was part of the culture, and people were very aware of it. In fact, there were manuals that described how a woman could clean and prepare a decapitated head for burial."



There's no reliable way of knowing how often this form of summary execution -- often referred to as burei uchi, or "striking down the impolite" -- was carried out, and what accounts exist tend to be encrusted with accumulated myth and legend.



"Understandably, very few people were willing to stick around and witness incidents of this kind," Dr. Mertz explained to Pro Libertate. "It's important to understand as well that the consequences of an act of this kind could be quite severe, since a killing of this kind was taken as evidence of failure on everybody's part to uphold the societal code. There would be an inquest, and if a Samurai were found to have killed an inferior for no good reason, he would be compelled to apologize -- which meant committing ritual suicide through seppuku. So it's likely that things of this kind happened rarely in feudal Japan."



Another historical analysis of the Edo period maintains that there was another important restraint on the power of Samurai to execute "impudent" commoners: By that account, a commoner had the absolute, innate right to use lethal force in self-defense against what we would now call police brutality.


A commoner who killed a Samurai in self-defense was not subject to punishment of any kind, since that act would have culled an unsuitable specimen from the warrior caste. A peasant targeted for execution but who escaped with his life was not tracked down and charged with "resisting arrest" or "evasion" of the police"; instead -- per this account -- the Samurai who needlessly drew his sword was subject to severe punishment for disrupting the peace.



While admitting that the existing records are scanty and ambiguous, Dr. Mertz insists that in the Japanese feudal system, only fellow Samurai or their superiors could seek retribution for criminal violence against those in lower orders. "If an Agrarian person were to lift a finger against the disciplining power, it would be a really serious thing," Mertz replied when I asked whether a peasant in that system had a right to self-defense. "Once again, it's difficult to say exactly how the laws were implemented, since there isn't a lot of detailed reporting on the subject."



Even if Japanese peasants weren't permitted to defend themselves, the dreadful penalties inflicted on Samurai who needlessly killed commoners provided a compelling deterrent against the use of unjustified violence by the enforcement caste.



This fact engenders wistful speculation: How frequently would American police resort to unnecessary force if they -- in the fashion of the Samurai -- confronted the prospect of enduring exactly what they illicitly inflict on others?



The post-1868 Japanese ruling elite was forced to abolish kirisute-gomen because the idea of empowering police to execute citizens for "impudence" was offensive to the Anglo-Saxon view of individual liberty protected by law -- the same legal tradition that begat the United States Constitution.



"After Japan was opened to the West, citizens from western nations who lived in colonial enclaves were protected by `extraterritoriality' agreements secured through British treaties," Dr. Mertz recounted to Pro Libertate. "Western governments weren't going to permit their citizens to be struck down in the streets" because they refused to genuflect to Samurai. So the Japanese revoked the enforcement caste's license to kill.



The sobering and inescapable fact is that in Lee Greenwood's America, where "at least [we] know [we're] free," the police consistently enjoy a far greater scope of official impunity than that granted to the roaming warriors of feudal Japan.



Clear and concise confirmation of that assessment comes by way of some less-than-friendly advice offered by an LAPD officer who writes for National Review under the nom-de-cyber Jack Dunphy.



In any encounter with a cop, a civilian must bear in mind that "the officer is not all that concerned with trying not to offend you," explained Dunphy. "He is instead concerned with protecting his mortal hide from having holes placed in it where God did not intend. And you, if in asserting your constitutional right to be free from unlawful search and seizure, fail to do as the officer asks, run the risk of having such holes placed in your own."



During the military occupation of the conquered South, President Andrew Johnson told his subordinates: "Whenever you hear a man prating about the constitution, spot him as a traitor." Officer Dunphy expands that totalitarian formula: A Mundane who frustrates a member of the Exalted Enforcement Caste by invoking his constitutional rights, he should be shot on sight in the interest of "officer safety" -- the highest priority and most sacred responsibility of the heroic Paladins of Public Order.


Until very recently, the laws of most states recognized the principle stated by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1943 ruling United States v. Di Re: "One has an undoubted right to resist unlawful arrest, and courts will uphold the right of resistance in proper cases."



The right to resist unjustified police violence -- whether it takes the form of kidnapping (the proper description of an unlawful arrest) or physical assault -- is still legally recognized in a dozen states. It has been upheld in recent court decisions, most recently by Florida Circuit Court Judge John DeFuria, who ruled that homeowner John Coffin "had a right to resist" when he and his wife were violently attacked in their home by two sheriff's deputies. Nonetheless, arrests for the non-crime of "resisting arrest" are quite common. In fact, a study conducted last year by the San Jose Mercury News found that an average of three people a day were arrested for that supposed offense in that city.


Furthermore, of the 206 court cases in which "resisting arrest" was the most serious "offense," 145 -- or seventy percent -- of the cases "involved the use of force by officers." Most importantly, not a single one of the 117 complaints of unnecessary force filed with the police department's internal review board was "sustained."


Constitutional and statutory guarantees of the right to resist state-inflicted violence are otiose when those designated the "disciplining power" refuse to police themselves, and the productive class has neither the means nor the will to protect itself. This is why we've arrived at a point where police can kill innocent citizens with impunity, and yet the slightest physical contact by a citizen can be prosecuted as "battery on an officer," and a citizen wielding a flyswatter can be charged with "felonious assault" on a policeman.


Portrait of a literary hero as "Zek": Alexander Solzhenitsyn during his incarceration in the Soviet gulag (left and below, right).


Without a right to resist, we have a duty to submit -- and submission to unlawful police violence frequently results in serious injury, sexual assault, and death.


Wherever possible, resistance should be peaceful. Where violence is used it must be strictly governed by the non-aggression principle. Prudence has its proper claims to make as well: The right to resist unlawful violence may not be exercised in every appropriate circumstance, but it must be recognized as valid in all cases.


In the first chapter of The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn offers a detailed reflection on the "cataclysm" that results when one hears an armed stranger pronounce the dreadful phrase, "You are under arrest."


"At what exact point ... should one resist?" he wrote. "When one's belt is taken away? When one is ordered to face into a corner? When one crosses the threshold of one's home?"


By the Brezhnev era, after tens of millions had been exterminated in the gulag, many Russians lamented that "submissiveness had softened our brains to such a degree" that resistance was no longer possible. All of this could have been avoided, Solzhenitsyn contended, if resistance had begun "at the moment of arrest itself."


"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive?" mused Solzhenitsyn in a famous footnote to that chapter. "Or, if during the periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, where they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang on the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood that they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?.... The [Security] Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers ... and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!"


"If ... if .... We didn't love freedom enough," he concluded. "We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward."


Solzenitsyn's words will be a suitable epitaph for American liberty if we do not restore, and practice, the right to resist.


(This essay is an updated adaptation of the presentation I was scheduled to make at last week's Liberty Forum in New Hampshire.)


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Dum spiro, pugno!