Trooper shot: details

[LawCat]

http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/br...ot0804_01.html

Trooper Shot in Head Over Seat-Belt Ticket
Driver, 72, Said to Claim Law Violates His Rights
Aug. 4, 2000

By Richard Zitrin

KYLE, Texas (APBnews.com) -- A 72-year-old
man who insists he has a constitutional right
not to wear a seat belt shot a state trooper in
the head with a high-powered rifle after the
officer stopped him for driving without one,
authorities said today.

The trooper, 28-year-old Randall W. Vetter, is
in critical condition in an Austin hospital, state
officials said.

Vetter was in his patrol car writing a ticket for
Melvin Edison Hale of Kyle about 10:30 a.m. Thursday when Hale walked
up and shot the trooper in the head at close range, Department of Public
Safety spokesman Mike Cox said.

Hale then apparently used the radio in
Vetter's patrol car to report that the trooper
had been shot, Cox said.

He attempted to drive away, but was
apprehended about 100 yards away following
a brief standoff with police.

Second seat-belt ticket

Hale told officers after he was arrested that
he believes it is his constitutional right not to
wear a seat belt, Hays County Justice of the Peace Macel Sullivan told
APBnews.com.

This was not the first time Hale was stopped for driving without a seat belt,
Cox said. Another trooper issued him a ticket last Oct. 14 in almost the
same spot in this community south of Austin, he said.

That first ticket for driving without a seat belt apparently enraged Hale, who
allegedly pointed a rifle at an off-duty trooper when he stopped at Hale's
home early this year. The trooper, Trampas Gooding, only wanted to ask if
he could hunt on the property; Hale apparently thought the trooper was
going to serve him a warrant for not taking care of the first seat-belt ticket
he received, according to a memo Gooding wrote and circulated to police
locally.

Gooding wrote that Hale said he would use deadly force on any officer
attempting to serve such a warrant and that he would "shoot it out" with
officers.

Cox said he does not know if Vetter had read the memo.

Feud over $19,000 in back taxes

Hale, a retired crane operator and cattle rancher, also had a long-standing
feud with Hays County officials over a delinquent property tax bill and the
county had begun proceedings to foreclose on his property if he did not pay
more than $19,000 he owes for 1982-93, county Tax Assessor-Collector
Luanne Caraway said.

Hale, a lifelong bachelor, never directly threatened Caraway, but a friend
who lives on Hale's property, Ed Bullock, told her there was potential
danger if the county pursued the delinquent taxes, Caraway told
APBnews.com.

Bullock has been paying taxes on the property since 1994, she said.

Hale, who is being held in lieu of $1 million bond in the Hays County Jail, is
charged with attempted capital murder of a police officer.

'Miracle' trooper is alive

Vetter, who has been a trooper for six years, remains unconscious in
Brackenridge Hospital in Austin, Cox said.

"Certainly anytime something like this happens it's a sad thing," Cox told
APBnews.com. "I think everybody feels for the trooper's family and
obviously it's a very critical wound when you're shot at close range with a
high-powered rifle. So, really, the miracle is that he's still alive."

Vetter is the first state trooper shot in the line of duty since Trooper Terry
Miller and Atascosa County sheriff's deputies Thomas Monse Jr. and Mark
Stephenson were killed in an ambush south of San Antonio last Oct. 12.


------------------
LowClassCat
Always willing to calculate my chances

[Sprig]

Interesting.

A 72yearold has been around since before cars and cars with seatbelts.

Are you a "free American" if you are required by law to wear a seatbelt?

Is that law unconstitutional?

Should "Americans stripped of a right" physically fight against those infringing upon their freedoms?

Sprig

[This message has been edited by Sprig (edited August 05, 2000).]

[johnbt]

Seatbelt my A**. The SOB shot him before he got out of the car. How did he know why he was pulled? I simply can't believe the level of support I'm seeing for this stone-cold-murderer. You want to fight, take it to court or the court of public opinion. I am a gun owner and I don't support murderers. John
(Edit - Should read unsuccessful murderer.)

[This message has been edited by johnbt (edited August 05, 2000).]

[Jhp147]

I swore I wouldn't react to anything like this, but I am so angry I am sick. I'm a cop in Texas, 21 years, friends and family with the DPS. I wear a seatbelt. I hate the seat belt law. Going without one is failure to take care of yourself and family, but that is not the state's business. If I don't like the seatbelt law, or won't follow it, I take it to court. This murderous (extreme expletive deleted so I won't get thrown off the board) could do the same rather than blowing some poor trooper's brains out. A free American? Free to do what? Kill? So if we don't like a law, just kill a cop? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, free American my rear end. That's how it's done? Should we be "stripped of our right to physically fight against those who infringe against our freedom." Yeah sure, you don't like a law, kill a cop. Just tell his wife and kids you blew his brains out because he was going to make your wear a seat belt, and you are too stupid, lazy, and psychopathic to get a bad law changed. Was that post actually meant to stir realistic discussion? I know the protocol, take it to E-mail if you have a beef....but I will not let this one stand.

------------------
When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; IT IS that they shall be destroyed forever...Psalms 92.7

[Phillip]

A couple of other details not mentioned in the above, for those who are curious.
Hale used a Mini 14 or 30 to shoot Trooper Vetter.
Trooper Vetter fired at least two rounds from his .357 SIG pistol, between the open door and frame of his patrol unit.

IMO Hale deserves to rot in prison or take the big sleep, courtesy of TDCJ.

[beemerb]

I am going to make a very general statement here on my opinion of at least one reason there is so much violence against police officers and other authority figures.
I have this feeling too so.I get the feeling that we have lost control over our lives.Goverment and its minions control our lives totaly.Seat belts-helmet laws-firearms-driveing-taxes-permits to build a fence-a building-building codes and just fill in the blank.We can't see who is doing this to us so we respond to any person of authority that we run across.They represent the suppression.The authority that stifles us and grinds us down.
I might be way out in left field with line of reasoning but ?

------------------
Bob--- Age and deceit will overcome youth and speed.
I'm old and deceitful.

[Rick Solomon]

beemerb - you're probably right, but that's no excuse for essentially ambushing the trooper.

jhp - 100% agree

Let's not forget this guy was a chronic tax cheat and general PITA. We should all go and bid on his ranch at the Sherriff's sale. If we get it cheap, we should sell it at market price to help the trooper's family. It doesn't sound like he's fixing to leap out of bed and go back to work anytime soon.

[Sprig]

Hello,

A couple of replies hinted that my initial post support the shooter.

My post contained nothing but one fact followed by a few questions. How each reader choses to read and answer those questions is up to each individual.

I wondered why this event might happen. I think beemerb quite possibly gave the reason.

I am disturbed by this article. There are deep implications in it if you read past the tragic event.

I know that any person 72 years old has seen more freedoms then I ever have, or likely will. When I see a man that knew more freedom take up arms to defend the rights he used to have, and have now been stripped, and I realize I have an inner conflict, I can only ask questions to resolve that conflict.

What right has to infringed before its morally right to physicaly fight back like others did 224 years ago?

I don't have an easy answer. I only have questions.

Is it "murder" if the killng wouldn't have happend had someone left that person alone?
If the Leo had let the old guy have his freedom to drive without the seatbelt, would the old guy have shot him?

Note: The article doesn't state that the officer died. It appears "murder", at this time, does not apply to the original article.

The answers of others will shape my opinions. How you read these questions is up to you. I don't intend to imply anything, I only ask.

Sprig

[EnochGale]

OK - Sprig. It is 1954. Teams of African-Americans enter buses and restaurants across the South. When denied the right to sit in the front of the bus or have lunch, they open up with firearms and kill the lunch counter attendant and bus drivers who ordered them not to engage in their constitutional rights.

They sure had a lot of rights back them - so stop mooning over the good old days.

Let's say this straight. This was a angry old crock. He threatened others. He attempted to murder a good man. At best, his life is destroyed if he survives.

You are full of crap and don't say you are trying only asking questions. Sheer sophistry.

The responses of some of you defending this monster on pseudo-crackpot grounds of the constitution disgusts me.

If you don't like the law, get off your butt, take your head out of your colon and work to get it changed.

Moderators - shut down these fools. Can you imagine what this reads like to sane people?

[Long Path]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Sprig:
Interesting.

A 72yearold has been around since before cars and cars with seatbelts.

Are you a "free American" if you are required by law to wear a seatbelt?

Is that law unconstitutional?

Should "Americans stripped of a right" physically fight against those infringing upon their freedoms?

Sprig

[/quote]

Sprig, I'm not saying that your questions are not valid, but you'll pardon me for taking offense at your apparent justification of the man's motive. While not openly stating that you found his action to be appropriate, you seem to be shifting the subject to the man's motive for attempting to murder the officer.
Even if the trooper openly cussed the man's mother's name and all she stood for, the act of openly attemting to MURDER the officer is reprehensible.

Sprig, by attempting to focus on the man's motive in this instance, you do give some credance to his excuse. Do you really want to be that guy? Do you want to try to explain that to the trooper's family? Keep in mind, I've personally be turning off the news every time it comes on, so that my own wife won't see that particular story. Why? She'd worry about ME.

If the trooper'd been trying to physically harm the man, or steal from him, or do him some evil, then we might have a discussion. But the cop was writing the man a ticket. THIS aspect (motive) of THIS discussion (the attempted murder of a cop) is OVER, in my opinion.

[johnbt]

"What right has to infringed before its morally right to physicaly fight back like others did 224 years ago?"

My response - It isn't seat belt laws.

"I don't have an easy answer. I only have questions."

And your questions reveal your sympathies. John

[Sprig]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by EnochGale:
They sure had a lot of rights back them - so stop mooning over the good old days.

You are full of crap and don't say you are trying only asking questions. Sheer sophistry.

The responses of some of you defending this monster on pseudo-crackpot grounds of the constitution disgusts me.

Moderators - shut down these fools. Can you imagine what this reads like to sane people?
[/quote]

Your 1954 example doesn't directly apply. Still, there are similarities that makes that issue interesting.

I am not a liar. I am honestly asking questions. Yes, they are gut wrenching questions of morality and law. That doesn't reduce the validity of the question though.

"pseudo-crackpot grounds of the constitution"??? You didn't answer the question. Which right of yours would have to be infringed before you take up arms?

There is no magic black and white line.

The article sugests that line was drawn for this person by the seatbelt law.

That line was taxes for our forefathers.

What line is it for you?

Here is where I lay it down for TFL members.

I am in awe of the courage to take up arms when individual freedoms are repressed by government.

If I were the juror I would find the guy guilty (based solely on the article) and wish to hang him.

These two personal opinions create an inner conflict in my soul.

Sprig

[Jhp147]

Your initial post, Sprig, did a bit more than hint to more than one of us, and you are probably aware of that. What right has to be infringed before it is morally proper to fight back like others did 224 years ago? I don't know, but it damn sure has to be more than a non-moving violation. IIRC, the colonists didn't just go out and put a musket ball in the first Redcoat they saw on the town square when they saw what was going on, they petitioned King George for action. After a LOT of inaction from the King and much discussion and argument among even themselves, the fighting began. That was only when the King's men tried to relieve them of weapons, if I am recalling the major events correctly. Would it still be murder if the trooper had just left him alone? I see no logic in that. Would it still be murder if the armed robber's victim fails to allow him the "freedom" to scoop up the contents of the cash drawer and flee, and the robber blows the victim's brains out? Admittedly, the situation is quite different, but the logic is similar. Would the old guy have shot him? No, he would have shot the next Trooper, Police officer, Deputy or maybe dog catcher or county commissioner he ran into who happened to cause his "inner conflict." Yes, I know that the Trooper is still at this moment alive. How does this somehow make things different? Do you doubt that the intent to murder was there? I do not believe that you intended to imply nothing, you only seek answers. You like pulling folks' chain, and you did mine. I'm only sorry you picked this particular subject, it leaves me with the impression that you make light of it. The murder or maiming of a good man, cop or citizen, and the depriving his wife and child of his earthy presence deserves more respect. There, there is my answer to your questions.

Beemerb-I think your observation is on track, I have considered it exactly that way before. Your post does not strike me as justifying the actions of the shooter, no problem.

[RikWriter]

This isn't directly related to the seatbelt incident, but I would like to address the person with their analogy to the lunch counter and black people in the 50s.
How about this scenario? A group of armed blacks goes into a restaurant and sits at the whites-only area. The owner of the restaurant calls the cops, the cops come and the black people refuse to move or be arrested and when the cops drawn on them they shoot the cops.
Now, is that murder?
It's a bit less black-and-white (pardon the double-entendre) than your original analogy.
If you ask me, I would say the black people in that instance would be correct to resist enforcement of an immoral, unethical and stupid law. They would also be, in effect, committing suicide, which is why black people chose, for the most part, nonviolent demonstrations during the 50s.
I am not defending the obviously-disturbed old man---though he was in some ways a victim of politics, that is in no way justification for killing a LEO for something as minor as a seat belt ticket.
BUT I do want to make the point that just because something is the law doesn't make it right, and just because someone is a cop doesn't mean they give up their conscience. Or lose the ability to be evil.

[12-34hom]

My prayers are with this State Trooper tonight for a full recovery.

I won't comment on comments made by some here about this shooting and its motives. I am not suprised by some here and there level and lack of compassion for those men & women out risking thier lifes to make society safe for all.

They take liberties, and fail to grasp the obvious and make comments that lack taste and show thier mindset towards law enforcement as a whole....

[Sprig]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Long Path:
Sprig, I'm not saying that your questions are not valid, but you'll pardon me for taking offense at your apparent justification of the man's motive.

Sprig, by attempting to focus on the man's motive in this instance, you do give some credance to his excuse. Do you really want to be that guy? Do you want to try to explain that to the trooper's family? [/quote]
Long Path thanks for polite rebuttal.

I see that the line for rebelion is as grey as a morning fog. I do admit to have some sympathy for the old guy and giving some credence for his excuse.

I do not want to be that guy. I do not want to explain it to his or your family. I would not have wanted it to happen to my father and have it explained to me.

I will answer the tough questions of others without intention of malice.

I am not anti-Leo by any stretch. With the recent apparent flood of anti-Leo media and some of the replies here that might soon be fast changing. But, I am still at this time very much pro-Leo. Its very important that the effort to keep the public pro-Leo is far more important then what "I" think.

I feel it is to easy to author a reply that says, "hang the guy" when there appears to be a deeper issue. I would be surprised if I didn't offend someone a little with those questions. But let me state that its not my intention to deliberately and blatently offend or throw names. And, that I try to offer appologies to those that misunderstood my goals.

This isn't just some guy that went nuts and shot a Leo. There was cause and effect. We can dicuss this, or we can sling mud. Its easier to take the side of the Leo, or to sling mud. To take an honest look at the side of the shooter makes one dig deeper and think further about the issue.

The last question remains valid.

Should "Americans stripped of a right" physically fight against those infringing upon their freedoms?

Its not a question that will be answered the same way by everyone.

And, I don't think the right to not wear a seatbelt is morally a reason to physically fight back. And I wonder why I think this way. Where is the line I would draw in the sand. I don't know.

Sprig

[LawCat]

FYI, Ladies, a classic column:
========================================= http://www.proliberty.com/observer/prt1097c.htm





Live Free or Die

by Vin Suprynowicz

Go where the land meets the water, anywhere in New England, and
you will begin to understand how firmly the region of my birth lies in
bondage to the Cult of the Omnipotent State.
Town and state governments throughout New England traditionally buy
and dump tons of sea sand--or whatever will pass for it --along the
shorelines of their municipal beaches and parks. It doesn’t matter whether
the shoreline of the lake, river or ocean cove in question was originally a
reeded marshland, offering pristine habitat to waterfowl and a hundred other
creatures--the kind of place I (for one) would far rather spend my time
communing with nature during that nine months of the year when it’s NOT
"time to turn, so you won’t burn."
No matter: What the majority of taxpayers want is a sandy beach for
picnicking and sunbathing (in fact, precious little "swimming" ever
transpires), and that is what they darned well get. What? The autumn
storms and winter ice annually erode the sand away, as nature attempts to
restore these areas to their normal, fertile condition, with beds of reeds and
cattails to naturally strain away pollutants? Never mind; just bring back the
sand trucks every spring, raking out a new sandy beach by Memorial Day.
The state is never out of resources; taxes spring eternal.
Actually, the institutionalized destruction goes much deeper than this.
"Urban Renewal," in New England, often includes development of new
office complexes and highways on "unused" or "blighted" land. For 40 years
now, the larger New England cities have bulldozed interstate highways
through the "seedy, decrepit" areas of docks and profitable but low-rent
private businesses which used to line their waterfronts, throwing small
business owners on the dole and erecting their new throughways atop
impassable 20-foot concrete embankments, until two whole generations
have grown up within a mile or two of the ocean or the navigable
Connecticut River in Hartford, Springfield, New Haven or Boston without
so much as SEEING the water that gave their cities birth, except as a distant
glitter far below the highway bridge they take to work.
But let a private citizen try to turn a slice of his own private, rocky
shoreline into a boat dock, a sliver of sandy beach, or even a
well-intentioned but "unpermitted" refuge for turtles and wood ducks (yes, I
know of just such cases, in Connecticut and New Jersey)--let him try to
similarly adjust nature to his needs or wishes--and suddenly the state
authorities descend like locusts, seizing and destroying the privately-held
turtles, demanding to see all the required permits, showering liens and
injunctions like a freak April snow shower.
What’s more, the very populace who blithely speed along on the
shore-destroying freeways, who consider it their civic right to lie in pure
white sand where geese and fox and a hundred other creatures used to raise
their young, cheer with glee as these "greedy" private "despoilers of nature"
are brought low, for daring to offend against the state-enforced religion of
Environmentalism ... on their own property. How dare such troglodytes
tamper with sacred resources belonging to all the people, doing whatever
they please with no more justification than the fact they happen to hold
some bogus "private deed"? Of course, the notion that one need only "apply
for a permit" is nothing but misdirection, equivalent to telling the Jews as
they boarded the trains to the East that they should be careful to "label your
luggage carefully for when you return."
Big commercial developers who make big campaign contributions may
well get some kind of hypocritical "certificate of environmental compliance"
for THEIR plans to pave and channelize the local waterfront ... requiring
yet more government seizure of private property for another big "flood
control project," upstream ... but the little guy faces years of hoop-jumping
as his permit applications are lost, or returned for re-filing on updated
forms, before they’re finally denied.
At which point, the poor sad sack will learn to his dismay that it’s too
late to declare, "Well then, your whole permitting process is bogus, and I’m
going ahead anyway."
At that point, the long-suffering citizen will be advised by a
stern-voiced judge that he waived his right to appeal the validity of the
permitting process when he filed his application (way back in the days when
he was told "That’s all there is to it,") thus tacitly acknowledging the right of
the state to either grant or withhold its permission for the project in
question!
Just ask 67-year-old carpenter Carl Drega, of Columbia, N.H.
Laughed out of court
In 1981, 80 feet of the riverbank along Drega’s property collapsed
during a rainstorm. Drega decided to dump and pack enough dirt to repair
the erosion damage, restoring his lot along the Connecticut River to its
original size.
A state conservation officer, Sergeant Eric Stohl, claimed to have
spotted the project from the river while passing the Drega property on a
fish-stocking operation (the river’s natural ecology harbored huge runs of
shad and Atlantic salmon, as well as native pike, pickerel, and brook trout.
So most New England state governments--these devoted acolytes of
environmental purity--now routinely stock bass, and brown and rainbow
trout, none of which is native and few of which survive long enough to
reproduce).
The state hauled Drega into court, attempting to block his tiny
"project." This was piled on top of earlier actions by the Town of
Columbia, some dating back more than 20 years, and starting when the
town hauled Drega into court and threatened him with liens, judgments and
(ultimately) property seizure over a "zoning violation" which was comprised
of his failure to finish a house covered with tarpaper within a time frame
which the town considered reasonable, former selectman Kenneth
Parkhurst told the Boston Globe.
Drega tried for years to fight the authorities on their own terms, in
court. Needless to say, as a quasi-literate product of the government
schools, and no lawyer, his filings became a laughing stock both in the
courts and in the newspapers to which he sent copies, begging for help.
"The dispute, punctuated by years of hearings and court orders, became an
obsession for Drega," wrote reporters Matthew Brelis and Kathleen Burge
in an Aug. 20 follow-up in the Boston Globe.
Drega "filed personal lawsuits against the state officials involved and
contacted newspapers, including the Globe, imploring them to write about
the injustice being done to him."
In court in 1995, the Globe reports that Drega explained, "The reason
I’m like this on this case, when I started my project 10 years ago I was
issued permits and everything I needed. When I reapplied 10 years later,
that’s when Eric Stohl came in and the Wetlands Board had absolutely no
records. ... I am liable for everything that’s done there. In the New
Hampshire Wetlands Board, if it’s not done according to the plan, they can
take it out. And if I don’t have the money to take it out, they’ll take it out.
And if I can’t pay for it, they’ll take my property."
I sort the incoming letters-to-the-editor for a major metropolitan
newspaper. The receipt of such sheafs of heartfelt, illiterate pleadings from
folks at their wit’s end (child custody leads the list, though property rights
also feature prominently), pleading for help from SOMEONE, has become
an almost daily occurrence.
Since such tirades are too long, rambling, and "not of general public
interest" to run as letters, I diligently forward them to the city desk, in hopes
an editor there may occasionally assign a reporter to check them out. They
never do ... unless the author shoots somebody, at which point there ensues
a mad scramble through the wastebaskets. In newsrooms around the
country, the running joke when a large number of such missives or phone
calls come in on the same day is that "It must be a full moon."
Reporters cover the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is adept at putting
out its version of events in reasonable-sounding, easy-to-quote form. Those
who can’t get with the program are generally ridiculed by reporters as
"gadflies," "malcontents," and (more recently) "black helicopter conspiracy
nuts." Their rambling, disjointed stories don’t tend to fit into the standard 12
inches.
By 1995, it was obvious that Carl Drega was running out of patience.
Town selectman Vickie Bunnell, 42 (since appointed a part-time state
judge) accompanied a town tax assessor to Drega’s property in a dispute
over an assessment. Drega fired shots into the air to drive them away. (In
New England, special property tax assessments are common, and especially
cruel to senior citizens. The courts have ruled that if the town decides to run
a municipal water or sewer line along a street fronting one’s property, the
property owner can be assessed the amount by which the town figures the
property’s value has been enhanced--usually in the thousands of
dollars--even if the property owner has a perfectly good well and septic
system, and opts not to tie into the new municipal lines. Failure to pay can
eventually lead to eviction, and the property being auctioned off).
Carl Drega could see what was coming. He couldn’t have been
ignorant of the government tactics used to ambush and murder harmless
civilians at Waco and Ruby Ridge. He bought a $575 AR-15--the legal,
semi-auto version of the standard military M-16--in a gun store in Waltham,
Massachusetts, a state with some of the most restrictive gun laws in
America. He also began equipping his property with early-warning electronic
noise and motion detectors against the inevitable government assault.
Too light a round
But they didn’t come for Carl Drega at home. On Tuesday Aug. 19, at
about 2:30 on a warm summer afternoon, New Hampshire State Troopers
Leslie Lord, 45 (a former police chief of nearby Pittsburg) and Scott
Phillips, 32, arrested Drega in the parking lot of LaPerle’s IGA supermarket
in neighboring Colebrook, N.H.
("Arrest" comes from the French word for "stop." Whenever agents of
the state brace a citizen, stop him and demand to see his papers, he has
been "arrested," no matter whether he has been "read his rights," no matter
what niceties the court may apply to the various steps of the process).
Why was Carl Drega arrested that day? New Hampshire Attorney
General Phillip McLaughlin pulls out his best weasel words, reporting the
troopers had stopped Drega’s pickup because of a "perception of defects."
Earlier wire accounts reported they were preparing to ticket him for having
"rust holes in the bed of his pickup truck."
But Carl Drega had had enough. He walked back to Trooper Lord’s
cruiser and shot the uniformed government agent seven times. Then he shot
Trooper Philips, as the brave officer attempted to run away. Both died.
Drega then commandeered Lord’s cruiser and drove to the office of former
selectman--now lawyer and part-time Judge--Vickie Bunnell, 44. Bunnell
reportedly carried a handgun in her purse out of fear of Drega. But if so,
she evidently had no well-thought-out plan to use it. Bunnell ran out the
back. Drega calmly walked to the rear of the building and shot her in the
back from a range of about 30 feet. Bunnell died. Dennis Joos, 50, editor of
the local Colebrook News and Sentinel, worked in the office next door.
Unarmed, he ran out and tackled Drega. Drega walked about 15 feet with
Joos still clutching him around the legs, advising the editor to "Mind your
own (expletive) business," according to reporter Claire Knapper of the local
weekly.
Joos did not let go. Drega shot Joos in the spine. He died. Drega then
drove across the state line to Bloomfield, Vt., where he fired at New
Hampshire Fish and Game Warden Wayne Saunders, sending his car off
the road. Saunders was struck on the badge and in the arm, but his injuries
were not considered life-threatening.
Police from various agencies soon spotted the abandoned police cruiser
Drega had been driving ... still in Vermont. As they approached the vehicle,
they began taking fire from a nearby hilltop where Drega had positioned
himself, apparently still armed with the AR-15 and about 150 rounds of
ammunition. Although he managed to wound two more New Hampshire
state troopers and a U.S. Border Patrol agent before he himself was killed
by police gunfire, none of those injuries were life-threatening, either.
(Those preparing to defend themselves against assaults by armed
government agents on their own property should take note that these
failures do not appear attributable to Drega’s marksmanship--after all, he
scored plenty of hits--but rather to his dependence on the
now-military-standard .223 cartridge, which has nowhere near the stopping
power of the previous NATO standard .308, or the even earlier U.S.
standard 30.06. Some states won’t even allow deer to be hunted with the
.223, due to its low likelihood of producing a "clean kill" with one hit).
Fertilizer and tractor fuel
Immediately, the demonization of Carl Drega began. A neighbor told
the Globe about seeing a police cruiser pull up to the Drega house at 2:50
p.m., and leave at 3:10 p.m., minutes before smoke began to pour from the
house. Ignoring the likelihood that a uniformed officer might have been sent
to see if Drega had gone home, "Authorities believe the fire was set by
Drega," the Globe reported on Aug. 20, thereafter reporting as a matter of
established fact that Drega burned down his own home. Isn’t it funny how
they always do that?
Searching the barn and the remaining property later that week,
"Authorities found 450 pounds of ammonium nitrate, the substance used in
the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings, as well as cans of
diesel fuel," came the breathless Aug. 31 report by Boston Globe reporter
Royal Ford.
Trenches on the property held PVC pipe carrying wires to remote noise
and motion detectors. No remote booby-traps were discovered, though the
barn and a hillside bunker contained ammunition, parts for AK-47s and the
AR-15, "and a few boxes of silver dollars," as well as "homemade blasting
caps, guns, night scopes, a bullet-proof helmet (sic) and books on bombs
and booby traps," as well as "the makings of 86 pipe bombs."
"The makings," eh? I wonder how many wholesale hardware outlets in
this country currently stock "the makings" of 8,600 pipe bombs? The FBI
was johnny on the spot, of course, helping New Hampshire State Police
Sgt. John McMaster search the three-story barn, with its "concrete bunkers"
containing not only ammunition, but also "canned food, soda, and a
refrigerator."
(I wonder if my basement would suddenly become a "concrete bunker"
if I had a run-in with the law? How about yours?)
But it was the 400 pounds of ammonium nitrate (the estimate kept
dropping during the week) and the 61 gallons of diesel fuel in five-gallon
containers that gave authorities the willies.
"Realizing the he had walked into the most dangerous private arsenal
he had ever seen, McMaster began climbing the stairs to the second floor,"
reported Brian MacQuarrie and Judy Rakowsky of the Boston Globe on
Aug. 22. "Halfway up, (State Trooper Jack) Meaney shouted for him to
stop: He had just picked up a bomb-making manual opened to a chapter on
how to booby-trap stairs...
"The large stores of dangerous materials, combined with the discovery
of three instruction manuals on explosives and booby traps, helped persuade
N.H. authorities that they should destroy the barn with a controlled burn
and explosion," which they promptly did.
"Some federal agents initially questioned the plan to destroy the huge
cache of evidence that may have shown whether Drega had links to militia
groups or criminals," the Globe also breathlessly reports, though the paper
at least had the decency to note no such affiliations were ever established.
(One wonders whether the newspaper would have given equal play to
someone lamenting that they thus lost the chance to search for hypothetical
links between Drega and the Irish Republic Army, Drega and the Ted
Kennedy campaign staff, or Drega and the Buddhist nuns who laundered
campaign contributions for Al Gore).
Ammonium nitrate is, of course, a common fertilizer, sold in 50-pound
bags to anyone who wants it--no questions asked--in garden stores in all 50
states.
Farmers all over the nation store more than 60 gallons of diesel fuel at
a time, and even know how to combine the diesel fuel with the ammonium
nitrate to make a relatively weak explosive, useful in blowing up tree
stumps. Purchase of blasting caps for this purpose is also perfectly legal. If
this and a few hundred rounds of military surplus ammo constituted "the
most dangerous private arsenal" the head of the New Hampshire state police
bomb squad had ever seen, he must not get out much. Anyway, the
buildings are all burned to the ground now--just like at Waco--and the
newspaper reporters-- trained to just report the facts and never express
opinions--had ruled within days that Carl Drega was "diabolical and
paranoid."
The remaining question is, did government agents Vickie Bunnell,
Leslie Lord, and Scott Phillips deserve to die? Did Carl Drega pick the right
time and place to say "That’s as many of my rights as you’re going to take;
it stops right here?"
Or IS that the right question? The problem with the question is that the
oppressor state and its ant-like agents are both devious and clever: Except
when faced with overt resistance and a chance to make an example of some
social outcasts on TV, they rarely send black-clad agents to pour out of
cattle trailers in our front yards, guns ablaze.
No, they generally see to it that our chemical castration is so gradual
that there can NEVER be a majority consensus that this is finally the right
time to respond in force. In this death of a thousand cuts we’re ALWAYS
confronted with some harmless old functionary who obviously loves his
grandkids, some pleasant young bureaucrat who doubtless loves her cat and
bakes cookies for her co-workers and smilingly assures us she’s "just doing
her job" as she requests our Social Security number here ... our thumbprint
there ... the signed permission slip from your kid’s elementary school
principal for possessing a gun within a quarter-mile of the school ... and a
urine sample, please, if you’ll just follow the matron into the little room ...
"Those are the rules," after all, "everybody has to do it; I just do what
they tell me; if you don’t like it you can write your congressman." When ...
when is it finally the right moment to respond, "I’ll tell you what; why don’t
you take this steel-cored round of .223 to my congressman? In fact, take
him a whole handful, and tell him to have a nice day ... when you see him
in hell!"?
Carl Drega decided the day to finally say that, was the day they came
to arrest him on the private property of a supermarket parking lot,
supposedly for having rust holes in the bed of his pickup.
Does anyone believe that’s really why they stopped Carl Drega?
Lots more coming
I am not--repeat, not--advising anyone to go forth and start shooting
cops and bureaucrats. To start with, one’s own life expectancy at that point
grows quite short, limiting one’s options to continue fighting for freedom on
other fronts.
Most of us--unlike Carl Drega--also have families to think of. Third,
there may be other solutions. Just as much of the farmland near Rome sat
vacant by the fall of the Roman Empire--it simply proved cheaper to move
on than to endure the confiscatory Roman taxes--so do James Dale
Davidson and William Rees-Mogg predict in their new book, "The
Sovereign Individual," that Internet encryption may allow many to spirit
their hard-earned assets beyond the reach of this newer, oppressive slave
state, making "the tax man in search of someone to audit" the laughing stock
of the 21st century.
And finally, such a course invites obvious risks of mistaken identity,
collateral damage to relatively innocent bystanders (witness newspaperman
Coos), and an end to due process ... a concept for which I still harbor some
respect, even if our government oppressors do not. What I do know is, in
little more than 30 years, we have gone from a nation where the "quiet
enjoyment" of one’s private property was a sacred right, to a day when the
so-called property "owner" faces a hovering hoard of taxmen and regulators
threatening to lien, foreclose, and "go to auction" at the first sign of private
defiance of their collective will ... a relationship between government and
private property rights which my dictionary defines as "fascism."
Carl Drega tried to fight them, for years, on their own terms and in
their own courts. We know how far that got him.
What I do know is that this is why the tyrants are moving so quickly to
take away our guns.
Because they know in their hearts that if they continue the way they’ve
been going, boxing Americans into smaller and smaller corners, leaving us
no freedom to decide how to raise and school and discipline our kids, no
freedom to purchase (or do without) the medical care we want on the open
market, no freedom to withdraw $2,500 from our own bank accounts (let
alone move it out of the country) without federal permission, no freedom
even to arrange the dirt and trees on our own property to please ourselves
... if they keep going down this road, there are going to be a lot more Carl
Dregas, hundreds of them, thousands of them, fed up and not taking it any
more, a lot more pools of blood drawing flies in the municipal parking lots, a
lot more self-righteous government weasels who were "only doing their
jobs" twitching their death-dances in the warm afternoon sun ... and soon.
When is the right time to say, "Enough, no more. On this spot I stand,
and fight, and die"? When they’re stacking our luggage and loading us on
the box cars? A fat lot of good it will do us, then. Mr. Jefferson declared for
us that "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these
Ends, it is the Right of the People, to alter or abolish it."
Was Mr. Jefferson only saying we have a right to vote in a new crop of
politicians every couple of years, as the pro-government extremists insist?
No. The Declaration fearlessly declared that the Minutemen of Lexington
and Concord had been right to shoot down Redcoats who were "only doing
their jobs" in Massachusetts the year before. And it put the nations of the
world on notice that Gen. Washington was planning to shoot, himself, a
whole lot more.
"You must be kidding!" come the outraged cries. "This guy shot a
fleeing woman in the back."
Oh, pardon me. Did Judge Bunnell propose to fight a straightforward
duel with Mr. Drega, one on one, mano a mano, to determine who should
have a right to decide whether he could build a tarpaper shack on his own
property?
Of course not. The top bureaucrats generally manage to be sipping
lemonade on the porch when the process they put in motion "reaches its
final conclusion," with padlocks and police tape and furniture on the
sidewalk ... or the incinerated resister buried in the ashes. Go watch
"Escape from Sobibor." When the Jewish concentration camp inmates
finally start to kill their German oppressors, tell me how long you spend
worrying that they "didn’t give the poor, jackbooted fellows a fair, sporting
chance."
Each and every one of us must decide for him or herself when the day
has come to stand fast, raise our weapons to our shoulders, and (quoting
president Jefferson, this time) water the tree of liberty with the blood of
patriots, and of tyrants. Give up the right to make that decision, and we
become nothing better than the beasts in the field, waiting to be milked until
we can give no more, and then shuffling off without objection, heads
bowed, to the soap factory.
Carl Drega was a resident of New Hampshire. On the day Carl Drega
decided was a good day to die--on the day they towed it away--the license
plates on his rusty pickup still bore the New Hampshire state motto: "Live
Free or Die."
Carl Drega was different from most of us, all right. He believed it still
meant something.

Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin@lvrj.com. The
web site for the Suprynowicz column is at
http://www.nguworld.com/vindex/. The column is syndicated in the United
States and Canada via Mountain Media Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, Las
Vegas Nev. 89127.

© 1997 Vin Suprynowicz

Editors note:
The national media finished off what the local media had begun a decade
ago: Carl Drega spent the last ten years of his life defending his property
from the bureaucrats who wanted to steal it. Instead of reporting the truth
while one man fought valiantly to protect his life's work from those who
would steal it, the local media chose to ridicule Carl Drega. Finally, after
being forced to exhaust all of his resources in a futile attempt to defend his
property and his innocence, Carl Drega had had enough. Unavailable in the
courtroom, and with no help from the local lapdog media, Carl Drega had
only one option left to find justice. Then he died.
After he was dead and after several others were dead, did the national
media tell the truth? Or, did the national media paint Carl Drega as a kook
with possible militia ties? Why is it the pattern and practice of the media to
demonize people who believe that they have a right to protect their property
from thieves?
What you just read is the truth. What you just read should have been how
Carl Drega would be remembered. If what you just read had been written
ten years ago, Carl Drega would still have his house and the corrupt
individuals who tried to steal it might still be alive.
Any "news" person in New Hampshire who knew the truth and failed to
report it should be ashamed. A piece of America died with Carl Drega. If
the "justice" system and the media do not start seeking and reporting the
truth, more pieces of America are destined to die. The above story is so
moving that you may cancel your subscription to the Times. Remember
Carl Drega as reported here--he deserves that much from all of us.


------------------
LowClassCat
Always willing to calculate my chances

[Sprig]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jhp147:
Your initial post, Sprig, did a bit more than hint to more than one of us, and you are probably aware of that.

What right has to be infringed before it is morally proper to fight back like others did 224 years ago? I don't know, but it damn sure has to be more than a non-moving violation.

Would it still be murder if the trooper had just left him alone?
I see no logic in that.

Would the old guy have shot him? No, he would have shot the next Trooper, Police officer, Deputy or maybe dog catcher or county commissioner he ran into who happened to cause his "inner conflict."

Yes, I know that the Trooper is still at this moment alive. How does this somehow make things different? Do you doubt that the intent to murder was there?

I do not believe that you intended to imply nothing, you only seek answers. You like pulling folks' chain, and you did mine. I'm only sorry you picked this particular subject, it leaves me with the impression that you make light of it.
[/quote]

No, I am not aware that my post did more then hint to a lot of the TFL members. When I go back and read it I still see three very deep questions. How each reader will choose to read them I have no idea.

I agree that a moving violation is not the point to fight back physically. Is this though a reasonable argument? Is not any infringment reason to fight back? If not, what is?

You altered the question. I did NOT ask, "Would it still be murder if the trooper had just left him alone?"

Go back and look at my comments about the questions. This is a perfect example. YOU read it the way YOU wanted to read it, not the way I asked it.

To your question I would answer, "No". To MY question I don't have an answer, thats why I asked. I was NOT leading, or hinting. You think I was though. I applogize that what I wrote made you think that.

The fact that the Leo is currently alive does mean that the article does not state that murder has been committed. I would not feel honest if I discussed murder in a thread where no murder has been comitted. This is about ensuring the accuracy of my posts. The comment was to make certain that I was NOT replying directly to the article. I noticed at least one other used the word murder despite the fact there was no murder. No disrespect or otherwise intended. Only an effort to accurately define the differences between the article and other similar issues.

I do NOT make light of the death of a Leo or the fight for freedoms. The honest question is, what happens when the fight for freedoms ends the life of a Leo? This is NOT a game or a joke. This happened in real life and is the reason why the article appeared on TFL.

I am spending an awefull lot of time apologizing for my three questions. They meant something to me or I would not have asked them. I again appologize to anyone else that may have taken offense where none was initially intended. This is a learning experience for me and an exercise of my mind and moral standing. The event is extremely tragic. I believe that to fully understand it is the first step to preventing it in the future.

Certainly not something I want to read about again.

Sprig

[Jeff Thomas]

Officer Vetter certainly should not be fighting for his life, and certainly not for such a relatively trivial dispute.

Having said that, I second beemerb's concerns. Every time we pass another law limiting behavior .... every time .... we create another group of people who will hate those who enforce that law.

This crackpot probably would have gone ballistic over something someday. But, government is placing peace officers at risk by the constant and expanding intrusions into our lives, and that is a waste all around, IMHO.

Regards from AZ

[Sprig]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Thomas:
Officer Vetter certainly should not be fighting for his life, and certainly not for such a relatively trivial dispute.

This crackpot probably would have gone ballistic over something someday. [/quote]

And along comes somone who writes in 3 short paragraphs what I tried in several dozen terribly long ones.

I agree Officer Vetter should NOT have been shot and I wish to make known my sympathies are sincere.

Yet, that unansered question comes again at the end of Jeff Tomas post.

That crackpot could be anyone of us over any one of the laws currently or soon to be on the books. Which one is the one that turns you into the media's "crackpot"?

And to keep things civil I won't ask the previous question... ( I deleted it after I typed it.)

Sprig

[Tom B]

This will become an endless process. The more laws that are passed and the more liberties that are lost will cause more of this with people. The government will then use that as an excuse to pass more laws and take away more liberties..etc... and on and on. Throw in with that an overall loss of moral fiber in general and you get the picture.

[EnochGale]

Sophistry again rebounds.

When you exhaust the political processes and fundamental rights are threatened, then as we did during the Revolution, you might have to consider a call to arms or passive resistance such as Gandhi preach. This case was not it.

It is a credit to the African-Americans that most were not as crazed as some list members and accomplished so much of their goals without a violent revolution.

They had a much better case than the seat-beat murderer you muse about. I will state that the fantasy of defending your 'rights' so to speak and shooting the cops is what drives you and not a real philosophical position. If you don't like such a tough statement, tough.

It is easy to sit at home and preach violence.
If you don't like seat belt bills - think of helmet laws - they have been overturned by simple legislative action.

To cut through most, your discussion of rights is dishonest. Liberties lost ? Laws had to be passed to let minorities, vote, buy houses and get jobs. Armed troops took little girls to school as they were jeered by fools and poltroons.

Propose more rights for certain groups and list members thump the pulpit and foam at the mouth. Should these minority members take up arms and kill you? They would be justified by your metric.

Drop your childish glee about this man. If you don't like a law, get involved in the electoral process. Or do you just like the Internet fantasy?

This conversation really gets to me.


[This message has been edited by EnochGale (edited August 06, 2000).]

[CassidyGT]

This issue is about taxes - not seatbelt laws.

That was merely the straw that broke the camel's back. I think the guy was a loon and should not have shot the officer - he probably should have gone after the people that were screwing hin on his taxes.

BTW - Great article Lawcat!

------------------
Thane (NRA GOA JPFO SAF CAN)
MD C.A.N.OP
tbellomo@home.com
http://homes.acmecity.com/thematrix/...nsite/can.html
www.members.home.net/tbellomo/tbellomo/index.htm
"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression.
In both instances there is a twilight when everything remains
seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all
must be most aware of change in the air - however slight -
lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."
--Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

[This message has been edited by CassidyGT (edited August 06, 2000).]

[beemerb]

posted by enochgale;
This conversation really gets to me.

I submit that is you don't like the conversation it is very easy to leave
and

Moderators - shut down these fools. Can you imagine what this reads like to sane people?


The person who thinks he is the only sane one isn't

------------------
Bob--- Age and deceit will overcome youth and speed.
I'm old and deceitful.

[DC]

100K

As a reminder, we have courts. There is absolutely no defense of this old fart. He shot and likely murdered a cop over a trivial thing. The courts are the place to fight over such matters. It is my hope that the old fart will serve the rest of his life in prison

------------------
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!