Reader John Dingell III writes:
There has been an interesting development in the case of two individuals who were arrested for open carry in the anteroom of the Dearborn, Michigan Police Department headquarters. Two men from central Michigan were arrested for entering the DPD headquarters building while carrying, and filming themselves while doing so. They were reportedly using open carry to protest what they believed was a bogus traffic stop which went down earlier in Dearborn.
These two have been abandoned by Michigan’s open carry movement due to the allegation that they were using open carry to protest something entirely unrelated to Second Amendment rights, but it doesn’t appear that their actions actually violated Michigan law.
At least one of the two was wearing ‘body armor’, which added to the provocative nature of their actions. Carry in police stations is actually not prohibited by Michigan law. In fact, it is a violation of Michigan law to prohibit firearms in a police station outside of secured areas.
Now we have a remarkable discovery from Nicholas Somberg, the defense attorney for Brandon Vreeland of Jackson: the Dearborn Police secretly monitored the two ‘Second Amendment activists’ and essentially ambushed both men as they were filming themselves walking into the Dearborn Police headquarters.
From yesterday’s free.com article:
A lawyer says Dearborn police, using Facebook profile name “Olivia,” secretly monitored a network of Second Amendment activists and ambushed two men who filmed themselves walking into police headquarters last month.
Nicholas Somberg, who represents 40-year-old Brandon Vreeland of Jackson, said the Feb. 5 incident was a “political witch hunt” as his client and James Baker, 24, of Leonard, Mich., were arrested. In a YouTube video, Baker can be seen in a black ski mask with a short-barreled rifle slung over his chest and a semi-automatic pistol strapped to his hip; Vreeland had on body armor but left his gun in the car, instead bringing along cameras to videotape the encounter that was about to take place.
“After the discovery, it is very clear that Dearborn (police) knew that they were coming, knew who they were, and planned the ambush,” Somberg said. “It’s not that they were reacting to a situation they thought was going to be violent. They actually knew it was not violent, knew who they were, and just wanted to teach these guys a lesson.”
Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad didn’t immediately respond Friday to a Free Press request for comment.
Somberg is building an entrapment case on behalf of Vreeland, with First and Second Amendment kickers. It is important to note here that the reported actions of Vreeland and Baker did not violate Michigan law; the only possible valid legal charges against them would have to be based on intent.
The novelty of this case is the use of a police department’s social media monitoring department against gun owners engaged in seemingly legal activities. It is quite likely that the traffic stop which precipitated this incident was indeed bogus and the illegal fruit of social media monitoring.
Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad is profoundly anti-gun. He has also faced a lot of scrutiny for the ‘shoot first’ culture of his department, and is facing a number of lawsuits for police shootings of Detroiters (black Detroit city residents who have strayed into Dearborn). He also has a lot of social turmoil going on within his department. The question is whether Haddad set this up this incident for its propaganda value.
It has long been known that NYPD has a social media group staffed with over 100 people ostensibly spying on terrorists, but they actually work at keeping gang bangers off balance, too. It appears that Dearborn PD also has a social media section. Note here that Dearbornistan has a very large Arab/Muslim population, so the DPD social media team is probably also funded by the feds (DHS).
Gun owners should probably be made aware that big brother is watching them on social media, at least in DHS-funded cities. BATFE also seems to be monitoring social media to make ‘dealing without a license’ cases here in Michigan, but this is a developing story and more information is needed to make this one newsworthy.