Support the Texas 2
Info from http://www.freethetexas2.com/
This website is here to tell David's and Brad's story and gather your support for them.
During the Republican National Convention in Minnesota last September, law enforcement conspired to repress people and free speech through brutality in the streets and entrapment and trumped up charges in court. More than 800 people were arrested, including journalists from NPR, AP and local radio and newspapers. Only 21 cases (less than 3%) were found to be prosecutable, which included Bradley Crowder and David McKay from Midland, Texas.
It is not over! Like many activists before them, our own Texas2 fell victim to an FBI informant and provocateur. David McKay and Bradly Crowder of Austin have been denied bail and held in a federal holding facility in Minnesota since September. They could not even see their families over the holidays. We need money to help pay their mounting legal fees and send them books and letters. Please, help take some of the hefty financial burden off their families and help them continue to educate themselves and their fellow inmates with books and resources. Every little bit helps. Support the Texas2! Support the RNC8! Free all prisoners of conscience!
Note: The RNC 8 are the folks who organized against the 2008 Twin Cities Republican National Convention and who have been falsely charged with terrorism in response to that. More info: Friends of the RNC8 / Defend the RNC8! Dismiss the Charges! Petition
David McKay
In September of 2008, David Guy McKay was arrested at the Republican National Convention for allegedly possessing incendiary devices. He was 22 years old. Originally from Midland Texas, David was raised by two entrepreneurs: his mother, a travel agent and his father, a chef who went on to open his own construction business. David attended Leander High School where he actively participated in theatre, choir, football, soccer, and art.
When he graduated and turned 18, David moved to Austin where he began to hone his skills as an artist. He quickly became involved in this new community, finding work as a graphic designer and animator with a local company. David was always actively employed and his resumé includes working as a mover, apartment manager, youth gymnastics instructor, construction worker, and at a locally owned sandwich shop. David's concerns for his community inspired him to organize a protest to keep the Ku Klux Klan out of his home town of Midland, be an active member of an Austin capoeira group, and work with Environment Texas.
When David was arrested those closest to him knew that the charges brought against him were unusual for his character. As new information surrounding Brandon Darby (the informant who worked with the FBI to arrest David) surfaced, it became clear that David had been entrapped by an older and more experienced activist/provocateur who had his own agenda.
David is a hard working member of his community, an artist, a loving friend, a graphic designer, a volunteer, and a capoeirista.
"The only magic I still believe in is love."
Bradley Crowder
Brad grew up in rural Greenwood, Texas, where he was active in the local community as a Boy Scout and member of the local Baptist Church. During his school years he was a member of both the basketball and baseball teams, and enjoyed bike riding, running and writing poetry and short stories. After he graduated he worked in steel building construction, the service industry, at a call center and as an electrician. Most recently he was working at a locally owned sandwich shop. Brad used much of his time outside of paid work, volunteering at community programs doing neighborhood cleanup initiatives and womens' rights advocacy.
Brad has spent his time in jail tutoring fellow inmates in preparation for their GEDs and learning Spanish so he can tutor Spanish speakers.
“He just wants to make sure that the big guys don't take advantage of the little guys. He believes that everybody should have enough food, a place to live, and an equal chance for education."
- Twila Crowder (Brad's mother)
Frequently Asked Questions
What were the charges against Brad and David?
Three federal felonies carrying 7-10 years on each count:
"To receive or possess a firearm which is not registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.” - 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d)
"To make a firearm in violation of the provisions of this chapter." - 26 U.S.C. § 5861(f)
"To receive or possess a firearm which is not identified by a serial number as required by this chapter." - 26 U.S.C. § 5861(i)
Note: the term “firearm” includes a destructive device: 26 U.S.C. § 5845(a) and the term “destructive device” in turn means any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas . . . bomb . . . .”: 26 U.S.C. § 5845(f). The term “destructive device” also includes “any combination of parts either designed or intended for use in converting any device into a destructive device . . . and from which a destructive device may be readily assembled.” Id. Unassembled Molotov cocktails have been held to constitute destructive devices under the latter definition relating to any combination of parts from which a destructive device may be readily assembled. Source: www.law.cornell.edu
On October 7th, 2008, a federal grand jury in Minnesota decided that there was enough evidence to go to trial (indict).
Is "Support the Texas 2" condoning acts of violence?
No, we are not condoning violence or violent acts. We believe that the Texas 2 were provoked and entrapped by law enforcement to further a larger political goal of discrediting anarchists and the validity of all street protest. At the RNC, violence was almost exclusively being perpetrated by law enforcement without probable cause. The largest block of arrests (300-400) was not against "rioting anarchists", but hundreds of peaceful anti-war marchers on the last day of the convention. As their permit expired, heavily armed riot police descended on them with clubs, tear gas, smoke bombs, pepper spray, flash bombs and guns. Let's be clear that real violence in our communities is the police, the courts and the prison system, and it could be argued that the worst crimes in history have been committed in the name of obedience, not disobedience.
What is a federal grand jury?
A grand jury is meant to be part of the system of checks and balances, preventing a case from going to trial on a prosecutor's bare word. In the common law it is a type of jury which determines whether there is enough evidence for a trial. Grand juries carry out this duty by examining evidence presented to them by a prosecutor and issuing indictments, or by investigating alleged crimes and issuing presentments. In practice, a grand jury rarely acts in a manner contrary to the wishes of the prosecutor.
It has been argued that grand juries as conducted today are unjust as the defendant is not represented by counsel and/or does not have the right to call witnesses. Intended to serve as a check on prosecutors, the opportunity it presents them to compel testimony can in fact prove useful in building up the case they will present at the final trial. Judge Sol Wachtler, the former Chief Judge of New York State, was quoted as saying that a prosecutor could persuade a grand jury to "indict a ham sandwich."
• Grand jury educational materials
• The Infoshop.org Guide To Federal Grand Jury Investigations
• Grand Jury Resistance Project
Why would an Innocent person take a plea rather than go to trial?
Fear! About 95 percent of federal criminal defendants plead guilty. Of the remaining few who fight in court, nearly nine of 10 are convicted. That is a 99.5% conviction rate. The federal justice system also has longer sentences, consecutive sentences and no parole, so 10 years is 10 years.
An article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, had this to say:
"The odds are pretty stacked against defendants once an indictment is issued; that pretty much seals their fate," said Mark Allenbaugh, a Huntington Beach, Calif., lawyer and nationally recognized expert on the federal court system. "Once the indictment is issued, conviction is almost guaranteed."
"A 90-plus percent conviction rate isn't something that should be applauded. I think it's something you should worry about," [Attorney Paul] Boas said. "That's what you see in totalitarian regimes... Taking away someone's freedoms should never be easy... Unfortunately, it's become way too easy."
Those found guilty at trial often face tougher sentences for causing the government to expend additional resources... "There's a ridiculous cost to exercising your constitutional right to go to trial," [Former U.S. Attorney Frederick] Thieman said. "The stakes are too high."
Did Brad and David ever carry out firebomb attacks against police officers or plan to bomb the Republican National Convention as reported or implied in media?
The simple answer is No! An FBI informant alleges that Brad and David conspired to firebomb empty police cars parked in a lot in St. Paul at 2am on wednesday, september 3rd.
At the time of the alleged attack, Brad Crowder was still in police custody after his arrest for disorderly conduct on monday, september 1st. David Makay was under continuous police surveillance and asleep at a house in St. Paul, when police broke in at 4.35am on wednesday, september 3rd. David had a flight booked to Austin at 9am that day. The alleged "conspiracy" and "attack" has be constantly mentioned by the FBI and in the media, though no charges have been directly filed.
What is this "Austin Affinity Group" that Brad and David are allegedly part of?
The media have created their own misleading definitions for the group Brad and David traveled from Austin with: a "cell", a "protest group that planned to use incendiary devices to destroy property or injure police," and in one KHOU Houston article, a counter-terrorism specialist for Austin-based Stratfor states, "it was the Fortune 500 protest in Austin at the turn of the century when the anarchy group Austin Affinity may have first burst onto the local scene." An affinity group is actually a generic term for a small protest group and no such named organization exists in Austin.
In fact, this speculation seems to be part of FBI efforts to create a larger conspiracy out of nothing.
Weren't all the protesters just "violent anarchists"?
Again this is biased language being used to simplify events and create a politically motivated fiction. There were a wide range of people protesting the RNC. The police response was more about suppressing our rights to free speech and public assembly. The majority of people were protesting perceived injustices ranging from war, poverty, corruption and poor government. Of 800+ people arrested, only 21 resulted in prosecutable charges. That's less than 3%.
“Given the fact that these anarchists are trained to create as much confusion, as much of a melee as possible — to conceal their identity both on the street and while they’re brought through the process — it’s not surprising that every single one of these arrests cannot result in a prosecutable crime,” said Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner.
This fails to explain why people were arrested if no prosecutable crimes were witnessed. In addition, more than 30 accredited journalists from local and national outlets were arrested whilst reporting on events in the streets, including Amy Goodman of NPR's Democracy Now.
Police informants reported that protesters were planning to kidnap delegates, sabotage the Xcel Center and Holman Field airport, and use large street puppets to conceal and transport Molotov cocktails, bricks and shields, before using the puppets' large bamboo poles as spears to drive back police. However, when they raided suspected houses, "They found one plastic thing they call a shield," said attorney Bruce Nestor. "If they had found 5,000 plastic shields and 10,000 bamboo spears, maybe they would have evidence of an organized insurrection."
In reality the most violent elements present at the protests were law enforcement.
Why, who and how many were protesting the Republican National Convention?
Approximately 10,000 largely peaceful protesters marched against the war in Iraq and 2,000 more to end homelessness and poverty, representing a number of organizations opposed to the Republican Administration including the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, the Teamsters, Code Pink, the American Indian Movement and the RNC Welcoming Committee. Ron Paul's Rally for the Republic, held a few miles from the convention, drew 10,000 supporters.
What is the RNC Welcoming Committee and the RNC8?
The RNCWC are an anarchist group based in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis that coordinated and facilitated discussion for the protests against the 2008 Republican National Convention, so that the actual plans for the protests were decentralized. Groups were empowered to plan for their own actions. They also created an infrastructure so that protesters that came to the Twin Cities would have places to stay, food to eat, medical services, legal aid, counseling.
The RNC8 are members of the Welcoming Committee who were arrested in police raids that preempted the protests. The eight: Robert Joseph Czernik, 32; Monica Rachel Bicking, 23; Erik Charles Oseland, 21; Garrett Scott Fitzgerald, 26; Nathanael David Secor, 28; Max Jacob Speckton, 19; Luce Guillen-Givens, 23; and Eryn Trimmer, 23, were charged with a range of felonies, including a charge of "conspiracy to commit riot in furtherance of terrorism,"
"A charge of this nature significantly chills political speech... Calling the intent to disrupt traffic and delay buses an act of terrorism trivializes real violence and runs the risk of criminalizing legitimate political expression." - Bruce Nestor, attorney for RNC8
Who provided the information against Brad and David?
Brandon Michael Darby, 32, of Austin, Texas, part of the group that traveled to Minneapolis-St. Paul for the RNC.
"As an older seasoned activist, Darby had a lot of sway over Crowder and McKay, making them susceptible to his often militant rhetoric. He was always the one to suggest violence, when the rest of us clearly disagreed with those strategies." - Gabby Hicks (who was in St. Paul with Darby during the Convention)
"Brandon was always provoking discord and aggression, in the anti-war movement in Austin in 2003, in protests in Houston against Halliburton, and in disaster relief at Common Ground in New Orleans. I worked with Darby in all of those places and saw the disruption he caused." Lisa Fithian (Austin activist)
"Over the years, I've known him [Darby] to be erratic, to be judgmental. Also somewhat crazy. He's a very provocative person." - Scott Crow (Austin activist and co-founder of Common Ground)
What usually motivates informants?
The basic types of motives haven't changed since first proposed in 1960 by Malachi L. Harney & John C. Cross in "The Informer in Law Enforcement":
• Fear - people who feel threatened by the law.
• Revenge - people, like ex-wives, ex-girlfriends, ex-employers, ex-associates, or ex-customers who want to get even.
• Perversity - people who are cop wannabes or think they're James Bond and/or hope to one day expose corruption.
• Ego - people who need to feel they are smart "big shots" and/or outwitting those they see as inferiors.
• Money - people who, like mercenaries, will do whatever it takes if the money is right.
• Repentance - people who want to leave the world of crime behind them and/or citizens fed up with crime.
In a number of interviews, Brandon Darby has stated his reasons for informing as "a moral choice" to "prevent violence", and that he "wasn't making my choices for financial reasons or to avoid some sort of prosecution." However, in the first line of his open letter admitting he was an informant, he states: "As compelling as the natural human desire to reason and express oneself can be, regardless, I must hold my comments at this time on certain aspects of the situation." So we don't know the real answer. Yet!
How reliable are FBI informants?
Not very reliable, according to a 2005 Department of Justice review, reported in the New York Times:
"The Federal Bureau of Investigation has often violated internal guidelines in its handling of confidential informants, the Justice Department's inspector general concluded Monday. In nearly 9 of every 10 cases reviewed by the inspector general, guidelines on the handling of confidential informants were violated in ways that risked compromising investigations..."
How reliable is the FBI?
The FBI has a history of politically motivated repression and abuses. These date back to before World War I and through the 1920s, when they were charged with rounding up "anarchists and revolutionaries" for deportation. This was documented by the U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (aka The Church Committee) in 1975. The Church Committee was setup to investigate deliberate FBI abuses between 1956 and 1971, referred to as COINTELPRO, the FBI's Counter Intelligence Program.
"The inspector general's review looked at the effect of a number of changes ordered by Mr. Ashcroft in his 2002 revamping of the bureau's investigative guidelines... The changes overturned restrictions put in place in the 1970's as a result of F.B.I. abuses in the monitoring of political dissidents [known as COINTELPRO]."
Doesn't the FBI only investigate those it believes have committed a crime?
No. On May 30, 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued revised Guidelines on General Crimes, Racketeering Enterprise and Terrorism Enterprise Investigations (FBI Guidelines). According to research by the Washington D.C. based non-profit, The Center for Democracy and Technology, this includes:
"Enhancing Preliminary Inquiries (PIs), which allow the FBI to conduct investigations even when there is no reasonable indication of criminal activity. Under the old Guidelines for PIs, the FBI could use all techniques except three: mail covers, mail openings and wiretaps... [and] if 90 days of investigation turned up no indication of criminal activity, the investigation could be continued only with HQ approval. Under the changes, PIs can continue 1 year without HQ approval. This means that the FBI can conduct an investigation, using highly intrusive techniques, for one year (and longer with HQ approval) even if the investigation is turning up no reasonable indication of criminal activity."
Also read and listen to the Amnesty International Study, "Tracked in America".
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