Pete Eyre and Adam Mueller, so-called voluntaryists who do not believe in government, but rather a voluntary society based on natural law, are accused of illegally recording their interactions with officials at the Franklin County Jail & House of Correction in July 2010.
Adam Mueller, left, and Pete Eyre give two "thumbs down" to the Greenfield Police Department for allegedly trampling on their rights when they were arrested last July for using a recording device at the Franklin County Jail & House of Correction. The pair, who go on trial Monday in Greenfield District Court, had traveled to the jail to bail out friends charged with firearm and drug offenses. GREENFIELD – The trial of two men who belong to organizations with strong anti-government and anti-law enforcement views is poised to begin Monday in Greenfield District Court, where Adam Mueller and Pete Eyre are facing charges of illegally recording images and conversations with authorities at the Franklin County Jail & House of Correction last July.
Eyre and Mueller, the latter of whom also goes by the alias Ademo Freeman, are self-described “voluntaryists,” or people who believe that government should be abolished and replaced by a completely voluntary society based on the principles of natural law. They also believe that all forms of human association should be voluntary.
The pair ran into trouble when they showed up at the Greenfield jail last summer to bail out friends who were being held on drug and weapons charges. Eyre and Mueller claim they initially were told it would be OK to digitally record the bail process, but later were told they could not film on the premises.
Eyre and Mueller -- founding members of Cop Block, an organization dedicated to videotaping wrongdoing or heavy-handedness by law enforcement officers, including acts of police brutality or civil rights violations -- were asked to leave the jail after questioning whether the facility had a policy that expressly forbids recording audio or image at the facility. Most commonwealth jails have signs indicating forbidden activities, including the use of recording devices of any kind.
But with no signs barring them from filming, and jail officials’ apparent inability to produce documentation showing a no-filming policy, the duo continued to record their encounter with authorities, which eventually ended with them being arrested outside the jail.
Greenfield Police Sgt. Todd Dodge was the officer who responded to a call from jail officials. Dodge explained to Eyre and Mueller that they could bail out their friends, but the sergeant made it clear that they could not record or chronicle that process.
When Eyre and Mueller, who have since posted a 28-minute video of their arrest on www.copblock.org, allegedly continued to defy police orders, both men were taken into custody and charged.
Eyre and Mueller and their supporters launched a multimedia campaign in advance of Monday’s trial, highlighting what they believe was their mistreatment at the hands of the Greenfield Police Department last July. One of their complaints was that they were forced to sleep in “freezing cold cells” without blankets or pillows.
Over all, however, the men claim their civil rights were violated and that police had no right to arrest them on public property. Among their supporters is Greenfield’s own Penn Jillette, a well-known libertarian, comedian and illusionist, who has publicly supported Eyre and Mueller. Jillette, in a video clip about the case, says he’s a proud Greenfield native and thinks the police there do a good job. But, he adds, in the case of Eyre and Mueller, the police have “done something really, really wrong in arresting these guys.”
Cop Block’s website claims the organization is not so much an organization as a “decentralized project,” whose “pro-police accountability mission” includes holding law enforcement officials to the same standards as civilians. “You don’t have any extra rights because you have a badge,” is a catchphrases featured on the site, which includes a fair amount of material bashing and mocking law enforcement officials, in some instances likening them to Nazis and usurpers of civil liberties.
The logo of copblock.org, a website dedicated to increasing police accountability by videotaping cops and posting their images online.The website also includes links to libertarian and anti-government sites including LibertyStickers.com, which hawks bumper stickers decrying Congress, public education, government unions and global warming, among other hot-button topics commonly lambasted by some conservatives and right-leaning organizations.
Some of the featured stickers suggest that living in the U.S. is tantamount to living in a police state (“Live simply so the cops can’t find you”), while others bluntly accuse police of criminality (“It’s perfectly okay to murder people, as long as you get a job as a cop first”). Also included are messages bemoaning federal banking authorities that set monetary policies and interest rates (“Central banking is evil”) and messages that public education is bad for children (“Get your kids out of government school before it’s too late for their muddled little heads”).
CopBlock.org promotes “flooding” police departments with phone calls to tell law enforcement officials “what you think about their actions” and urges supporters to take photos of police and upload them to a Facebook page, “even if they aren’t doing anything illegal or wrong (though it certainly doesn’t hurt if they are)." Images currently displayed on that page include a sheriff’s vehicle parked in front of a Subway sandwich shop and a Chicago Police Department truck parked in a no-parking zone.
CopBlock.org urges supporters who witness police officers breaking the law to “politely ask the officer(s) their name and badge number and document it along with the time, date and location.” The site also encourages videographers to “shoot a Cop Block video” if they witness or experience police wrongdoing.
One article posted on the website – which Eyre and Mueller characterized as a humor article -- openly attempts to emasculate Dodd, the Greenfield police sergeant who confronted the pair outside the county jail last July. The post, written by a Thomas Spooner, elicited strong criticism from at least one woman supporter of Eyre and Mueller’s, who faulted the author for striking a sexist, misogynistic tone.
Mueller defended Spooner’s diatribe against Dodge, however, calling it “comic relief” and comparing it to the sort of satire featured in The Onion or on “Saturday Night Live.” Eyre said he laughed so hard that he had tears in his eyes. “Good job ‘Thomas Spooner,’” Eyre writes in a post following the article.
The Spooner post, written in the form of a newspaper article, imagines that Dodge is placed on paid administrative leave for exhibiting signs of “menopause.” His treatment includes counseling, hormone replacement therapy and subscriptions to magazines such as “Hormonal Hatred Monthly” and “Bitch Trapped in a Man’s Body Quarterly.”
Both Eyre and Mueller, in various online statements, say they identify with the so-called Free State movement in New Hampshire, believe in minimal or entirely voluntary government, and reject all gun laws. Founded in 2001, the Free State project is a largely libertarian-based movement to get 20,000 people to relocate to libertarian-leaning New Hampshire, whose “live free or die” motto, low crime rate and minimal reliance on federal funding appeals to anti-government or so-called natural law types.
Free Staters are seeking people willing to sign a pledge to move to New Hampshire within five years of lining up 20,000 “liberty-loving people” seeking to relocate to the Granite State. The movement selected New Hampshire because the state receives a minimal amount of federal assistance, has an unpaid citizen Legislature (lawmakers receive a token $100 stipend for serving the public), and has among the lowest state and local tax burdens in the nation. Also appealing, according to Free Staters, is New Hampshire’s “culture of individual responsibility,” as evidenced by the absence of seatbelt and motorcycle helmet laws.
Mueller said he created Cop Block because of his “personal experience with law enforcement.” The site states that Mueller is “a victim of the war on drugs, twice,” and his goal is to help provide support and information to other people abused by police officers.
Mueller states that institutionalized law enforcement is the problem – or “allowing the government to have a monopoly on protection,” as he puts it -- not necessarily individual cops. "Competition is the answer,” he writes.
Eyre, who has the A-symbol tattoo for “anarchy” tattooed on his left bicep, says his mission is “to advance the voluntary society one mind at a time.” Eyre claims he went to school for “law enforcement” and once interned at a police department, but soon afterward came to “embrace the ideas of complete liberty.”
Despite their current legal woes, Eyre, Mueller and MARV -- the black-and-gold mobile home they have dubbed the “Mobile Authority Resistance Vehicle” -- will spend a portion of this summer on a nationwide tour aimed advancing the voluntary-society concept. Eyre and Mueller founded Liberty on Tour last year. And MARV -- “a rolling billboard for liberty” – will play an "instrumental role" in their mission to spread “a principled message” advancing the concept of a voluntary society.
It remains unclear if Eyre and Mueller have a lawyer for their criminal case, which is scheduled for trial in Greenfield District Court on Monday morning, or if they plan to represent themselves.
A past court appearance by the pair drew a large group of supporters, some of whom reacted loudly and caused a disturbance at the conclusion of the legal proceeding. Extra law enforcement officials are expected to be on hand on Monday.
VIDEO of Eyre and Mueller's arrest in Greenfield in July 2010: