On Saturday, 12/13/14, I attended the 2nd rally for David Hooks, a white businessman who was killed by police in a trumped-up, fruitless drug raid in Laurens County, GA in late September. Between the rallies, attendees went from "dozens" to "hundreds".
Here is a WMAZ TV-13 story, with videos of speakers. Here is footage of the entire rally.
Below the fold is an attorney's summary of the case, and for other background, you can find two diaries here that I wrote in October.
We learned last week from the family's attorney, Mitchell Shook, that of the four gunshot wounds Hooks suffered, "One was to the side of the head, the other was in his back, the back of his left shoulder. Based on the evidence we see, we believe that David Hooks was face down on the ground when he received those last two shots."
From the piece: "Shook says that's according to the Laurens County EMS records. He says the same information is found in the medical records from Fairview Park Hospital." The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) autopsy report has not been released.
They also apparently drug Mr. Hooks across the floor, after he was shot but still alive, and his wife, Teresa, and son were handcuffed and detained for a couple of hours, while and after the "authorities" carried the dying man away. (That last linked story, also from WMAZ, has the widow's account of how they crashed in, guns blazing...)
I don't have any pictures of the rally, but many were taken, and may begin to trickle onto the web. There was no police presence (though they were invited). I didn't even see a police car drive by, city or county, although right before the rally started, there was a brief siren wail that sounded like it was a (small town) block or so away. Everyone got stern expressions and looked that way, but there was nothing more.
There was much traffic driving by, listening, reading signs, waving at us and occasionally honking (they knew speakers were talking). These locals have been terrorized for years by Chris Brewer, et al, ALL of whom are STILL ON THE JOB, and many supporters were reluctant to be seen at the rally.
Attorney Catherine Bernard, of Spartacus Legal Foundation, who has helped organize the rallies, posted the following. "The facts" beneath her update indicate two things new to me: that it was NOT a no-knock warrant, and that the methhead/thief was somewhat "officially"(?!) working as a confidential informant to the Drug Task Force. It gives yet a third account of how/where he was... apprehended(?), and how they obtained the ridiculous information that was used as the basis for the warrant.
http://spartacuslegal.org/...
UPDATE: The second rally for justice for David Hooks was a huge success - thank you to all who attended and helped spread the word! We received over 250 petition signatures asking Laurens County Sheriff Bill Harrell to suspend Deputy Chris Brewer, the drug task force head who obtained the search warrant based on the word of a thief. The petition is now online - sign here and show your support for justice for David Hooks! Petition to Suspend Laurens County Sheriff's Deputy Christopher S. Brewer.
The facts: On September 24, 2014, 59-year-old grandfather and business owner David Hooks was killed in his East Dublin home by the Laurens County Sheriff's Office. The shooting occurred as the LCSO served a search warrant late in the evening, on a family who had just been burglarized the previous night - and the search warrant was based on the word of the burglar.
Mr. Hooks contacted the Laurens County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) on September 23rd to report a burglary in which a vehicle, firearms, and fishing equipment were stolen from his property. Investigators were able to quickly to track down the suspect, Rodney Garrett, who had stolen another vehicle on September 19th and had been arrested for shoplifting on August 29th. However, it appears that after his August 29th arrest, Garrett was recruited to work as a confidential informant for the LCSO Drug Task Force. This meant that instead of turning himself in to the Sheriff’s Office, Garrett was permitted to contact deputies and arrange to meet them at an undisclosed location. There, he claimed that he had found methamphetamine in the vehicle that he stole from David Hooks. Less than six hours later, Deputy Chris Brewer of the LCSO Drug Task Force submitted an affidavit to Laurens County Magistrate Judge Faith Snell based on the information from Garrett and received a search warrant at 9:56 p.m. on September 24th.
The head of the Drug Task Force, Deputy Chris Brewer, sought a search warrant for Mr. Hooks' property right away. Based on the word of an admitted thief and Deputy Brewer's representations, Magistrate Judge Faith Snell granted the search warrant - but NOT the no-knock provision - at 9:56 p.m. on September 24th. Within the hour, the LCSO Special Response Team (equivalent to SWAT), along with Sheriff Bill Harrell himself, headed out to the Hooks residence in full raid gear and equipment.
Teresa Hooks, David's wife, heard and saw at least one vehicle coming onto their property at a high rate of speed with the lights turned off. She saw men with hoods, camouflage, and weapons approaching the house. Frightened, she woke her husband, who went to the door with his shotgun. Though he never raised the shotgun from his side, and it would ultimately be found to have been unloaded, the deputies massed at the door opened fire on Mr. Hooks.
The search warrant was left in the kitchen of the home at 10:55 p.m. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation secured a second search warrant at 1:52 a.m., and the search continued for 44 hours. No contraband was located anywhere on the property.
You don't have to be from Laurens County, or even Georgia, to sign that petition (which I did at the rally), so how about we "freep" that thing from here to Hawaii? It's a start...
Speaking of which, someone with an account should post this news and petition link to Free Republic. I imagine that they will spread it, too. Just look at this Free Republic discussion of the David Hooks case, back in October. That entire thread could've been written right here!
Which illustrates an important point: militarized police overreach is affecting us all, and this is THE issue that can begin to unite the People against these serious threats that We face. And THAT is why this compelling story is not being reported by the national, mainstream media.
The powers-that-be are TERRIFIED that We the People will all get on the same page about something, and their media lapdogs are complicit in this silence. They want white people blissfully ignorant of this story, so many will continue to think of this as a "black" problem, and remain disengaged. They don't want white people joining this fight, because such unity might foster the birth of a movement that could achieve many desperately needed reforms!
Introduced by Catherine Bernard, here is Derrick Grayson, a GA black man who ran for US Senate (on the Republican ticket), who gives "straight talk" to the people in attendance. He made some important points, and I hope his message resonates with people. He said "The moment you realize it can happen to you, is the moment you wake up."
The David Hooks story has the power to wake white people up, but only if we HEAR it!
David Hooks' killing proves that even well-off white people, respected in their communities, are at risk, thanks to asset forfeiture laws in this War on Drugs! I hope that any whites who are resentful that this egregious killing of one of "theirs" is being "relatively" ignored by the media will understand WHY it is being "ignored". Not covering it: 1) keeps many whites ignorant of their peril, and 2) foments this very resentment, which furthers division!
While statistically the number of blacks killed by police FAR outpaces that of whites (blacks have been a "training ground"), the problem does transcend simple racism. In reading, I ran across one (libertarian) guy's commentary, which expresses the sheer scope:
A white, southern male was shot; face down, in the back of the head, in his own home, during a no-knock drug raid that produced no results… Yet people still think the police brutality problem in this country is about race? [...] It’s a policy problem, it’s a culture problem, it's a training problem, it’s a militarization problem, it’s a drug war problem and it’s a reckless cop problem.
How many more people have to die before this country realizes the true issues? Without getting to the cause, the problem will never be solved.
He forgot to mention it's a SERIOUS Fourth Amendment constitutional problem!
We ALL face these threats together, and we MUST unite to address them, before we wake up in a hopelessly totalitarian dystopia!
I'd like to see Reverend Al (or ANYone with a national microphone) cover this story. But a black man publicizing it, while white media people are largely silent, would be a wonderful way to help foil the "dividers".
In the meantime, please keep sharing it, and blogging it, and GO SIGN that petition! Thank you!
What's done to one may come to all; United We Stand...