http://www.eagletribune.com/…

Keni Garcia told police he intended to use the 30,000 bullets they found in his car and home for target practice.

That is hard to believe, the prosecutor at Garcia’s arraignment said, because if he were to fire a gun for eight hours a day, it would take weeks for him to use all of it.

Garcia, who allegedly bought thousands of rounds of ammunition and had 10,000 bullets in his car when he was stopped by police Thursday, was ordered held on $500,000 cash bail yesterday.

Attorney Socrates de la Cruz of Lawrence, who represented Garcia, 32, of 12 Freeman St., at his arraignment in Haverhill District Court, said he will appeal the high bail in Superior Court.

Garcia is charged with three counts of possession of a high-capacity firearm, illegal possession of ammunition and illegal storage of a firearm. His case was continued until June 12.

Assistant District Attorney Christopher Holland asked Judge Patricia Dowling to impose $750,000 cash bail.

“He has no reason to stay here,” Holland said.

The judge ordered Garcia to surrender his passport, and said that if he makes bail he is not to leave Massachusetts.

Garcia is a native of the Dominican Republic who was expected to become a U.S. citizen yesterday, but then he was arrested, authorities said.

Police arrested Garcia after he had left Interstate 495 at Exit 49 Thursday. They said they found 10,000 rounds of ammunition in his car. His two young daughters also were in the car, police said.

Holland said at Garcia’s arraignment that a “joint effort” by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and state police found that Garcia had previously bought 20,000 rounds of ammunition in New Hampshire.

Garcia told police he only intended to use the bullets for target practice at a rifle range, Holland said, disputing Garcia’s explanation. His common law wife, Elizabeth Reynoso, consented to a search and police found another 20,000 rounds, Holland said. They also found one .38-caliber and two 9 mm handguns, and $25,000 in cash, Holland said.

The prosecutor said all of the bullets seized from Garcia were for .38-caliber, 9 mm and .22-caliber firearms. Such ammunition is “like gold in the Dominican Republic,” he said.

Holland said Reynoso told police he had “a shipping type of business” and that the $25,000 in cash must have come from Garcia cashing a business check.

“Where is the crime?” de la Cruz asked. The lawyer said Garcia had lived in New Hampshire for three years before recently moving to Haverhill.

“He bought the guns legally,” de la Cruz said. “He never hid the fact that he had them.”

Furthermore, de la Cruz said that when Garcia moved to Haverhill, he had a 60-day grace period to obtain a Massachusetts firearms card.

“There is no crime committed,” he argued, saying there was no evidence that Garcia was shipping guns or ammunition to the Dominican Republic.

30K? Really? I’m not much of gun person but I do own a few. I’ve just recently ordered 500 rounds of 9mm. It fits in one ammo can with room to spare… in the boxes. You could fit probably three thousand rounds of .22LR in a .30 cal ammo can. To a person who shoots often 30K rounds is not that many. And look at the calibers. 9mm, .38, .22? Those are cheaper, smaller calibers often used for practice shooting.

And don’t forget there is still a run on guns and ammo due to the Obama administrations strong language regarding guns and ammo. I ordered the 9mm ammo mentioned above in February and just received it last week . Obviously there are a lot of people buying ammo and I doubt its all new customers and small amounts.

This guy should move back to NH.

http://www.keenesentinel.com/…

By PHILLIP BANTZ
Sentinel Staff

WESTMORELAND — A battle of wills is playing out within the cinder block walls of the Cheshire

Sam Miller talks about his experience in the local court system during a visit at the Cheshire County jail in Westmoreland.

County jail in Westmoreland, where an activist has spent more than a month protesting a judge’s order that he identify himself to police.

John Doe walks into the jail cafeteria, a faded orange jumpsuit draped over his lanky frame and a folder of legal documents tucked under his arm. He sits at a stainless steel picnic-style table and when he smiles the tendons in his long, thin neck bulge.

Doe says he hasn’t eaten solid food since he’s been behind bars because he’s on a hunger strike. When he came to jail he weighed 180 pounds, and now he weighs 116, he says.

Court and jail officials know Doe’s real name — Sam A. Miller, a 33-year-old former telecommunications specialist from Texas who moved to Keene earlier this year to join the Free State Project. They have Miller’s Texas driver’s license.

But Keene District Court Judge Edward J. Burke has ordered Miller to remain held on $10,000 bail and will not schedule a trial until he gives the Keene police his name.

Read More…

http://www.cnn.com/

OAKLAND, California (CNN) — A former police officer for the Bay Area transit system pleaded not guilty Thursday in the New Year’s Day shooting of a passenger at an Oakland rail station.

Johannes Mehserle, 27, appeared in a packed Alameda County courtroom, with his supporters separated by a courtroom aisle from relatives of shooting victim Oscar Grant III and other spectators. Mehserle is charged with shooting Grant, 22, in an incident that spurred violent protests in Oakland after being captured on video.

Mehserle resigned his job as a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer days after the shooting, and he was arrested in Nevada earlier this week. Thursday’s proceedings took less than five minutes, with Mehserle appearing behind heavy windows in an enclosure out of view of all but a handful of spectators.

Superior Court Judge Robert McGuinness ordered the ex-officer held until his next hearing, scheduled for January 26.

BART police had been called to Oakland’s Fruitvale station January 1 after passengers complained about fights on a train.

Officers pulled several men, including Grant, off the train when it arrived at Fruitvale, and video taken by witnesses showed Mehserle shooting Grant in the back as another officer kneeled on the man.

Investigators have not said whether Grant was involved in the fight.

The shooting spawned public outrage and a string of protests that led to more than 100 riot-related arrests.

Thursday’s proceedings drew an overflow crowd to the courthouse, with some would-be spectators grumbling that they could not get into the hearing.

Certainly a “stunning” turn of events.

Related Stories: First Story . Second Story . Third Story . Forth Story

http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/…

Authorities removed Adolf Hilter Campbell and his sisters from their parents’ Hunterdon County home, Holland Township police chief David Van Gilson said Tuesday.

New Jersey’s Division of Youth and Family Services took the 3-year-old as well as JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, 1, and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, who turns 1 in April, the chief said.

Van Gilson said he didn’t know why the children were taken or who had custody. He said his department received no reports of abuse or negligence.

The children’s father, Heath Campbell, reached Tuesday evening at a relative’s home, first declined comment and later said the children were not removed.

The Division of Youth and Family Services would not confirm or deny the report.

A spokeswoman said the division doesn’t comment on specific families.

The chief said the children were removed last week. He said a township officer was present.

“Whatever children were at the home were taken,” the chief said.

A hearing is scheduled for Thursday before Superior Court Judge Peter A. Buschbaum at the Hunterdon County Justice Center, the chief said. He said a hearing on Tuesday was postponed when Campbell indicated he wanted a private attorney.

The hearing is to decide whether the state can temporarily place the children in another home, the chief said. He said township police Sgt. John Harris is scheduled to testify.

The Campbell family gained worldwide attention after a Dec. 14 story in The Express-Times about the children’s names and a Warren County supermarket’s refusal to write Adolf Hitler on a birthday cake.

Heath Campbell, who’s previously said he picked the names to honor German ancestry and because they are unique, has reported receiving threats after the story was published.

Another Campbell family in Holland Township received a death threat intended for Heath Campbell, township police have said. That case remains under investigation.

All kinds of fucked up here. Supermarket refused to write “Adolf Hitler” on birthday cake. So what? Exercising their property rights. Some bigoted parents name their kids after Aryan national socialist related people and ideas. Oh well. Not my business. Threating harm against the bigots by bigot bigots. Not cool. Taking of their children for no apparent reason. Very not cool.

At most the parents should be ostracized. The children should be left alone. The government should definitely should not be taking them but should be investigating the threats.

At least when the Mormons are discriminated against there are charges of child abuse. Even if they turn out to be faked there was at least the possibility of someone being harmed.

H/T Laur

http://www.politickernj.com/…

Citing concerns over the vulnerability of New Jersey’s electronic voting machines raised in a Princeton University professor’s report, the top Union County election official is encouraging residents to vote by mail.

Union County Clerk Joanne Rajoppi today reminded voters that the Clerks Office will be open Saturday to hand out last minute absentee ballots before the November 4th, saying that she didn’t feel confident that all votes would be counted accurately by the current stock of machines. She plans to redeploy her agency’s staff to deal with the expected increased volume of paper ballots.

Rajoppi had asked the state to investigate tallying errors she found in the voting machines, manufactured by Sequoia, during the February presidential primary. No investigation took place, however.

“The state, despite urging by COA-NJ (the Constitutional Officers Association of NJ) and others, would not agree to an independent test but instead relied on the vendor, Sequoia who reported that poll workers were responsible for the errors which occurred not just in Union County but throughout the state,” she said.

Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg had requested that Princeton University computer science professor Andrew Appel compile a report on the status of New Jersey’s voting machines. He and other researchers found several flaws in the machines and warned that they’re easy to tamper with.

“I believe the state, who hired their own consultant to review the Princeton report, should own up to problems with the machines. Perhaps the problems do not, as a NJ Division of Elections employee said, rise to the level of ‘overturning an election,’ however, voters deserve a transparent process and greater confidence in their voting machinery than is now provided. Despite the outstanding job done by county election officials across the state,” said Rajoppi.“If there are problems in the design of the voting machine, there is a problem. An alternative is of course to vote by mail.”

A spokeswoman for the Division of Elections could not immediately be reached for comment.

My vote doesn’t matter much anyway… it’s not worth the effort to get an absentee ballot. I’m glad this got out however. The more people distrust the voting system the better.

http://www.newsday.com/…

The Conservative, Green and Libertarian parties will have the same fundraising rights as the two major parties under an order signed by a Superior Court judge.

The order settles a lawsuit the alternative parties filed against the state.

It removes fundraising limits from the three parties, allowing them to raise money from people at the same levels as Democrats and Republicans. It also allows them to give unlimited contributions to their candidates, just as the Democratic and Republican parties have done.

This is great news. People often criticize third parties, deciding not to even consider them because they rarely make it on ballets which must imply that they have a message no one is interested in. So to because no one is interested there won’t be enough votes to matter so there is no need to invest time or a vote in them. The D’s and R’s though stack the decks against their competition. They make the laws outright bias and the rules convoluted. When the rules are followed they sue to slow down the processing by questioning the legitimacy of the results.

UPDATE: More info here and here.