Portland: Update on Pax

Portland ABC. Oct 8:

Update on Pax

From Free Pax:  We would like to say ‘thank you’ to all who have extended solidarity to Pax (Bryan Wiedeman) throughout this situation. We hope that similar solidarity will be displayed in other instances of repression–political repression as well as policing-as-usual that operates along class-based, racist and patriarchal lines.

Pax accepted a plea deal on October 1st for three counts of criminal mischief in the first degree. He was arrested last May and was initially charged with 72 felonies — something about vandalizing ATM’s.  The non-cooperating plea deal includes 5 years supervised probation, 20 days of weekend jail, 80 hours of community service, and $43084.59 restitution.  (Wow, I’m no math wizard but that sounds like a pile.) The discrepancy between the original charges and the anti-climactic outcome is evidence that the prosecution was politically motivated, said Kristian Williams, with the Committee Against Political Repression. “The police don’t ordinarily kick down doors with guns drawn over simple vandalism,” says Williams, “and the attempt to inflate the case to felony conspiracy is pretty shameful. Clearly the whole affair was politically motivated.” PDXABC hopes Pax can get this mess behind him soon and we do wish the PoPo would stop over reacting to everything.   Quit blasting away at every moving thing.  Remember: Not everyone is a good driver, which does not necessarily entitle you to run them off the road in your off hours with your personal vehicle in order to confront them with your gun.  Not everyone displays good judgment at all times; probably not a valid criteria for jumping up and down on their chest cavity until it caves in, or shooting them in the back after having done your utmost to scare the bejesus out of them in the first place.  Just stay calm.  Lay off the caffeine and performance enhancing steroids – those eventually lead to testicular cancer, you know.  Then, in addition to being unreasonable,  you’ll also become copilopiflopulous – or put another way; out of plumb.