A Berkeley truck driver is suing the California High Patrol for a brutal assault that brought him to the brink of death — provoked, according to a report by the local NBC affiliate, only by the man’s request to read the ticket he was being given before he signed it.

On September 2nd, 2011, Russian immigrant Olegs Kozacenko was driving his truck when he was pulled over by Officer Andrew P. Murrill of the California Highway Police. Murrill attempted to ticket him for driving too many hours in the truck. Kozacenko refused to sign the ticket before reading it.

At this point, NBC Bay Area reporters learned, Murrill decided he needed to make a “forcible arrest.” He and his partner, Officer Jim Sherman, claim that Kozacenko was “actively resisting” and “exhibiting extraordinary strength” in doing so. The consequences were “life-threatening injuries including a crushed left orbital eye socket, multiple facial fractures, a broken left arm, a concussion, unconsciousness and possible neurological damage.”

Kozacenko nearly died, as the nearest hospital did not have an emergency room advanced enough to treat his injuries.

According to court testimony obtained by NBC, Murrill concedes that Kozacenko was not even guilty of the offense he was attempting to ticket the driver for:

In his testimony during an evidentiary hearing on a defense motion to suppress evidence gathered after the ticket was written, officer Murrill admitted that he was confused, either by the law governing the hour limits for truck drivers or by reading the truck driver’s log book. Murrill also admitted on the witness stand that he was not a trained commercial vehicle specialist and did not call to ask for a commercial vehicle specialist to help at the scene. And he admitted on the stand that the hours Murrill was reading on Kozacenko’s truck driver log book were recorded two days earlier when Kozacenko was driving through Nebraska, Iowa and Wyoming.

NBC reports that “the Valley Division, where Murrill works, led the state in the number of disciplinary actions against officers for 2011, the same year of Kozacenko’s arrest.” Police officials claim that there is no video of the altercation and that all associated radio logs have been deleted by system malfunctioning for this time period.”

Murrill and Sherman remain employed by the CHP. Olegs Kocazenko is currently unemployed and seeking legal redress from both the Highway Patrol and the state of California.
It’s been almost two years since Olegs Kozacenko nearly lost his life during an encounter with two California Highway Patrol officers over a traffic ticket. Still, nearly two years later neither the CHP nor the state Attorney General’s office will confirm whether or not the officers involved were ever disciplined for their actions, citing the law officer’s bill of rights.

But that answer didn’t satisfy Kozacenko. Now the 58-year-old truck driver has filed suit against the state of California and the Highway Patrol officers he says injured him. The purpose of the suit, he says, to find what he calls justice.

The case stems from a seemingly routine traffic stop on westbound Interstate 80 east of Reno in California’s Seirras.

“It was early in the morning about 5 a.m.,” Kozacenko told NBC Bay Area through a Russian interpreter.

Kozacenko can recount nearly every detail of that morning on Sept. 2, 2011. The Berkeley resident told NBC Bay Area he was heading home after a long haul across country when he was pulled over by a CHP patrol vehicle near the Drum Forebay offramp in Placer County.

It’s at that point in retelling his story that Kozacenko went silent. For 40 minutes he sat quietly, insisting he needed to talk, but the emotions were still too raw.

While Kozacenko sat silent, the pictures and emergency medical records he shared with NBC Bay Area speak for him.

According to private medical records taken from the emergency room immediately after the incident on the highway and shared by Kozacenko’s family with NBC Bay Area, the truck driver suffered life-threatening injuries including a crushed left orbital eye socket, multiple facial fractures, a broken left arm, a concussion, unconsciousness and possible neurological damage.

DocumentsKozacenko Lawsuit Against CHP
CHP Response to Lawsuit
Officer Murrill CHP Report
Murrill Texas Boxing License

Medical records also show that he apparently stopped breathing while lying out on the highway and had to be rushed to Auburn Faith Hospital. But Kozacenko’s injuries were too severe for that hospital’s emergency room and he had to be transported to UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento.

The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit wanted to know how an incident that began as a traffic stop, ended with a trip to a trauma center.

NBC Bay Area made several attempts to speak with the arresting CHP Officer, Andrew P. Murrill, but he declined to comment. Consequently, NBC Bay Area turned to official records to determine his version of events.

According to the officer’s initial CHP report and subsequent court testimony during an evidentiary hearing, Murrill along with CHP officer Jim Sherman stopped Kozacenko at 5:40 a.m. The stop was made after the officers received a report of a sleepy driver at the brake check station five miles east of the scene.

In court Murrill testified that Kozacenko refused to sign a ticket citing him for driving his truck for too many hours. As a result, he had to make a forcible arrest.

Kozancenko said he first wanted to read the ticket before signing.

Useful Links◾Motion to Dismiss Granted
◾Officer Murrill Testimony
◾Kozacenko Traffic Ticket
◾CHP Toxicology Report

The 220-pound Murrill goes on to write in his report that the 6’ 165 pound Kozacenko was “actively resisting ” and “exhibited extraordinary strength” in refusing to be detained. “It was not a standard arrest,” the officer stated on the witness stand, even with the help of his 190-pound fellow CHP officer Sherman on the scene with Murrill.

Kozacenko’s attorney, Stewart Katz, told NBC Bay Area that the entire situation should have been avoided.

“There was just no provocation for any of this” Katz said.

Katz said that the initial ticket leading to Kozacenko’s arrest never should have been written in the first place. “The officer didn’t know the law, didn’t ask anyone the law, didn’t look anything up, just wrong.”

In his testimony during an evidentiary hearing on a defense motion to suppress evidence gathered after the ticket was written, officer Murrill admitted that he was confused, either by the law governing the hour limits for truck drivers or by reading the truck driver’s log book. Murrill also admitted on the witness stand that he was not a trained commercial vehicle specialist and did not call to ask for a commercial vehicle specialist to help at the scene. And he admitted on the stand that the hours Murrill was reading on Kozacenko’s truck driver log book were recorded two days earlier when Kozacenko was driving through Nebraska, Iowa and Wyoming.

“He’s punched, his arm is broken, they’re on top of him face down, his ribs (are) fractured ,” said Katz. “They’re cutting off the oxygen for a significant period of time, they’re trying to use a taser on him.”

In describing his client’s arrested Katz compared it to some of the worst civil rights violations he’s personally ever seen. “The only time I have seen worse injuries as a result of police actions, was when someone was shot with seven bullets” Katz said.

Dashboard cameras on the highway patrol cars of CHP supervisors responding to the scene show Kozacenko’s truck and Murrill and Sherman’s SUV patrol cars after the truck driver had been whisked away to the hospital.

But according to the CHP there is no dash cam video of the actual incident. In response to a public records request the CHP says Murrill and Sherman didn’t have cameras in either of their patrol SUV’s. The CHP also said that computer aided dispatch logs of radio conversations from the incident weren’t found because of “system malfunctioning for this time period.”

In addition to being cited by officer Murrill for driving over hours, Kozacenko was written up for DUI. However, that citation was also dropped (along with the driving too many hours charge) when Kozacenko’s blood alcohol came back clean at 0.00%.

The arrest report also suggested drug possession after officers seized a white powdery substance found in a white plastic pill bottle from Kozacenko’s truck cab. But that, too, turned up clean. The substance was table salt.

Finally, Kozacenko was charged with misdemeanor resisting, obstructing or delaying a peace officer. That charge was dismissed after a judge granted the defense’s motion to dismiss the evidence after court testimony about what happened out on the freeway.

Acting Chief Ken Hill oversees the CHP Valley Division, which includes the CHP Gold Run office where Murrill still works. Hill told NBC Bay Area he could not address the specifics of the case because of pending litigation, but assured that he reviews every incident where force is used by one of his officers including Kozacenko’s incident.

“It was not something that jumped out at me being ‘oh my gosh,’ we have some serious issues here,” Hill told NBC Bay Area.

“The public if they get stopped and simply comply with what they are asked to do, they have nothing to fear, nothing to fear at all. It is when a citizen decides to disregard the direction that they are given, and they decide to do something different, then things escalate, and I’m not talking about this case specifically, but sometimes a citizen will do things that causes us to escalate our actions,” Hill said .

Hill said every officer goes through extensive training through the CHP academy.

NBC Bay Area obtained records showing Murrill was also trained as a licensed fist boxer before joining the academy while at Fort Hood, Texas.

NBC Bay Area made a final attempt to speak with officer Murrill while on duty at the Gold Run office to get his side of the story. Instead we were handed a note to speak with his attorney while Murrill remained inside behind closed doors for hours.

Murrill’s attorney, California Deputy Attorney General Jill Scally, told NBC Bay Area that there would be no comment other than to deny all charges in the civil suit filed by Kozacenko against the state of California and the officers. And in a formal response to that civil suit filed in court, Murrill’s attorneys raised numerous defenses including that “the force employed…was reasonable and not excessive.”

Whatever happened that day, nearly two years later it still haunts Kozacenko.

“Justice would be the CHP taking a hard look and seeing whether either of these people should be driving around with a badge and a gun,” Katz said.

According to statistics from CHP’s internal affairs division, the Valley Division, where Murrill works, led the state in the number of disciplinary actions against officers for 2011, the same year of Kozacenko’s arrest.

When we asked Acting Chief Hill on April 2, 2013, whether officers Murrill and Sherman continue to work for the Highway Patrol, Chief Hill confirmed both men are still officers with CHP. Hill would not confirm or deny whether there had ever been an internal investigation into this case.

As for Olegs Kozachenko, because of his injuries he can no longer work. His family is seeking both financial and medical help for him. They’ve set up a website that anyone who wants to help can visit to make a donation.

You can cickhere to visit the Kozachenko family website.

The manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects offered the nation a window into the stunning military-style capabilities of our local law enforcement agencies. For the past 30 years, police departments throughout the United States have benefitted from the government’s largesse in the form of military weaponry and training, incentives offered in the ongoing “War on Drugs.” For the average citizen watching events such as the intense pursuit of the Tsarnaev brothers on television, it would be difficult to discern between fully outfitted police SWAT teams and the military.

The lines blurred even further Monday as a new dynamic was introduced to the militarization of domestic law enforcement. By making a few subtle changes to a regulation in the U.S. Code titled “Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies” the military has quietly granted itself the ability to police the streets without obtaining prior local or state consent, upending a precedent that has been in place for more than two centuries.

The most objectionable aspect of the regulatory change is the inclusion of vague language that permits military intervention in the event of “civil disturbances.” According to the rule:

Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances.

Bruce Afran, a civil liberties attorney and constitutional law professor at Rutgers University, calls the rule, “a wanton power grab by the military,” and says, “It’s quite shocking actually because it violates the long-standing presumption that the military is under civilian control.”

A defense official who declined to be named takes a different view of the rule, claiming, “The authorization has been around over 100 years; it’s not a new authority. It’s been there but it hasn’t been exercised. This is a carryover of domestic policy.” Moreover, he insists the Pentagon doesn’t “want to get involved in civilian law enforcement. It’s one of those red lines that the military hasn’t signed up for.” Nevertheless, he says, “every person in the military swears an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States to defend that Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.”

One of the more disturbing aspects of the new procedures that govern military command on the ground in the event of a civil disturbance relates to authority. Not only does it fail to define what circumstances would be so severe that the president’s authorization is “impossible,” it grants full presidential authority to “Federal military commanders.” According to the defense official, a commander is defined as follows: “Somebody who’s in the position of command, has the title commander. And most of the time they are centrally selected by a board, they’ve gone through additional schooling to exercise command authority.”

As it is written, this “commander” has the same power to authorize military force as the president in the event the president is somehow unable to access a telephone. (The rule doesn’t address the statutory chain of authority that already exists in the event a sitting president is unavailable.) In doing so, this commander must exercise judgment in determining what constitutes, “wanton destruction of property,” “adequate protection for Federal property,” “domestic violence,” or “conspiracy that hinders the execution of State or Federal law,” as these are the circumstances that might be considered an “emergency.”

“These phrases don’t have any legal meaning,” says Afran. “It’s no different than the emergency powers clause in the Weimar constitution [of the German Reich]. It’s a grant of emergency power to the military to rule over parts of the country at their own discretion.”

Afran also expresses apprehension over the government’s authority “to engage temporarily in activities necessary to quell large-scale disturbances.”

“Governments never like to give up power when they get it,” says Afran. “They still think after twelve years they can get intelligence out of people in Guantanamo. Temporary is in the eye of the beholder. That’s why in statutes we have definitions. All of these statutes have one thing in common and that is that they have no definitions. How long is temporary? There’s none here. The definitions are absurdly broad.”

The U.S. military is prohibited from intervening in domestic affairs except where provided under Article IV of the Constitution in cases of domestic violence that threaten the government of a state or the application of federal law. This provision was further clarified both by the Insurrection Act of 1807 and a post-Reconstruction law known as the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (PCA). The Insurrection Act specifies the circumstances under which the president may convene the armed forces to suppress an insurrection against any state or the federal government. Furthermore, where an individual state is concerned, consent of the governor must be obtained prior to the deployment of troops. The PCA—passed in response to federal troops that enforced local laws and oversaw elections during Reconstruction—made unauthorized employment of federal troops a punishable offense, thereby giving teeth to the Insurrection Act.

Together, these laws limit executive authority over domestic military action. Yet Monday’s official regulatory changes issued unilaterally by the Department of Defense is a game-changer.

The stated purpose of the updated rule is “support in Accordance With the Posse Comitatus Act,” but in reality it undermines the Insurrection Act and PCA in significant and alarming ways. The most substantial change is the notion of “civil disturbance” as one of the few “domestic emergencies” that would allow for the deployment of military assets on American soil.

To wit, the relatively few instances that federal troops have been deployed for domestic support have produced a wide range of results. Situations have included responding to natural disasters and protecting demonstrators during the Civil Rights era to, disastrously, the Kent State student massacre and the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee.

Michael German, senior policy counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), noted in a 2009 Daily Kos article that, “there is no doubt that the military is very good at many things. But recent history shows that restraint in their new-found domestic role is not one of them.”

At the time German was referring to the military’s expanded surveillance techniques and hostile interventions related to border control and the War on Drugs. And in fact, many have argued that these actions have already upended the PCA in a significant way. Even before this most recent rule change, the ACLU was vocal in its opposition to the Department of Defense (DoD) request to expand domestic military authority “in the event of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high yield explosive (CBRNE) incidents.” The ACLU’s position is that civilian agencies are more than equipped to handle such emergencies since 9/11. (ACLU spokespersons in Washington D.C. declined, however, to be interviewed for this story.)

But while outcomes of military interventions have varied, the protocol by which the president works cooperatively with state governments has remained the same. The president is only allowed to deploy troops to a state upon request of its governor. Even then, the military—specifically the National Guard—is there to provide support for local law enforcement and is prohibited from engaging in any activities that are outside of this scope, such as the power to arrest.

Eric Freedman, a constitutional law professor from Hofstra University, also calls the ruling “an unauthorized power grab.” According to Freedman, “The Department of Defense does not have the authority to grant itself by regulation any more authority than Congress has granted it by statute.” Yet that’s precisely what it did. This wasn’t, however, the Pentagon’s first attempt to expand its authority domestically in the last decade.

Déjà vu

During the Bush Administration, Congress passed the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill that included language similar in scope to the current regulatory change. It specifically amended the Insurrection Act to expand the president’s ability to deploy troops domestically under certain conditions including health epidemics, natural disasters and terrorist activities, though it stopped short of including civil disturbances. But the following year this language was repealed under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 via a bill authored by Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) who cited the “useful friction” between the Insurrection and Posse Comitatus Acts in limiting executive authority.

According to the DoD, the repeal of this language had more to do with procedure and that it was never supposed to amend the Insurrection Act. “When it was actually passed,” says the defense official, “Congress elected to amend the Insurrection Act and put things in the Insurrection Act that were not insurrection, like the support for disasters and emergencies and endemic influenza. Our intent,” he says, “was to give the president and the secretary access to the reserve components. It includes the National Guard and, rightfully so, the governors were pretty upset because they were not consulted.”

Senator Leahy’s office did not have a statement as of press time, but a spokesperson said the senator had made an inquiry with the DoD in response to our questions. The defense official confirmed that he was indeed being called in to discuss the senator’s concerns in a meeting scheduled for today. But he downplayed any concern, saying, “Congress at any time can say ‘we don’t like your interpretation of that law and how you’ve interpreted it in making policy’—and so they can call us to the Hill and ask us to justify why we’re doing something.”

Last year, Bruce Afran and another civil liberties attorney Carl Mayer filed a lawsuit against the Obama Administration on behalf of a group of journalists and activists lead by former New York Times journalist Chris Hedges. They filed suit over the inclusion of a bill in the NDAA 2012 that, according to the plaintiffs, expanded executive authority over domestic affairs by unilaterally granting the executive branch to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without due process. The case has garnered international attention and invited vigorous defense from the Obama Administration. Even Afran goes so far as to say this current rule change is, “another NDAA. It’s even worse, to be honest.”

For Hedges and the other plaintiffs, including Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, the government’s ever-expanding authority over civilian affairs has a “chilling effect” on First Amendment activities such as free speech and the right to assemble. First District Court Judge Katherine Forrest agreed with the plaintiffs and handed Hedges et al a resounding victory prompting the Department of Justice to immediately file an injunction and an appeal. The appellate court is expected to rule on the matter within the next few months.

Another of the plaintiffs in the Hedges suit is Alexa O’Brien, a journalist and organizer who joined the lawsuit after she discovered a Wikileaks cable showing government officials attempting to link her efforts to terrorist activities. For activists such as O’Brien, the new DoD regulatory change is frightening because it creates, “an environment of fear when people cannot associate with one another.” Like Afran and Freedman, she too calls the move, “another grab for power under the rubric of the war on terror, to the detriment of citizens.”

“This is a complete erosion of the rule of law,” says O’Brien. Knowing these sweeping powers were granted under a rule change and not by Congress is even more harrowing to activists. “That anything can be made legal,” says O’Brien, “is fundamentally antithetical to good governance.”

As far as what might qualify as a civil disturbance, Afran notes, “In the Sixties all of the Vietnam protests would meet this description. We saw Kent State. This would legalize Kent State.”

But the focus on the DoD regulatory change obscures the creeping militarization that has already occurred in police departments across the nation. Even prior to the NDAA lawsuit, journalist Chris Hedges was critical of domestic law enforcement agencies saying, “The widening use of militarized police units effectively nullifies the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.”

This de facto nullification isn’t lost on the DoD.

The DoD official even referred to the Boston bombing suspects manhunt saying, “Like most major police departments, if you didn’t know they were a police department you would think they were the military.” According to this official there has purposely been a “large transfer of technology so that the military doesn’t have to get involved.” Moreover, he says the military has learned from past events, such as the siege at Waco, where ATF officials mishandled military equipment. “We have transferred the technology so we don’t have to loan it,” he states.

But if the transfer of military training and technology has been so thorough, it boggles the imagination as to what kind of disturbance would be so overwhelming that it would require the suspension of centuries-old law and precedent to grant military complete authority on the ground. The DoD official admits not being able to “envision that happening,” adding, “but I’m not a Hollywood screenwriter.”

Afran, for one, isn’t buying the logic. For him, the distinction is simple.

“Remember, the police operate under civilian control,” he says. “They are used to thinking in a civilian way so the comparison that they may have some assault weapons doesn’t change this in any way. And they can be removed from power. You can’t remove the military from power.”

Despite protestations from figures such as Afran and O’Brien and past admonitions from groups like the ACLU, for the first time in our history the military has granted itself authority to quell a civil disturbance. Changing this rule now requires congressional or judicial intervention.

“This is where journalism comes in,” says Freedman. “Calling attention to an unauthorized power grab in the hope that it embarrasses the administration.”

Afran is considering amending his NDAA complaint currently in front of the court to include this regulatory change.

As we witnessed during the Boston bombing manhunt, it’s already difficult to discern between military and police. In the future it might be impossible, because there may be no difference.

By Brett Buffington

Augusta, G.A. — Investigators with the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office say they accidently served a search warrant on the wrong house, while looking for a suspected drug dealer in Burke County. WJBF News Channel 6 is the only station to talk with the victim.

Susan Treat says she was standing, in her laundry room, just feet from her backdoor, when Richmond and Burke County Sheriff’s officers, burst through that door, looking for a suspected drug dealer.

Treat says she thought her family’s lives were in danger, she thought the officers were there to help, but she knew that wasn’t the case, when she says at, gun point, the police ordered her, her pregnant daughter, and her 3 year old granddaughter, to get on the floor.

“Two officers were standing over the top of me with guns.” says Treat.

She says the officers searched her house for almost an hour, she says cussing, and calling her a liar, before realizing they had the wrong address. The house they were looking for was two doors down.

“I’ve never done anything wrong. I’ve had one speeding ticket in my life.”

She says now days after the raid, she is having trouble sleeping, and her granddaughter is having nightmares. Even worse she says, NO ONE has even apologized.

“I stood here, in my own home, this is my safe place, this is my granddaughter’s safe place, and my daughter’s, and all at once when they bust in, they take that away.” says Treat.

We went to the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office to get an explanation, of how officers didn’t notice they were going in house 133 not 173. They told us, mistakes happen. But we asked if the accidental search broke the law.

From the YouTube description:

Police are called out to an apartment for a noise compliant by the neighbors. The three occupants inside non-aggressively exercise their fourth amendment right, refusing the police entry as they demand at gun point to let them inside without a search warrant or probable cause.

As the police quickly holster their weapons after the camera turns on, the three occupants continue to exercise their rights non-aggressively. The police respond by going into “over-the-top” aggressive mode, utilizing excessive force by kicking in the door, assaulting the female and tazing the cameraman four times causing the camera to short out. All three occupants are arrested/cited for obstruction.

David Silva Beaten to Death by Police + Eyewitness Accusing Cops of Murder

May 8th, 2013 BAKERSFIELD, CA — Kern County deputies beat an intoxicated man to death in the street Tuesday night, then detained and intimidated witnesses, confiscated video evidence, and arrested another man who spoke out. David Silva was beaten with batons, left in a pool of blood until an ambulance finally arrived after he was already dead.

A female 9-1-1 caller named Selena told the dispatcher, “There’s a man laying on the floor, and your police officers beat the (expletive) out of him and killed him.” She said that she witnessed the victim do nothing wrong to cause 8 officers to bludgeon him to death. “These cops had no reason to do this to this man.”

A 19-year-old male witness, Ruben Ceballos, was awakened around midnight by screams and loud banging noises outside his home. He said he ran to the left side of his house to find out who was causing the ruckus.”When I got outside I saw two officers beating a man with batons and they were hitting his head so every time they would swing, I could hear the blows to his head.” He said that Silva was on the ground screaming for help, but officers continued to beat him After several minutes, Silva stopped screaming and was no longer responsive, according to Ceballos.

Another witness, Jason Land, said that he witnessed the beating of David Silva. “They jumped out, reached for their bats, and beat that man until they killed him,” he said, “right in front of my face.” Land spoke up about what he saw and was arrested as retaliation. The witness was on probation and says police responded to his eyewitness report by claiming he was high on PCP and arrested him without any proof.

Witnesses also say that the victim’s body was left to bleed out in the street for a prolonged period without any medical attention, wasting crucial minutes before the ambulance arrived. By that point, it was too late and CPR attempts were futile.

Other witnesses, including Melissa Quair, were harassed and told that they must surrender their cell phones as “evidence.” Their houses were even searched as a crime scene in order to confiscate the video evidence.

The victim’s brother, Christopher Silva, says his brother was murdered and wants justice. He is demanding that his brother’s body be released so that he can see the result of the beating. He wants the confiscated videos to be released. “My brother spent the last eight minutes of his life pleading, begging for his life. The true evidence is in those phone witnesses that apparently the sheriff deputies already took. But I know the truth will come out and my brother’s voice will be heard.”

SOURCES:

http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/news/lo…

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e01_1368325585

Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e01_1368325585#vG9ix3JQkcSOvYdj.99

The name of Lauryn Hill’s breakout album was The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill but it now appears that the powers that be would like her to record a new album called The Re-Education of Lauryn Hill. After appearing in court for tax evasion, Hill was sentenced to three months in jail PLUS she must attend “counseling” due to her “conspiracy theories”.

According to the IBTimes, Hill told the court: “I am a child of former slaves who had a system imposed on them. I had an economic system imposed on me.” Furthermore, Hill also believes that artists are being oppressed by (what the article calls) “a plot involving the military and media”. Because of these statements, Hill was ordered to undergo “counseling”, which is a way of saying that she is mentally ill and that she needs some sort of re-programming session regain “sanity”.

In 2012, Hill published a thoughtful letter describing the corruption, the oppression and the control of the music industry and her desire to escape it. In one part of the letter, Lauryn states

“It was this schism and the hypocrisy, violence and social cannibalism it enabled, that I wanted and needed to be freed from, not from art or music, but the suppression/repression and reduction of that art and music to a bottom line alone, without regard for anything else. Over-commercialization and its resulting restrictions and limitations can be very damaging and distorting to the inherent nature of the individual. I Love making art, I Love making music, these are as natural and necessary for me almost as breathing or talking. To be denied the right to pursue it according to my ability, as well as be properly acknowledged and compensated for it, in an attempt to control, is manipulation directed at my most basic rights! These forms of expression, along with others, effectively comprise my free speech! Defending, preserving, and protecting these rights are critically important, especially in a paradigm where veiled racism, sexism, ageism, nepotism, and deliberate economic control are still blatant realities!!!”

(See my article entitled Lauryn Hill’s Tumblr Letter on the Music Business for the full letter).

Despite what mainstream media reports, Hill is not mumbling incoherent “conspiracy theories” but is rather speaking the truth. Her statements are a result of her first hand experience within the industry and her desire to not be part of its madness. Hill’s “theories” are simply an intelligent person’s clear analysis of a situation.

However, as American society turns into a real life version of the novel 1984, speaking the truth is increasingly considered to be a mental illness – one that needs to be treated and fixed. Does free speech still exist if saying the wrong words leads to a mandatory visit to a “mind doctor”?

Several newspapers have reported that Lauryn Hill was in trouble with the government for not filing taxes from 2005-2007. While I do not know (nor care) about her financial status and her tax paying habits, I found Hill’s response to the charges quite compelling. In a first public statement in years, Hill describes the control, manipulation and exploitation of the music industry and her efforts to get away from it all. Here’s the letter published on her new Tumblr account.

It was reported yesterday that Ms. Lauryn Hill has been charged with three counts of misdemeanor failure to file taxes. These charges were incurred for the years of 2005-2007, during a time in which Ms. Hill had removed herself and her family from society, in order to keep them safe, healthy, and free from danger. In response to these charges, Ms. Hill has issued the following statement:

“For the past several years, I have remained what others would consider underground. I did this in order to build a community of people, like-minded in their desire for freedom and the right to pursue their goals and lives without being manipulated and controlled by a media protected military industrial complex with a completely different agenda. Having put the lives and needs of other people before my own for multiple years, and having made hundreds of millions of dollars for certain institutions, under complex and sometimes severe circumstances, I began to require growth and more equitable treatment, but was met with resistance. I entered into my craft full of optimism (which I still possess), but immediately saw the suppressive force with which the system attempts to maintain it’s control over a given paradigm. I’ve seen people promote addiction, use sabotage, black listing, media bullying and any other coercion technique they could, to prevent artists from knowing their true value, or exercising their full power. These devices of control, no matter how well intentioned (or not), can have a devastating outcome on the lives of people, especially creative types who must grow and exist within a certain environment and according to a certain pace, in order to live and create optimally.

I kept my life relatively simple, even after huge successes, but it became increasingly obvious that certain indulgences and privileges were expected to come at the expense of my free soul, free mind, and therefore my health and integrity. So I left a more mainstream and public life, in order to wean both myself, and my family, away from a lifestyle that required distortion and compromise as a means for maintaining it. During this critical healing time, there were very few people accessible to me who had not already been seduced or affected by this machine, and therefore who could be trusted to not try and influence or coerce me back into a dynamic of compromise. Individual growth was expected to take place unnaturally, or stagnated outright, subject to marketing and politics. Addressing critical issues like pop culture cannibalism or its manipulation of the young at the expense of everything, was frowned upon and discouraged by limiting funding, or denying it outright. When one has a prolific creative output like I did/do, and is then forced to stop, the effects can be dangerous both emotionally and psychologically, both for the artist and those in need of that resource. It was critically important that I find a suitable pathway within which to exist, without being distorted or economically strong-armed.

During this period of crisis, much was said about me, both slanted and inaccurate, by those who had become dependent on my creative force, yet unwilling to fully acknowledge the importance of my contribution, nor compensate me equitably for it. This was done in an effort to smear my public image, in order to directly affect my ability to earn independently of this system. It took a long time to locate and nurture a community of people strong enough to resist the incredibly unhealthy tide, and more importantly see through it. If I had not been able to make contact with, and establish this community, my life, safety and freedom, would have been directly affected as well as the lives, safety and freedom of my family. Failure to create a non toxic, non exploitative environment was not an option.

As my potential to work, and therefore earn freely, was being threatened, I did whatever needed to be done in order to insulate my family from the climate of hostility, false entitlement, manipulation, racial prejudice, sexism and ageism that I was surrounded by. This was absolutely critical while trying to find and establish a new and very necessary community of healthy people, and also heal and detoxify myself and my family while raising my young children.

There were no exotic trips, no fleet of cars, just an all out war for safety, integrity, wholeness and health, without mistreatment denial, and/or exploitation. In order to liberate myself from those who found it ok to oppose my wholeness, free speech and integral growth by inflicting different forms of punitive action against it, I used my resources to sustain our safety and survival until I was able to restore my ability to earn outside of it!

When artists experience danger and crisis under the effects of this kind of insidious manipulation, everyone easily accepts that there was something either dysfunctional or defective with the artist, rather than look at, and fully examine, the system and its means and policies of exploiting/’doing business’. Not only is this unrealistic, it is very dark in its motivation, conveniently targeting the object of their hero worship by removing any evidence that they ‘needed’ or celebrated this very same resource just years, months or moments before. Since those who believe they need a hero/celebrity outnumber the actual heroes/celebrities, people feel safe and comfortably justified in numbers, committing egregious crimes in the name of the greater social ego. Ironically diminishing their own true hero-celebrity nature in the process.

It was this schism and the hypocrisy, violence and social cannibalism it enabled, that I wanted and needed to be freed from, not from art or music, but the suppression/repression and reduction of that art and music to a bottom line alone, without regard for anything else. Over-commercialization and its resulting restrictions and limitations can be very damaging and distorting to the inherent nature of the individual. I Love making art, I Love making music, these are as natural and necessary for me almost as breathing or talking. To be denied the right to pursue it according to my ability, as well as be properly acknowledged and compensated for it, in an attempt to control, is manipulation directed at my most basic rights! These forms of expression, along with others, effectively comprise my free speech! Defending, preserving, and protecting these rights are critically important, especially in a paradigm where veiled racism, sexism, ageism, nepotism, and deliberate economic control are still blatant realities!!!

Learning from the past, insulating friends and family from the influence of external manipulation and corruption, is far more important to me than being misunderstood for a season! I did not deliberately abandon my fans, nor did I deliberately abandon any responsibilities, but I did however put my safety, health and freedom and the freedom, safety and health of my family first over all other material concerns! I also embraced my right to resist a system intentionally opposing my right to whole and integral survival.

I conveyed all of this when questioned as to why I did not file taxes during this time period. Obviously, the danger I faced was not accepted as reasonable grounds for deferring my tax payments, as authorities, who despite being told all of this, still chose to pursue action against me, as opposed to finding an alternative solution.

My intention has always been to get this situation rectified. When I was working consistently without being affected by the interferences mentioned above, I filed and paid my taxes. This only stopped when it was necessary to withdraw from society, in order to guarantee the safety and well-being of myself and my family.

As this, and other areas of issue are resolved and set straight, I am able to get back to doing what I should be doing, the way it should be done. This is part of that process. To those supporters who were told that I abandoned them, that is untrue. I abandoned greed, corruption, and compromise, never you, and never the artistic gifts and abilities that sustained me.”

- Source: Tumblr

ON APRIL 19, 2013, losthorizons.com will present 850 pieces of concrete evidence proving that the average American has been wearing the rube suit at the carnival for decades of fleecing at the hands of corrupt public officials. Come the 19th, navigate to http://losthorizons.com/LightsOn.htm at 12:00 PM EDT (or later) and discover that Uncle Remus was right: “It ain’t what ya don’t know that hurts ya. What really puts a hurtin’ on ya is what ya knows for sure, that just ain’t so.”

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