Jury weighs terror, firearm charges against teen:
I guess I watch too much Law & Order. I was expecting a longer trial. The trial for Andrew Osantowski on terror charges ended yesterday, and the jury will deliberate on his fate today. I guess that’s what they mean by your right to a speedy trial. However, the way juries have been acting lately, I’m not getting my hopes up on a conviction.
Teen accused of plotting massacre at high school said he was bullied:
According to this Associated Press article Andrew Osantowski claims he was bullied in his IM chat with Celia McGinty. In the partial chat transcript that’s been released the only thing he says about bullying is…
nazi_bot_sadistic:(expletive) bullied…made fun of….pushed….people can get away with murder
So I call bullshit on the Associated Press. Not to mention the fact that Andrew Osantowski attended Chippewa Valley High School for 10 days before he was arrested. How can you have so much hatred for a school in such a small amount of time? I doubt he got the idea to shoot up a school in just 10 days. This is more telling as why he wanted to shoot up a school…
“I’m going to bring nightmares back to everyone, roam the land as a ghost still killing people,” Osantowski wrote. “I’ll have followers. I’ll be famous too.”
Just another mutant.
Celia McGinty was supposed to have testified today against Osantowski but…
“She really doesn’t want to see (Osantowski) face-to-face,” assistant Macomb County prosecutor Steve Kaplan said.
Can you blame her?
Her father, Sgt. George McGinty, a Washington State University policeman, did testify saying that…
…his daughter left a printout of Osantowski’s messages with him while he was sleeping. He said he took it to work, read it and asked co-workers to follow-up with Michigan authorities.
Lawyer: No criminal act by teen accused of threatening terrorism:
The opening statements in Andrew Osantowski’s trial were today.
First up, defense attorney turned comedian Brian Legghio…
The lawyer for a 17-year-old accused of plotting a massacre at his suburban Detroit high school said Friday that the teenager is angry, hurt and foolish, but isn’t guilty of threatening an act of terrorism.
“He might belong in therapy. He might need psychotropic drugs. But what he did when he communicated with this girl was not a criminal act,” defense attorney Brian Legghio said during his opening statement at Andrew Osantowski’s trial.
That’s the best you’ve got? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client is a psychotic nut job in possession of stolen firearms, but in no way did he threaten to blow up that school. Um..yeah…sure.
Next up, assistant county prosecutor Steve Kaplan…
But assistant county prosecutor Steve Kaplan told the 14 jurors that Internet messages sent by Osantowski violated state laws against threatening an act of terrorism and using a computer to make threats of terrorism.
“This is not a crime of terrorism. The crime is making a threat of terrorism, not committing terrorism,” Kaplan said. “The facts really are not in dispute.”
It’s hard to argue with that.
Celia McGinty, the Idaho girl who reported the threats made in a chat with Osantowski, is expected to testify on Monday.
Teen accused of planning an attack pleads guilty to firearms charges:
Andrew Osantowski pleaded guilty to three counts of receiving and concealing firearms. And again my favorite lawyer turned comedian, Brian Legghio had some funny things to say…
Legghio said Thursday’s guilty pleas do not prove Osantowski planned to use the guns, an AK-47 assault rifle and two pump shotguns stolen from a local firearms dealer. He also said the terrorism law under which his client is being prosecuted may violate free speech rights.
“Can you criminalize speech just because you don’t like what somebody says?” Legghio said.
No, but when someone says they’re going to kill their family, then shoot up the school, it’s no longer free speech. Especially since that person was found with an AK-47 assault rifle and two pump shotguns. And yeah, he didn’t plan to use the stolen guns. He was going to give them back your honor, honest. Whatever.
My favorite part is that Legghio motioned to get the chat transcripts amended to say “Andrew” instead of Osantowski’s username “nazi_bot_sadistic”. The judge rejected that motion. Go figure.
The prosecution doesn’t seem to be fazed by the guilty plea…
Kaplan said his case was helped by Osantowski’s admission that he knowingly possessed stolen firearms. “If he tries to commit an act of terrorism, he needs something more than a slingshot,” the prosecutor said during jury selection.
And as far as sentencing goes…
The felony firearm charge carries a 2-year mandatory sentence. Each firearm charge to which Osantowski pleaded guilty is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison, but Switalski said he would not set a sentencing date until after the remainder of the case was tried.
More on this as it develops.
Taped theft confession by teen is ruled inadmissible:
As I mentioned yesterday, the taped confession of Andrew Osantowski admitting he broke into a gun shop could possibly be thrown out. Macomb County Circuit Judge Matthew Switalski ruled that the tape was, in fact, inadmissible…
But Macomb County Circuit Judge Matthew Switalski ruled that Osantowski’s admission to stealing several weapons from a Clinton Township gun shop is inadmissible because he made the statements only after he was promised leniency if he cooperated with the investigation.
But all is not lost…
Prosecutors will still be able to use some of the Sept. 16 interview, in which 17-year-old Andrew Osantowski admitted to writing messages in online chat rooms that police believe were threats to kill a police officer, family members and his three cats.
And like I said yesterday, Andrew Osantowski documented a lot of his criminal activity online. I think there is more than enough evidence to convict. But that’s just my opinion.
Student Injured in Red Lake Shooting Leaves Hospital:
Some good news out of Red Lake for once. Jeffrey May was allowed to leave the hospital today. May suffered a stroke after being shot by Jeff Weise while May was trying to defend two other students. Unfortunately, his mother Jodi is still in guarded condition after suffering a stroke believed to have been brought about by the stress of the situation. My thoughts and prayers are still with the May family at this time.
Teen says cops threatened him:
One of Andrew Osantowski’s trials started today. This one for an alleged break-in at a gun store. Osantowski himself is claiming that the videotaped confession was coerced by police…
“He (the interrogating officer) was threatening me. First of all, he was sitting like an inch away from my face and pointing at me,” Osantowski testified in a pretrial hearing to determine whether his statements to police were voluntary and admissible. “Then he threatened that they would tear down my whole house, and said things like ‘No one would pay for it (the damage) either,’ or whatever.”
Osantowski, who was at times flippant or challenging to prosecutors during questioning Tuesday, indicated in court that Clinton Township police Lt. Bruce Wade of the detective bureau advised him in a hallway or another room, shortly before the videotaped interview began, that he would suffer severely in the court system if he didn’t cooperate.
I wouldn’t worry too much about it, though. On one of his websites that has since been removed. Osantowski brags about several break-ins he did at schools and private properties. I wouldn’t doubt it if he documented his break-in at the gun store.
Defense attorney/comedian Brian Legghio seems like he’s throwing everything against the wall in the hopes that something sticks. So far, the walls have been Teflon.
Haven’t done a Sunday Mail Sack in a while. Let’s get to it, shall we?
The first one is from my entry on the Zero Hour documentary. Hold on, folks. It’s a long one…
Nameless Says:
Personally, I think Trench needs to think about his name calling against two people of which I doubt he would have called cowards and scumbags in person. I find your kind interesting, in that you can feel all high and mighty off of it, but it is sad because I highly doubt you would have said anything to them in person. Did you learn nothing from that documentary? I personally like to keep an open mind, giving everyone their own views and opinions and respecting them for such. However, Erich and Dylan were greatly misunderstood. I would also like to direct your attention to point that pieces of information, even on the day of the shooting itself, were false. Information such as the fact that the police, at one point in time during the shooting, believed there were more then two gunmen and even that there was a sniper on the roof. If you people search long and hard, and as well using more then one site for refrence so that you can reflect the material you find, you’ll start to understand things better…
You call two men cowards who took their time to make several explosives, purchase weapons dispite being of legal age, carefuly plan, and actually killed people… Interesting… I wonder how many of you people can truely say that you would carefuly plant propane explosives, though they of course did not go off – I would like you to keep in mind that if they did, it would have killed an estimate of 300 or so students, and yet when those bombs didn’t go off… They still shot and killed people… Why don’t you ask yourself a simple question… What would a man with nothing to lose do?
People like you, Trench, who think it is so great and wonderful to mock someone for being different and or because they do something outside of your beliefs or views, you people are the type of people who bring events like Columbine to reality. I, however, perhaps have no right to judge you or anyone. I don’t claim any drama calls for Eric and Dylans actions… I don’t sit here and say that they were doing it because of insecurity, though it was their so called fellow peers that aided in the reasons for them to do such things. I think that if you actually took the time to research materials out there, like per say Erich Harris’s journal entries or even go ahead and download the entire Columbine report (I can attempt to post a link to it actually if I can find it again but the version I found it in was in all PDF format) then perhaps you guys can start to understand the multiple sides to the story. Instead, you and the others are so quick to outcast them further because of what they did, regardless of the obvious that they themselves were victums. Some of the people they killed did not have anything to do with them actually, this I know myself. If you look at a lot of though, you’ll see that not a single one of them had a bad quality pointed out about them in any of the articles that were written about them after their deaths at Columbine. Interesting, don’t you think? There are more then just the sides of the people who were shot and killed. There are reasons for virtually everything. You would find it interesting to know that such things like the whole “asking so and so if they believed in god and then killing them because they said yes” were actually entirely false. You would find it interesting perhaps to learn that they didn’t have any real targets, dispite the fact that they did indeed say, “All Jocks Stand Up!” when shooting victims in the library. You can learn a good bit if you actually take the time to, instead of sitting here and mocking two beautiful people…
Personally, I think Eric and Dylan were tragic heros… We need more people like them…
Sunday May 29, 2005 @ 11:31 pm
I may not have called them cowards in person, but I definitely would have called them scumbags because if they were still alive, they didn’t do anything yet to be called cowards. But being the two juvenile delinquents that they were, I definitely would have called them scumbags.
So the police thought there may have been more than two gunmen. That doesn’t change the fact they killed 13 people in one of the most cowardly ways possible.
And you go on about how careful their plans were, and that doesn’t make them cowards. It not only makes them cowards, it makes them psychopathic cowards.
What do you mean, they had nothing to lose? Graduation was a short time away. If they thought like most rational people, they would have graduated and have been done with the school forever.
I do not mock people for being different, unless, of course, they’re murderer worshiping mutants who don’t have the sense that God gave them. That’s not different. That’s just wrong.
And do you mean the Columbine report that says Eric Harris’ so-called bullying was a whole two kids who made fun of him in gym class? The same one that said Dylan Klebold bullied a kid with a learning disability?
They were not victims. What were they victims of? Upper-class suburbia? Spoiled rich kid syndrome? Spare me the blame society crap.
And the Eric Harris Journal, yeah, I’ve read that too. I love it when people tell me to do my research when they obviously haven’t done theirs.
Mocking two beautiful people? You have got to be kidding me. I see more as reviling two cowardly scumbags. They were not tragic heroes. They were two psychopathic cowards who couldn’t suffer enough for what they did. Seek professional help. It will do you some good.
My last one is from my entry from when I started The Watchlist…
Sean Says:
Oh how much I love what Harris and Klebold did. FINALLY someone has stood up for themself and told the world how they felt and I love what Jeff Weise just did also the revolution has already begun and no one can stop it not even you. 13-2 9-1 long live 4-20-99
Wednesday Jun 1, 2005 @ 8:21 pm
What revolution? What were they revolting against? Does someone want to tell me, please? Just remember parents, this could be your kid.
Tribe leader’s son faces 2 federal charges in reservation shootings:
Louis Jourdain, son of Red Lake tribal leader Floyd Jourdain Jr., is being charged with two federal charges in connection with the Red Lake shootings. However, since Louis Jourdain is a juvenile, the nature of the charges have not been released.
The St. Paul Pioneer Press is trying to get the records made public…
After reporters were excluded from initial court hearings for the youth in Duluth, Minn., attorneys for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and its sister paper, the Duluth News Tribune, filed motions to open the court proceedings and unseal the records.
The newspapers argued that while juvenile cases are normally private, the newsworthiness of this case made it unique. “It’s not a run-of-the-mill juvenile case,” said Joseph J. Roby Jr., the Duluth attorney who represented the papers.
Terrorism charge sticks against Macomb teen:
Andrew Osantowski will stand trial for the charges against him, including making a threat of terrorism. For those of you who may not remember who Andrew Osantowski is…
Osantowski was arrested Sept. 16 after Idaho teen Celia McGinty became concerned upon reading his apparent plans in an Internet chat room for what he deemed a “rampage” at the Clinton Township public school. The girl told her father, a police officer, who in turn notified Clinton Township police. They then secured a search warrant that uncovered a cache of firearms at Osantowski’s home.
Macomb County Circuit Judge Matthew Switalski quashed the motion to have the terrorism charges dropped. Defense attorney/comedian Brian Legghio tried to get the charges dismissed, stating the threats were protected under the First Amendment. The comedian himself had this to say…
Defense attorney Brian Legghio called Switalski’s ruling Tuesday “a great disappointment” and said it runs contrary to the facts of the case and the way the judicial system interprets the First Amendment. He also said he is consulting with the boy’s family but wants to appeal the ruling prior to Osantowski’s trial date next week.
“We feel the judge is wrong in his interpretation of the facts of the case and is buying the police logic of stringing together two ideas by inference to fit this charge,” he said. “When you criminalize any speech normally protected by the First Amendment, it has to be a true and unequivocal threat. You can’t criminalize the speech by reading into it what you think it means.”
Isn’t the first thing they teach you in lawyerin’ school is about yelling “fire” in a crowded theater?
If convicted on all charges, Osantowski could be put away for 22 years. The trial is set to take place next week.