Posted on 10/01/2002 7:16:59 AM PDT by Phantom Lord
Dozens protest Preble County police shooting
Slain man’s roommates say he was unarmed
EATON | Preble County law-enforcement officials declined to talk publicly Monday as they turned information about Friday's fatal shooting by a police officer of a 23-year-old man over to detectives from the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.
Montgomery County investigators, called in by Preble County Sheriff Tom Hayes, also said they would not talk about their review of the shooting by a member of a Preble County's emergency services group — officers from a number of police departments who are trained to handle drownings and hostage and other situations.
However, it was anything but quiet outside the Preble County Courthouse, where dozens of friends and relatives picketed and said that police were covering up what happened to Clayton Jacob Helriggle, 23, of 1282 Ohio 503 South.
The protesters disputed police claims that Helriggle had a gun when he descended a stairwell and was shot by a Lewisburg police officer, whose identity has not been released. Friends and relatives on Monday carried blue plastic cups similar to the one they said Helriggle had in his hand Friday night.
Among the protesters were four of Helriggle's roommates, three of whom said they were inside the brick farmhouse when police stormed the house to serve a warrant to search for narcotics.
Maj. Wayne Simpson of the Preble County Sheriff's Office declined to discuss information about what happened Friday night and said a report on the shooting of the Preble County man had not been completed. Preble County Prosecutor Rebecca Ferguson said she sealed the search warrant after the shooting, and had no comment regarding the investigation.
"They're a professional group of officers, that's what their job is, and I'm not going to second-guess them. Whatever (Montgomery County officials) come up with, they come up with," Ferguson said.
Friends called Helriggle "peaceful and nonviolent," but police said the 1997 Twin Valley South High School graduate held a 9 mm handgun, not a blue cup, in his right hand when he descended the dimly lighted stairs. Roommates said Helriggle owned a 9 mm gun, but that it was upstairs when police entered their house.
"It's like we were armed, hardened criminals waiting inside to take them on," said Wes Bradley, 26, who lived in the bottom of the six-bedroom farmhouse with his girlfriend, 22-year-old Tasha Webster.
Bradley said he and Webster were near the kitchen next to the stairs, when officers "broke through the back door with battering rams and started throwing in flash grenades three at a time, to blind us."
The officers wore full body armor and carried shields, he said.
Another roommate, Ian Albert, said he had returned home from the grocery store with Chris Elmore, 24, who remained outside while Albert ran into the house.
"We saw at least two paddy wagon-type vehicles, like a SWAT bus," Elmore said. "About 30 officers stormed out of the woods" surrounding the farmhouse. "They'd cut the barbed wire, and you could see a staging area, like where 25 to 30 uniformed cops had been lying down and slithered along the grass."
Officers ordered Elmore to get on the ground, and he said he heard three pops, which he said could have been the flash grenades and gunshot.
"I yelled 'Nobody's armed,' and they told me, 'Shut up, shut up.' ”
Elmore described the action "like a movie, in slow motion."
Inside, Albert said, the police threw him against the staircase, "with my head on the second step up. I wanted to yell at Clay, but I looked up and saw him, rounding the stairway, and he had this look on his face, like, 'What's going on?' and the cops yelled, 'Get down' and then 'boom.' ”
Albert, who completed four months of Navy Seal training, said he reached up for Helriggle, "and I tried to apply pressure," he said, placing his left palm on his right chest, where Helriggle was struck by the gunshot.
"He died in my arms," he said. "It took about two minutes."
Albert said he was placed in a sheriff's car, and Helriggle's parents arrived.
"They saw me, drenched in Clay's blood, and they ask me, 'Is he all right?' and I just shook my head. The cops are smoking and joking, high-fiving each other. Wow, I think, they took down a farm of unarmed hippies.
"If they would have come to the door and said, 'Give us your dope, hippies,' we'd have gotten about a $100 ticket."
Police said they confiscated a small amount of marijuana, pills, drug paraphernalia and quantities of packaging items used in the distribution of marijuana.
The four roommates said they smoke marijuana from time to time and that they had marijuana pipes in the house. Bradley said he had a prescription for Fiorocet, a codeinelike painkiller, for a bad knee. They said the packaging police referred to was a box of plastic sandwich bags.
Webster said there was nothing in the house "that a good divorce lawyer couldn't have gotten us out on a misdemeanor," and said an old shotgun and a .22-caliber rifle found there were used for hunting.
"We target-practiced outside all the time, shot at bales of hay, jugs, that sort of thing," Webster said.
Bradley and Webster said Helriggle took a nap around 5 p.m. and had made plans to meet his girlfriend later.
"I'm not sure if he woke up from the bashing on the door or what," Bradley said.
All four said they were not read their rights or told what charges were filed against them. They were released from the Preble County Jail around 1:30 a.m. Saturday. No criminal charges have been filed.
Nancy Fahrenholz, the daughter of Everett "Bill" Fahrenholz, an attorney and former country prosecutor, hugged Bradley on Monday at the courthouse. Helriggle and five roommates rented the house from the Fahrenholzes.
"I'm so sorry," said Fahrenholz, a Rhode Island resident in the area to finish up the estate of her father, Bill Fahrenholz, who died a month ago.
"(Dad) would have been furious at this," she said. "We're all very distressed."
She said Helriggle "was a really nice guy," and that her family was pleased with the five young people's work on rehabilitating the farmhouse.
Helriggle's 77-year-old grandfather, Donald, a Miamisburg resident and Ohio Bell retiree, said his grandson rented the farmhouse "so they could play their instruments, listen to their music and drink a little beer. . . . They just wanted to be doing what 23-year-olds do."
What Amendment to the Constitution has ever been REPEALED other than the 18th?
None. Why do you ask?
You're right. It banned the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol. According to your cites of the 2nd Circuit, POSSESSION of alcohol should have been banned as well, as ANY alcohol would of had to have been manufactured and transported in order for it to exist. As such, it WOULD effectively be banned under current day guidelines.
However, even the feds didn't want to push the envelope back then, as they knew that people weren't stupid enough to allow them to get away with something so unconstitutional.
Hmm.
False. Read it.
Because it is obvious that if the 18th is the only Amendment that's ever been repealed, it never had the support that those who pushed for it had claimed. It only lasted 14 years, which isn't that much time in the scheme of things.
Perhaps they should have gone the other route as I've previously mentioned, as IF there was already major opposition to the Amendment at it's proposal, then a simple Act of Congress would have sufficient to prohibit the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol. That would have appeased the proponants of Prohibition, and would have avoided both the process of amending the Consitution, and later the necessity of amending it again only 14 years later to repeal that original amendment.
You still haven't answered the question as to why it was necessary to add a Constitutional Amendment to prohibit the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol when a simple Act of Congress would have been sufficient to do just that.
True, but the principles involved are flawed. Our legal system operates under the premise that you are innocent until proven guilty. The Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to define what is or is not legal in matters involving interstate commerce. Prohibitions based on Commerce Clause authority imply that the intent to engage in interstate commerce is assumed, without having to prove it.
Wrong, the support in 1919 was overwhelming. Opposition grew over the following 14 years resulting in its eventual repeal.
BTW, it did NOT do that. Read it.
Possession of contraband can be a crime in itself. That goes back to the earliest days of our nation.
Maybe, but the law makes no distinction between the "closet growlight" and a warehouse operation. Both are considered "manufacturing" and viewed as violations of federal law under the Commerce Clause, and requires the assumption of involvement in "interstate commerce" for both, even though one of them plainly is not.
False. Read it. I HAVE read it Roscoe. If you mean I used the word alcohol instead of intoxicating liquors, or that I forgot to add "for beverage purposes", stop playing semantic word games...
Perhaps YOU should read it Roscoe.
Article XVIII
Proposed by Congress December 19, 1917; proclaimed adopted January 29, 1919.
Wrong. Penalties frequently increase with quantities.
Do you have a link to that information?
[Sheriff] Hayes said in a telephone interview that Helriggle's gun was "found in close proximity of his body." Asked if a blue cup was also discovered, Hayes said, "I don't know what cup they're talking about."
How close is "close"? Inches? The next room? A few jackbooted steps closer than it was when the kid got blasted?
Exactly. Beer and wine were legal. Now, who was given the power of defining "intoxicating liquor?"
Prohition based on Commerce Clause authority, and assuming criminal intent to sell in interstate commerce based on simple posession does not.
Penalties may increase with quantity, but the charge will be the same, and will still assume interstate commerce involvement, even when none is apparent, and the assumption is unreasonable.
Roscoe: Wrong, the support in 1919 was overwhelming. Opposition grew over the following 14 years resulting in its eventual repeal.
BUT Roscoe, in post #374 you said..
Me: Er, they didn't TRY to repeal the 18th Amendment as soon as it was ratified Roscoe.
Roscoe: There was opposition from the very beginning.
NOW I can see what others mean when they say that you engage in circular arguments...
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