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."
Instead you guys want to hang around our conservative forum preaching this drivel and somehow I guess hoping that we will all be converted to your cause.
It ain't gonna happen.
If you want to get an idea of what most freepers think of these pro drug related posts, just look at all the funny add ons that freepers are putting on the keywords section of this post.
KEYWORDS: 762 MM BUZZ; ANOTHER WOD SUCCESS; BLIND COPS; BS PRESS RELEASE; C4 ON THE DOOR; CHOICE OBEY OR PAY; DONT BOGART THAT MP5; DOPER BITES DUST; DOPER WHINEFEST; DRUG GESTAPO; DRUGGIE MEET DARWIN; DRUGSBAD DOPERSWORSE; ERNEST IS A FOOL; GENE POOL CLEANER; GOVERNMENT KILLING; GUBMINT EXTREMISTS; HIPPIE DOPER JUSTICE; JACK BOOTED THUG; LIBERDOPIANS AGAIN; MJ; O SAY CAN YOU THC; OBEY THE LAW OR PAY; POLICE; POT SMOKING NERD; SHOOTING; SPIKE TRAPS; SSSSSSSMOKIN; STATIST GOONS ALERT; SWAT; THE LAW IS THE LAW; THEWEEDSOFSTUPIDITY; TOOK BONG TO GUNFITE; WACKY TERBACKY; WHINEY HINEY DRUGIES; WOD; WOD CIRCLE JERK; Click to Add Keyword
As Jim Robinson said to tpaine:
From tpaine's homepage:
Free Republic is a place for people to discuss our common goals regarding the restoration of our constitutionally limited republican form of government. If people have other agendas for FR, I really wish they would take them elsewhere. Thanks, Jim 226 posted on 2/7/02 4:01 PM Pacific by Jim Robinson
You pro druggies: Go find another forum.
I will leave this post now, so you pro drug guys can self righteously cluck your tongues to each other about what an anti drug nerd I am.
In addition, all posts from you druggies will be ignored.
The definition of the term "conservative" seems to be subject to opinion. There appear to be different interpretations. I would think that a forum where everyone just pats each other on the back and nods their head in agreement would be incredibly boring.
Absinthe was banned in the United States on July 25, 1912.
Reactivate it.
The pro-drug sites are wastelands, so they come here.
Feel free to embarrass yourself anytime you like, and in as many venues as you like, but I'm not going to do your legwork for you.
Tell us once again why supporting the War on Drugs is a proper conservative standpoint?
Perhaps you think multibillion dollar federal agencies, and above-the-law federal goons, which and who are not authorized in the Constitution, are somehow aligned with a limited, republican, Constitutional government, with only enumerated powers?
Strawman.
Making drugs illegal is not outside the perview of society even in a constitutional government wherein liberty and individual rights are protected. You don't have a right to make lives around you a wasteland in order to convince yourself that you're happy sucking a pound of grass a week into your brain. You don't have a right to drugs. You don't have a right to take drugs, etc. You do have a right to the pursuit of happiness - note, only the pursuit is garaunteed, not the outcome. We're not mindless idiots here, though some of you by your argumentation are trying to take us for such. The constitution doesn't protect your right to be a druggy. It may protect your ability to be a moron - so long as you don't infringe on anyone elses rights. But that doesn't extend to being a drugs-attached moron. That is still illegal and will continue to be illegal. And if you're embibing in them, you're as big a crook as the rapist in chief. Breaking the law is breaking the law.
If you're obsessing about an old thread, feel free to revisit it.
It's not your forum newbie.
Keep that in mind as you read about and learn the meaning of conservativism.
How many political dynasties are at this very moment being funded by drug bribes? Dan Lassiter, anyone?
Has it ever been proposed by liberals?
Remember that the GOP in the New Deal Congress argued that the MJ tax act was unconstitutional. Back then, the GOP was conservative.
No it is not. But it is outside the perview of government to grant itself authority by replacing the process of public debate, vote, and ratification of amendment with creative semantics.
You need to read the link at 474 also.
Strawman.
You gotta love it----only you would call the question at the heart of the debate a "strawman."AxelPaulsenJr writes "I find myself absolutely amazed that a pro illegal drug group is posting in this otherwise conservative forum, the Free Republic. I would think that you and they would be much happier posting in what I'm sure must be hundreds of pro drug usage forums out there. But I guess that to you that would be too much like preaching to the choir." Then he writes "You pro druggies: Go find another forum."
You slap him on the back with a "The pro-drug sites are wastelands, so they come here."
We all call ourselves conservatives here. Clearly the position of conservatives on the War on Drugs should be definable. At its most simple, the conservative position on the War on Drugs should be supporting it or not supporting it.
Several posters believe that not supporting the War on Drugs (and in fact ending it) is the proper position for conservatives to take. When asked why, they can provide thoughtful answers. You may or may not agree with them, but they can provide answers nonetheless why conservatives should side with them.
You'd think the posters who believe that supporting the War on Drugs is the proper position for conservatives to take could do the same thing, but you'd be wrong. In particular, every single time I've asked you a variation of this question you've ignored it, deflected it, navigated around it, or dismissed it as irrelevant---as you most recently did today. Further, every single time I've asked a variation of this question to a War on Drug supporter, that War on Drug supporter has ignored it, deflected it, or navigated around it. In fact, if you want to get a War on Drugs supporter to stop posting, the easiest thing to do is ask them why conservatives should support the War on Drugs.
The only Drug Warrior to answer the question---albeit reluctantly and indirectly---is Dane, who when pressed, indicated he supported the War on Drugs simply because uber-liberal George Soros supports ending it.
You've never answered the question, Roscoe. If your position is so obviously the correct one for conservatives, providing a simple and direct answer as to why this is so should be an exceedingly simple thing to do. But you can't or won't do it. Why is that?
You're stuck in a loop again. Have someone kick you in the side to see if they can jar you out of it.
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