“We welcome the hate crime charges in this case and urge law enforcement authorities in Vermont and nationwide to take similar actions in response to any bias-motivated or anti-immigrant attacks.”
(CAIR National Communications Coordinator Ayan Ajeen)
You are probably like me!
First question is: What the heck did 24-year-old Vermonter, Chase Atkins, say in a phone message to warrant hate crime charges, and to draw the attention of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)?
But we aren’t being told exactly what he said! (We have a picture though!).
Addison County man accused of harassing Migrant Justice members
An Addison County man has been accused of harassing members of Migrant Justice, a Vermont-based organization that advocates for farmworkers and immigrant rights. [Be sure to see Migrant Justice’s website—ed]
Atkins could get two years in jail for the phone call!
Chase Atkins, 24, of Addison was issued a citation to appear in Vermont Superior Court in Middlebury in November, Vermont State Police said. He is expected to be charged with disturbing the peace by using a telephone or electronic communications with a hate crime enhancement.
The accusations stem from incidents that occurred in late August. Police say Atkins was visiting a farm on Vermont 22A in Addison at the time, and during his visit, he let the air out of the tires of a Migrant Justice member’s car. The tires were later re-inflated, and no damage was caused.
Police say that several days later, Atkins left a voicemail for Migrant Justice in which he told them not to return to the farms. State police said the message “would have left a reasonable person to feel threatened and intimidated.”
On Sept. 12, Atkins spoke with members of the Vermont State Police about the incident. The Addison County State’s Attorney’s Office then decided to pursue charges.
The Vermont State Police have notified the Vermont Attorney General’s Office under the Bias Incident Reporting System, police said.
Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported that three other people had also been accused of vandalism and harassment targeted at Migrant Justice members in Addison County during the same late August time period.
So the feud began over access to a local fishing area!
Migrant Justice posted on Facebook in August that for a few nights, a group surrounded farmworkers’ houses, yelled insults, broke windows and air conditioning units and returned later to fire guns into the air.
Police have said that those offenses appeared to be part of a feud between local farm families that started as a dispute over access to a fishing area.
Here, jumping on the bandwagon, is an overjoyed CAIR! As I understand it, the migrant workers at these Vermont dairy farms are Hispanic, so CAIR national’s interest tells us a lot.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which describes itself as the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in America, released a statement Friday welcoming a hate crime charge for the alleged harassment of staff members at Migrant Justice, an immigrant rights group that advocates for farmworkers.
Vermont State Police, in a news release, said Chase Atkins, 24, of Addison, will appear in Middlebury criminal court Nov. 18 to be charged with disturbing the peace by phone. The charge has been enhanced because police believe it was a hate crime.
Last month, CAIR called for a hate crime probe of harassment targeting migrant workers.
CAIR National Communications Coordinator Ayan Ajeen said the group supported the efforts of law-enforcement officers responding to a message Atkins allegedly left on voice mail at Migrant Justice that police said “would have left a reasonable person to feel threatened and intimidated.”
“We welcome the hate crime charges in this case and urge law enforcement authorities in Vermont and nationwide to take similar actions in response to any bias-motivated or anti-immigrant attacks,” Ajeen wrote in his statement.
Ajeen added CAIR has “reported an unprecedented spike in bigotry targeting American Muslims, immigrants and members of other minority groups since the election of Donald Trump as president.”
Of course, we don’t know exactly what Atkins said, but the message is loud and clear—they are watching your every move!
There are smarter ways to make your voices heard like getting politically organized, best to stick with those!
As many of you know I began blogging 12 years ago when I became interested in educating Americans about just how the process of Refugee Resettlement works in our country.
My work began when refugees were being quietly placed in nearby Hagerstown, Maryland and I simply wanted to know how the program works and who is paying for it.
My curiosity turned into an obsession with nearly an every day investigation into the federal program and related issues surrounding the Leftwing Open Borders goal of changing America by changing the people.
RRW was funded by no one, and so my work has been my charitable contribution to our great country.
RRW was filled with facts and financial data, reports on the refugee contractors, government information and reports on communities that were being targeted with resettlement (with a few horror stories about immigrant criminals/crooks/terrorists sprinkled in).
The way things are going now, I shouldn’t be surprised that the power on the Left has managed to silence that blog with its nearly 9,000 posts! I just wonder why now?
If WordPress, which was hosting RRW, had such a problem with my content wouldn’t they have looked into it at some point over the last dozen years!
And, why now when I hadn’t been actively writing there for more than a half a year! Was my archived data such a threat to whomever was complaining to WordPress?
(See my postin January about why I began writing ‘Frauds and Crooks.‘)
And, to top it off, they gave me no warning!
One day a reader was planning to look for something there and got this notice. (See my post on July 1,here).
I contacted WordPress then to ask what was going on and got this (below) e-mail response after I noticed all data collection at RRW had stopped in mid-June. So….
When were they going to tell me they had shut down my work?
Who is Bob Moser you ask?
He is a writer at The New Yorkerwho tells us over a decade later what he learned about the frauds at the Southern Poverty Law Centerwhen he worked there in the early 2000’s. Moser’s twitter photo https://twitter.com/bobmoserwrites
Moser told his story yesterday about how much of the staff (mostly former staff now!) was well aware of the hypocrisy of the organization that was driven more by a desire to make its leaders rich than doing good for the down and out.
I don’t know why he even wrote this article (clearing his conscience maybe), but I am glad he did.
What most outraged me was the fact that all of these employees he references knew what was going on, yet many stayed and worked there for a time with apparent total disregard for what their ‘good works’ could do to regular Americans who have opinions—people like me!
Frankly, the SPLC’s money-generating “hate-group list” puts my safety in jeopardy!
Two weeks in to this new blog—Frauds, Crooks and Criminals—I’m reminded of all the great work many of you do researching issues where you live, national issues too! But, are you getting that important information out on a local or state website? If not, why not!
You know that information is power, right! However, it has little value if it doesn’t reach outside your front door or go much farther than your facebook friends’ computers. They will have a harder time shutting down free speech if you all are writing!
Believe me, it is not rocket science to set up a wordpress website, or some other hosting site. I do think facebook is a good way to get your research/ideas out more widely, but facebook has limitations and will increasingly give you problems.
And, besides, on facebook, I don’t think there is any way to categorize and make available the information you have unearthed for someone to find months or years later (correct me if I am wrong).
Which brings me to the issue of comments here at Frauds and Crooks. Believe me! Most people will not read comments longer than my original posts! Heck, I hardly have time to read them! (See my comment on commentingunder the header.) Budding investigators! Please, please, please, set up a website/blog of your own!
Give your blog a theme, it could be on the vast issue of immigration (obviously my passion), or focus on your geographic location. Write a blog about what is going on in your city or state (LOL! compete with your Left leaning local paper that won’t even publish your Letters to the Editor!).
Plug away at it a little bit every day and you will be surprised at the body of information you will have compiled in a few short months.
The speech police will have a much harder time silencing us if all of you are writing!
Let me know when you’ve got that new blog of your own up and running! Endnote: If you are new to Frauds and Crooks, see my welcome post here.
