This is an excerpt from the book “Jailed With Autism” by Ruth Roberts, which can be read for free on Google Documents. This book tells the story about the activist and reporter Brian David Hill.
The Police Raid
It was the kind of day that you hope to never have. The kind of day that reminds you that nightmares aren’t just dreams that happen in the middle of the night while we are sleeping, but that they can sometimes come during the light of day while we are awake. Those are the worst kinds of nightmares that any of us can have because with these nightmares, you can’t wake up.
The day had actually been going quite pleasant because my parents were at our house visiting us. We went off to run some errands, and then we went to Wendy’s to get some lunch and brought it back to our house to eat. We were having a nice conversation and just enjoying our visit together when all of a sudden we heard a loud knock at the door. Our lives were about to change significantly and in that period of the calm before the storm, I had such a very enjoyable morning. No one ever realizes that in just a split second our lives can change for the better or the worse, and all it takes is just one very short experience to facilitate a massive change in the way we live the rest of our lives. That was about to happen to us, but we didn’t have a clue that it would all start with that knock at the door.
As I opened the door I was shocked by what was waiting on the other side, and my heart began to pound rapidly. Standing before my eyes were a group of police officers standing on my porch and looking intently at me. My jaw dropped to the floor as I slowly opened the door. The police officer at the door declared that he had a search warrant which stated that they were to seize our computers or any related paraphernalia and other items from our home. I was in a state of complete non-belief when he told us what they were searching for, and I remember how everything just switched off inside of me as I felt the blood drain from my face. I thought, “Could I have heard him wrong?” “He didn’t just actually say what I thought I heard him say!” I tried to process the information that he gave us, but it was as if I could hardly think rationally anymore. The words kept popping into my mind like an awful and uncontrollable thought that took complete control of me. It began to seem like I was having a horrible dream of some sort, and so I wished that I could just wake up from this nightmare. If only it was that simple! I became nervous and my pulse raced as my breathing began to feel highly labored. I looked at my son, Brian and my parents in disbelief, and they returned the same look back to me like a mirror reflecting the ugliness of the situation. I don’t remember all that the officer said after his initial declaration upon entering my home, as my ability to process anything further he said was disabled by my inactive brain. It all seemed like I was trapped in a fog trying to perceive what was going on right in front of my eyes.
He told us that the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) had tracked someone downloading illegal files to our IP address, and that they were sent there to get our computers to assist the SBI. It was quite shocking to hear those words, and I struggled to make sense of what was going on.
The next thing I remember him saying is that we would have to go outside while they searched our home. We were not even allowed to finish eating our food, and so we had to leave our meal in the house. He then said that they would have to search us before letting us out of our home. Brian walked slowly towards the door, and a police officer patted him down in an attempt to look for weapons. It might have been quite amusing to ponder had I not been in a state of shock as I have never owned a gun in my life and neither had my son, but now we were being treated as if we were dangerous gun toting villains who were hiding from the law. I remember thinking about how odd it was that the police officers only searched my son as they let my parents and me walk freely through the door without a pat down search. It seemed as though they were targeting Brian from the actions that they took in only searching him, and that was an obvious clue to what was going on as Brian had been operating an alternative news website in which he wrote very provocative articles about corruption in our government.
The next thing that I remember is that Brian and the police chief started arguing back and forth, and my son declared that he was innocent and that he had some kind of virus that was attempting to put files on his computer. In fact, just shortly before the police had arrived at our home, my son was working feverishly trying to battle a computer problem that he had. It now seemed quite suspicious considering the kind of evidence that they were looking for on our computers that day. I can specifically remember that my mom even spoke up to the police chief to tell him that this looked like a set up to her.
Before I continue the story of the police raid, I must tell you of the events that had happened a few months prior to this day. Brian had worked quite hard on getting together signatures for a petition to nullify the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is a bill that was signed by President Barack Obama on December 31, 2011 to detain anyone who is suspected of being a terrorist indefinitely without a right to a trial. I drove him all over our county, so that he could get signatures from a lot of people who felt the same about this law. I was so proud of how hard my son worked to get the signatures and admired his social skills in approaching complete strangers to ask them if they would like to sign his petition. It was most remarkable considering the fact that my son was diagnosed with mild autism when he was four years old. I’m quite sure that not one of those people whom he approached would have ever realized that Brian was autistic; after all, many people’s perceptions about autism are that they do not speak and that they are trapped into a world of their own. Although Brian started out that way when he was younger, he was very much attuned to the world as an adult and when he talked to people about signing his petition. He has told me since that time that it was hard to do, but he made himself do it because it needed to be done. After he got many signatures, he presented the petition to the state Senator pro tempore, who was sitting on the board of the town council as the town lawyer at that time. The state Senator accepted it willingly, but when my son asked if we could get a photo of him presenting the petition, he vehemently said “No” and with a very stern look. At that moment I looked into his eyes, and I didn’t like what I saw. Have you ever looked into someone’s eyes to see darkness staring back? That is what it felt like, and I will never forget the darkness and unemotional look that he gave to my son. This happened about 3 months prior to the police raid.
A few weeks later we attended the Bilderberg protest in Chantilly, VA because Brian wanted to interview people and write articles about the protests on his website. I was extremely nervous about being there, but I wanted to support my son in what he was doing with his alternative news website. I was very proud of the work he was doing with writing articles, working on his website and interviewing people for his YouTube channel. I can remember that there were police there who were taking video of the protestors, and although I can’t say for sure why they were taking video of us, I would assume that it was for the purpose of identifying who was there taking part in the protest. Even though I was not there to actively protest, and Brian was there to interview people for his website, I know that we were being videotaped just like everyone else, and this made me feel uneasy. He also got to meet with many other alternative media activists, and one of them was Alex Jones who ran the popular Prison Planet website and is a famous radio show host and documentary maker. Brian interviewed many people while attending this protest, and he wrote many articles as well. We attended this protest about three months prior to the police raid.
Brian attempted to get records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regarding political profiling documents that specified what groups are being monitored by our government. He received a reply on July 25, 2012, which was about a month prior to the police raid at our home. On August 18, 2012, there was an article on Alex Jone’s Infowars website that told about how Brian was able to get a FOIA report showing that Homeland Security was watching Alex Jones. This article came out 10 days before the police raid on our home.
Brian wanted to attend another town council meeting, and he wanted me to go with him. I had a really bad feeling about this meeting and I didn’t know why at that time, so unfortunately I refused to go with him. I just felt such an overwhelming feeling of darkness about this meeting, and so I couldn’t shake that persistent intuitive feeling I had inside of me that made me feel like I shouldn’t go. I tried to warn Brian that he shouldn’t go to this meeting, but he refused to listen to me and went anyway. It’s odd because my mom also had the same feeling as I did. None of us went with him to that meeting, and my son was all alone. The town meeting was only about three blocks from our home, and so he walked down there by himself. At one point, I began to worry about him and walked down to check on him. He was waiting for the meeting to begin, and so I decided to go back home because he seemed okay. I did notice that the police chief was staring at me from another room, and I thought it was very strange behavior. It made me feel really uncomfortable, and so I was anxious to leave. I did again try to persuade Brian to come back home with me, but he would not.
My feeling was completely right because Brian was kicked out of this town council meeting for asking a question to the state Senator. The question was simple and straightforward. He asked why the Senator had not taken any kind of action on the petition to nullify the NDAA for the town. The state Senator told my son that he was not going to answer his question. Then the police chief quickly took a hold of his arm and escorted him forcibly out of the meeting room, as the chief of police informed him that this was a closed meeting and that he could not ask any questions at this time. Brian got a little bit of this on his video camera and later posted it on his YouTube channel to show his followers what had happened to him for just asking a simple question.
Now it was around a month later, and the very same police chief who escorted Brian out of the town council meeting was now badgering him and arguing with him on our front porch while the police raided our home for hours and were actively searching through everything that we owned. It seemed really obvious to us at the time that there was some kind of set up going on. The timing was just too coincidental! I can remember that he kept telling my son to “fess up” and that “someone living in the home downloaded these illegal files and that it had to be either him or his mother and that he didn’t think it was his mother.” He was completely badgering him and pressuring him to confess to a crime that he never committed. Like I said my brain was in a complete fog from the pure shock of this experience, but I can still remember how he kept telling Brian to “fess up” like it had just happened today. I can never forget it as those words still echo through my mind like some horrible memory that I wish I could erase permanently from my brain along with the police raid.
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