Pixiq

He is an innocent man!!!!!!!! And he’s facing 3 yrs for misdemeanors that he did not commit!!! PINAC!

Something doesn’t add up. Was he asked to leave by the property owners? Was he asked to leave by the cops? He was not on public property. Even at a public meeting, you are at the mercy of the property owner. He may have been targeted by the property owners for his filming, but he is being convicted for trespassing and resisting arrest. If he was asked to leave and he refused, then he brought these charges onto himself. If, on the other hand, he was tackled from behind and dragged outside without warning, this is not right. I’m amazed that this case went to the point of conviction without a plea deal. His lawyer must be awful.

From what I’ve read I get a dirty feeling just from being at their website. I am disgusted that people can feign being so called “Humanists” and still act as horribly as they have.

This is Kogers site that explains in detail what happened http://dropthecharges.net/?p=245
Rob recently posted..64-Year Old Man Tasered in His Own Home

This is an odd one. I can’t find a neutral account of the trial or charges, but it sounds like a run-of-the-mill trespassing case. It’s private property, so the issue isn’t whether the photographer has the absolute right to take video (he almost certainly doesn’t), the issue is when and how he was told to leave the premises.

Sounds like the whole trial was a sham, I find it really disturbing that the judge refused to correct the prosecution when they equated videoing with trespassing, even when the defense attorney objected. And then revoking bail for a misdemeanor charge? Sounds like the judge had it in for the guy.

None of this sounds right. Either this is the biggest, most corrupt miscarriage of justice we’ve seen in ages, or there are details missing.

Previously, when I’ve formally asked someone to leave my premises I had to give 2 verbal warnings first, then in writing that they have to sign. It should still be done civilly and with respect if it warrants it.

I worked at a liquor store though, unfortunately. Drunkenness usually was the blame of the poor behavior and the Chronic usually realized that losing the approval to enter our premises is more valuable to them than continuing their actions.

When it did get past the verbals it had to be in writing. As you can guess that doesn’t happen easily so THEN I get the authorities. To have them ASSIST in getting the signature. Once we have that documentation THEN the police can officially charge with trespass.

If the police presence is needed to eject the person, shouldn’t the badges work? Maybe not, but at least we tried using the rules.

Things could just be different up here in Canada with our RCMP. At least I try to be polite and in accordance with the law, but not using my own interpretation of it.

That doesn’t stop the few poorly written laws our politicians dream up to get another vote. Those get fixed in the Senate later. AFTER it is in the news. Maybe things aren’t so different after all.

the ethical humanist society is neither ethical nor humanist.

And there are other accounts of what happened that night, especially that the person from the EHS was not ejected and made it out of the area unmolested by police. weird.

Gregory Koger just sentenced to 300 days for videotaping.

http://twitter.com/SunsaraTaylor

The problem with this case is that he wasn’t arrested for a “videotaping incident.” He was arrested for the laundry list of misdemeanors they convicted him of.

They may (probably) have physically taken him down for videotaping, then threw all the B.S. charges at him.

Some of the links Carlos provided mention how the prosecutor conflated videotaping with trespassing in his case.

I would really love to see a transcript for this case, to get a better understanding… anyone got a link?

Sadly it’s not surprising he got 300 days, it was already obvious the judge was only going to listen to the prosecution in this case. Not sure if you can call that bias or not, but the judge quite obviously has decided that Koger is guilty as hell and just isn’t going to listen to, much less believe, anything his lawyers and supporters say.

Even with what info is available here it seems quite difficult to justify revoking bail before the sentencing, then also denying bail pending appeal. There are rapists and murderers who are deemed safe enough to allow that for, but apparently Koger’s much more dangerous than them. Even if you believe all the charges against him, it’s really difficult to support this. Hopefully he’ll win on appeal, as it does not appear justice was done here at all, even if he was truly guilty of everything he was accused of.

Here is a link to a 9/8/10 report from the local section of the Chicago Trib :

http://triblocal.com/Skokie/detail/217236.html

P.S. Please note that the story states that a group
“which included some members of the Ethical Humanist Society, collected close to 1,000 signatures on a petition asking that Koger be spared jail time.” So all Chicago Ethical Humanists are not so bad. The cops and the judge, well, that’s another story.

sentenced at the Skokie courthouse today to 300 days in jail following his arrest late last year for a scuffle with police while trying to video an event at the Skokie-based Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago.

Cook County Circuit Court Judge Marguerite Quinn sentenced Gregory Koger, 31, to the Illinois Department of Corrections following his August jury conviction on misdemeanor criminal trespass, resisting arrest, and simple battery charges.

I do have some here-say from a friend who attended the event.

Taylor was making a statement from her seat (not from the podium as some articles imply) and Koger was filming with a regular video camera from the side. Someone from EHSC told Koger to stop filming and Koger did, but then took out his iPhone and continued.

The EHSC guy told the plain-clothes cop to stop him from filming and the cop basically said “The guy told you to stop.” Koger kept the iPhone up. The cop grabbed Koger and forced him to the floor.

More cops showed up really fast as if they had already been called. Koger and the cops were yelling at each other. Koger was handcuffed and dragged out and my friend didn’t see what happened to him after that. Apparently he was maced.

The plainclothes cop approached Taylor but her lawyer intervened.

At a later meeting that I did attend where questions were still being asked about the incident there was a lot of people who wanted the EHSC to drop the charges. We were told that there was an ex-ante informal agreement with the Skokie police and that prevented the society from dropping the charges.

That sounded like a bit of a cop-out anyway. They didn’t seem to want to budge on the issue. From the sound of it they saw it as a way to punish Taylor for showing up without having to deal with Taylor’s lawyers.

KayGee,

Thanks for the details. I tried in vain to find a comprehensive breakdown of what happened that day, but everything I found was so bogged down in politics and opinion that it was hard to find what actually took place.

Well, we do need to take my friend’s version of events with a pinch of salt as well. He was there as a Taylor supporter hoping that Taylor would get to talk.

One of the problems I had with the EHSC version of events was that they changed their story. Initially we were told that Koger was being disruptive and refused to leave. When too many people who were at the meeting disputed that version of events, the EHSC then changed their story and said that Taylor and Koger had been told not to enter while they were still outside.

It also seemed weird that they had Skokie police there in advance anyway. It’s not like Taylor is known for violence. The EHSC said they were protecting the audience. I think it seems more likely that they intended on arresting Taylor all along on a trumped up trespass charge and Koger was inconveniently recording. As soon as the cops were confronted with Taylor’s lawyer they decided to back off from her.

Koger, of course, was guilty of contempt of cop, so there was no way they were letting him go.

The argument that kept being repeated from the EHSC was that they were “duped” by Taylor into participating with what they called her staged publicity stunt. They kept trying to put themselves on the moral high ground.

I suppose ethics is fungible. They view the lies as being justified to counter what they saw as unethical behavior from Taylor.

One aspect that seems to get overlooked in this incident is that the EHSC was, in effect, able to hire the Skokie police as a private goon squad.

Something definitely does not add up… a few glaring details- I notice on Kroger’s site, the article linked above refers to Kroger in the third person, with no author attribution except “admin”… if Kroger wrote this, why does he refer to himself in the third person?

Further into the site, there is a statement written by Kroger in the first person where he relates his life history (link: http://dropthecharges.net/?p=223 )

He tells us he went to prison, but never says why, and that after a few years in prison he was sent to solitary, likewise never explaining why.

This is important because the judge cited Kroger’s prison record when sentencing him and denying bail.

Is it possible that this is just a case of a violent felon who got aggressive when asked to leave, resisted arrest and assaulted an officer, and that the jury got it right this time?

Guys,

Here’s the number for the “Ethical” Humanist Society 847-677-3334.

I just called them up and tried to get an explanation, and they kept saying “I’m not going to talk about it with you”. They also claim to support the 1st amendment. Call them up yourself and let’s find the truth for our fellow videographer.

Sj

JR: solitary is sometimes (or mostly) better than general population if you’re not really a thug. No chance to get harrassed/beaten/etc for looking at someone the wrong way, any other perceived, imaginary slight. you have to either choose to align with people who’s moral code you may disagree with (peckerwoods, italians, cerranos, bloods, crips, whatever) – or choose to do something disorderly to get yourself removed from that situation. if you act crazy they will put you on medicine and take you out of genpop, but some people are against that ethically, so they remove themselves to solitary confinement.

not everything can be construed as “this man is a plague on society” – the bastard was just filming his friend. she had a lawyer, he did not.

there’s nothing so hard to see about this case.

And not everything can be considered a miscarriage of justice but you still do it.

Update Broski, we miss you!

test123

miller, i’m sure you already saw this:

http://www.activistpost.com/2010/09/police-harassing-citizens-who-film-t...

Looks like ethical humanist society has posted a statement. http://ethicalhuman.org/clarifying.html