I reported earlier this month that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) were holding Leah Planet, Katherine Olejnik, and Matt Duran prisoner. Leah was being held for refusing to testify against her fellow anarchists noting that the arrests were effectively a witch hunt as the FBI was unable to obtain any evidence that lead to charges. The state has released Lead:
On July 25, Plante, along with two of her closest friends (co-conspirators, if you’re filtering reality through the brain of an FBI agent), Matt Duran and Kteeo Olejnik, were arrested after FBI agents and Joint Terrorism Task Force officers broke down her door with a battering ram.
The officers had a warrant for computers, black clothing, and “anarchist literature.” Plante was then arrested without a warrant, and for items that any of us might have in our possession right now.
[…]
On Friday, October 19, however, she was released with very little information as to why. Her only post-prison comments were attacks against misogynistic posts on her website.
Apparently it was too hard to justify caging somebody for refusing to condemn her friends. Unfortunately Matt and Katherine are still being held in cages. We’ll see how long it takes for the FBI to either create some trumped up charges or release the two and pretend there wasn’t a state sanctioned witch hunt going on.
Most people will, sadly, just assume that the state did not have a witch hunt here. Because cops are the “good guys”, right? My experience is that criticism of the institutional monopoly on police is ignored with “not all cops are bad”, as if that was the argument being put forward.