IF JOHN JOE GRAY WAS BLACK, HE WOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD LONG, LONG AGO, BUT HE ISN'T AND HE ISN'T

THE GREAT STATE OF TEXAS SAYS THEY ARE JUST DARNED SCARED OF THIS MAN

You absolutely cannot make this stuff up.  To prove it I will start the story with a long quote from the Southern Poverty Law Center from back in 2009, when the story was already growing old.

It was Christmas Eve 1999, but John Joe Gray wasn't consumed with the holiday spirit. When the car in which he was a passenger was pulled over for speeding by two Texas state troopers near Palestine, in Anderson County, he was packing a loaded handgun in a shoulder holster. He had no permit for it.

One of the troopers ordered Gray out of the car. He either refused or was slow to respond. When the troopers tried to remove him, Gray resisted, was handcuffed and a scuffle ensued. The cops said he bit one of them and tried to grab the other's gun.

"Somehow, his hand got in my mouth," Gray said in a radio interview eight months later. "I bit down and I wouldn't let go. They sprayed me with the pepper spray three times." He was arrested and jailed.

Two weeks later at a bail hearing, Gray promised the judge he would appear at future court hearings if he bonded out of jail. He denied or downplayed the prosecutor's questions about his purported involvement in antigovernment militias and a plot to bomb a Texas interstate highway. "I'm a member of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, king of kings and lord of lords," he said.

John Joe Gray

Judge Jim Parsons granted the lower bail, but with conditions. One was that neither Gray nor anyone in his family keep firearms on their 47-acre rural compound alongside the Trinity River just outside the town of Trinidad in Henderson County, the next county north of Anderson. "I don't want these officers to go out there and have to arrest him at this compound and be confronted by a bunch of firearms," the judge said.

Gray posted bail and went home. Two months later, the father of six with no prior criminal record sent a letter to authorities: If your deputies come onto my property, bring body bags. Gray had perhaps 16 other people, including several grandchildren, living at his modest home and outbuildings at the time. Armed family members, including Gray's wife, Alicia, took turns patrolling the property. That worried authorities — so much so that even when Gray began skipping court appearances, they didn't go arrest him.

"They were pretty well fixed up with weapons," recalls Howard "Slick" Alfred, the Henderson County sheriff at the time. "They had better weapons than we had. There was children in there. He was kind of hiding behind those kids. I didn't want another Waco kind of deal." And it's not as if Gray was a threat to the community, Alfred adds. "He's not hurting anybody over there."

Posted bail and went home?



Mr. Gray is still holed up in his compound and law enforcement has still done nothing to get him out.




In the beginning, back in 2000, Gray sent the following little note to a country criminal investigator, " "What he said was this: 'If y'all come to get me, bring body bags' ." 


Can you imagine what would have happened if Huey Newton sent that note to California Law enforcement.


John Joe doesn't really recognize the authority of the State and apparently in this case that okay with the State.


Say what?


Did I mention that way back in 1999 the man who was married to John Joe's daughter filed for divorce because he had the brains to realize he didn't want his kids raised around this nutmeg.


Guess what?


Gray's daughter never showed for the hearing and her and kids remained holed up with the dirtbag.


Law enforcement doesn't care about that either.


Texas law enforcement, for the first time in anyone's memory just says they are too damn scared to take any action.


John Joe Gray is a right wing, far right wing hero of the soverignty movement. 


John Joe Gray is white.


That's pretty much all you need to know, right there.


PS: Remember David Koresh?  Even his white skin didn't save David and dozens of others.  Maybe it was because he played the guitar and looked like a dirty hippie and drove a muscle car...Of course, it was the feds who went in and killed and killed and killed in that one.  Maybe the feds are just tougher then the vaunted law men of the Lone Star Republic.  Beats me?




The following is from the Black Commentator. 

When Justice is Not Served The Other Side of the Tracks By Perry Redd BlackCommentator.com Columnist

It is true. I am not the biggest fan of law enforcement. No, it is not because I’ve been arrested several times during my lifetime. No, it is not because people who wear like clothing constitute “gangs” and they scare me. It is because law enforcement - and those who pride themselves as law enforcers - too often neglect to come clean in their misdeeds and unequal dispensation of justice. I never want to see anyone go to jail. Jail - and prison - are “life-takers.” But as with law enforcement, jails and prisons are necessary in an “order-modeled” society. My problem comes when the mechanisms to send the guilty to prison - especially when those deserving of prison are law enforcement - is retarded. What disturbs me greatly is law enforcers who don’t “do their jobs” by allowing the guilty to roam about this USA, destroying the American dreams of others. The credibility of law enforcement is greatly diminished when that happens. Even the Bible quotes a wise man saying, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, the people groan.” Hey, I didn’t say it! A recent case in Trinidad, Texas continues to unfold; police are allowing a wanted fugitive to live at-large on a 50-acre, wooded compound since jumping bail more than a decade ago. John Joe Gray, an American who claims his “sovereignty,” refuses to be taken alive. His anti-government stand might have some validity (depending on your view of government), but it’s antithetical to the principle of “law and order.” The county’s District Attorney (DA), Doug Lowe, who first sought to prosecute Gray for an assault in 1999, said that he doesn’t want to risk confrontation. What?! How many Americans do you know can get away with that? “The risk of loss of life on both ends is far too great,” said the DA. I am in disbelief! I watched law enforcement go after David Koresh in 1993 with force and authority though that episode could have been deemed a botched one. Government always believes they have a right to “get their man.” They go after people in my community all the time! I’ll begin on the “low impact” end of a continuum with car speed chases through densely populated neighborhoods and end with this: I can’t remind people enough of how law enforcement went after the Black separatist group, MOVE, in Philadelphia in 1985. MOVE created its own compound on a city block in the Powelton Village area and police did what many feared the authorities might do: acted with overkill. After reigning 10,000 bullets on the compound within ninety minutes, city officials on the command of its then-Mayor, W. Wilson Goode (a Black man), dropped a bomb on MOVE holdouts - only the second time America has bombed its own people from the air. (The first time was on Blacks in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921. That site was Black Wall Street where 36 city blocks were destroyed, along with more than 600 Black-owned businesses, and 300 Black people were killed.  Perhaps not so coincidentally, Tulsa was the recent scene of random shootings; white men randomly targeted and assassinated three men and injured two.) Smoke and flames rose inPowelton Village, incinerating an entire city block. More than 250 people were left homeless, 60 homes were destroyed and 11 MOVE members - including 5 children - were killed. The militancy of Tulsa in 1921 and MOVE in 1985 parallels the current stand with Gray and his followers. My question to you: Why is not “Lady Justice” being served like a whoop-ass on this law breaker? No, I’m not a proponent of over-zealous police actions, but if “Lady Justice” looks like MOVE or David Koresh’s Branch Davidians, then let the good times roll! “Lady Justice,” like Lady Liberty, is supposed to be blind, yet it appears that white Americans are getting a pass - and guns punch the pass for entry! In my soon-to-be-published book, “As a Condition of Your Freedom,” I note that guns are the equalizer. I am not against guns, only for the reason as stated in the US Constitution: “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”…as it relates to “a well regulated militia.” What Gray and millions of other “law-abiding” Americans are doing in the name of the second amendment is illegal. There’s nothing “well regulated” about Gray’s resistance and defiance of federal authorities. The only logical reason that law enforcement hasn’t forced its way in to “get their man” Gray is because of the color of his skin. I can’t think of a single incidence of a Black man who dared stand-off law enforcement - for a day, much less, a decade! - and lived to tell about it. Fear on the part of law enforcement is an insane proposition. Their fear of a violent confrontation only sullies and belies the myths of their bravery and the integrity of their profession. Law enforcement is quick to shoot unarmed Black men throughout this nation’s past - and in more recent history: Shawn Bell in Queens, New York, Timothy Thomas in Cincinnati, Ohio, Oscar Grant in Oakland, Amadou Diallo in New York City, Archie Elliot III in Prince George’s County (a Washington, DC suburb) and Arthur McDuffie near Miami. Just a few of the Black men made martyrs by “the brave men and women of law enforcement” that we are conditioned to respect, slight [sight] unseen. Yes, I am angry about the excuses made regarding this unequal dispensation of “Lady Justice.” With the assassination of Trayvon Martin, our nation’s dirty legacy has been re-awakened; its reputation once again sullied on the world stage; and more painfully piercing: Our nation’s people are cheated when justice is not served. BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Perry Redd, is the former Executive Director of the workers rights advocacy, Sincere Seven, and author of the on-line commentary, “The Other Side of the Tracks.” He is the host of the internet-based talk radio show, Socially Speaking in Washington, DC.Click here to contact Mr. Redd.