A typical case of American blind justice?
More on Josh Connole’s arrest for the Hummer firebombings
I met Josh briefly a while back and those who know him say he’s a peaceful vegan and incapable of firebombing Hummers. The co-owner of his coop says Connole was there when the firebombings happened. The only “evidence” so far appears to be video surveillance tapes of a tall thin man dressed in black wearing a ski mask running through the Hummer car lot.
More than 50 investigators scoured the Pomona home of a 25-year-old environmental activist arrested in connection with the firebombing of a West Covina Hummer dealership, departing Saturday with seized items that included hair brushes, anarchist literature and lamp oil. <hair brushes???>
William Korthof, the co-owner of the house where Connole lives, offered an alibi for his friend on Saturday in a telephone interview. “I saw him between those hours at the home, so it’s clear to me that he couldn’t have been there,” said Korthof, 24. “It’s certain to me that he couldn’t have been at the dealership.”
In a phone call from his cell on Friday, Connole said he had nothing to do with the vandalism and the figure in the surveillance photos is “obviously not me.”
The Earth Liberation Front issued a statement on Saturday saying Connole’s arrest had been made “on what appears to be nonexistent grounds.”
“We believe this arrest is part of a pattern of harassment the FBI has been visiting on activists in Southern California,” the group said in an e-mail response to a Times e-mail inquiry.
First was Sherman Austin, now Josh Connnole. Austin recently was sentenced to one year in Federal prison for linking to a website that later posted an article about bomb making. Now Josh Connole has bail set at $825,000 on what seems flimsy, at best, evidence. It’s instructive that police searched Connole’s residence for anarchist literature, Sherman Austin was anarchist also. And to imply that anarchists must be bomb-throwers is the mark of a political illiterate.