Via D29, yet another Federal sting operation aimed at creating crime rather than discouraging it. I used to think these were disgusting when they were aimed at motorcycle clubs. These days they’re targeting altar boys.
No, really.
A traditional Catholic family was allegedly “dragged out of their home at gunpoint, handcuffed and locked in a van” earlier this year after the FBI “goaded” their 15-year-old son to post “offensive memes” online. The teen, a volunteer firefighter and altar boy, was then hospitalized on mental health pretenses, according to his father, Jeremiah Rufini.
Emphasis added. I assume he's a junior firefighter, since you normally have to be 18 (and 21 to drive the big trucks), but still: a public-service minded youth. Kyle Rittenhouse was also a junior firefighter, I recall.
Unbeknownst to us [the father went on], he was being drawn deeper and deeper into these chat groups and goaded into doing things like take pictures of himself in public wearing ski masks and to print out memes and leave them on picnic tables. They would ask him if he had access to guns (he would go target shooting under the supervision of my brother, who lived in an in-law apartment at our home and owned firearms) and encourage him to sneak photographs of the guns and post them. Ironically, our legal troubles began when he had an attack of conscience and abruptly deleted all of his chat apps. He later told us that he felt using social media was a coping mechanism and it had been affecting his mood and ability to sleep.
It was at this point that the FBI, having lost contact with him, raided the family, seized their guns, and involuntarily committed the boy to a mental institution (there being no actual crime to charge him with, I suppose, since 'taking pictures of himself' or 'guns' and 'printing out memes' is all perfectly legal).
There was a Department of Children and Families investigation that went nowhere but required us to go to daily appointments for months. The state brought criminal charges against my son that were eventually disposed of but required a legal battle that lasted months. When his charges were disposed of, my brother and I were charged for allowing my son to target shoot based on the assumption that we must have somehow known that he was involved in political extremism online. It seems unlikely to amount to much but has cost us over $20,000 we don’t have so far.
I wonder what exactly that charge is. "Taking your son target shooting" is also not a crime, at least not in most states. "Conspiracy to... X" requires some evidence that there was in fact a conspiracy to commit an X, but that seems not in evidence.
Federal entrapment schemes have been discussed here since the early days of the blog, but in the old days I feel like they used to try to entrap people who weren't altar boys and volunteers. These days they seem to be targeting the heart of American society.
14 comments:
I'm going to have to stop reading about anything the FBI does.
In retrospect, it appears that the SDS types had the right take on the FBI.
There are only TWO enemies of the Totalitarian State: the Church and the family.
That suggests who might be on the side of the Totalitarians, doesn't it?
I am extremely suspicious of this story, given my involuntary mental health treatment background. I don't know much about Connecticut (you have to do some research to find out where these incidents occurred), but in NH it is very difficult to convince an entire team of people to give a precious involuntary bed in an underfunded system to someone they don't think is mentally ill and dangerous, because they have plenty who are who they have to reluctantly let go. Then you have to convince a probate judge - and the patient will have an attorney who can appeal if they feel this is a railroading - to issue a commitment order. And all on the say-so of the FBI, who they reflexively mistrust? Really? No, psychiatrists love to stick a thumb in the eye of such agencies, who they view as trying to get mental health to do their dirty work when they haven't got any real evidence.
Now look at the reporting. It keeps dancing around, long on innuendo and short on facts. Look what someone else somewhere did to another kid in another state! Look at what powerful people in the agency have said that has nothing to do with this specific case! Because we know they hate trad Catholics, then we can be sure everything they say about trad Catholics is a setup, because those people are never actually crazy!
I heard this all the time in my 40+ years. "They are targeting me because I'm Native American! The police are trying to frame me because I'm a libertarian who is exposing the corruption on the board of selectmen!" As for people calling themselves trad Catholics, I wrote about the St Benedict Center years ago. https://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2013/08/deliver-us-concerning-victimhood.html. People hide behind actually decent causes all the time, and "trad Catholic" is one of those categories that seems especially prone to it. When you belong to a group that is disfavored by some, it doesn't mean that everything you are accused of is false. Read the Rufini reporting with suspicion, and you will see it evaporate.
In fact, I will go farther. I am not "suspicious" of this story, I am convinced it is bullshit. I've seen this too many times. I feel sorry for the family and the kid looks like a sad case. But just because he was an altar boy doesn't mean he's innocent forever.
Fair enough; you're allowed to be skeptical, and your background gives you some reasons to be doubtful. Usually I would say that there ought to be public records we could check to verify key details, but because it's a minor those records may not be available. I can't find where the FBI has responded to these allegations in any form, neither to give an alternative view nor a denial.
If there was a probate court hearing that would be a matter of public record, but it wouldn't necessarily be in the news unless a reporter had requested it. You would have to ask for it by name, same as a divorce record or any criminal record. As with a divorce record, that could be sealed by a judge, but with commitment hearings that seldom happens. It would not be his medical record, but it would include what they out forward to a judge for both pieces of the case: what shows he is mentally ill (usually a court-appointed psychiatrist who is not part of the hospital) and how is he dangerous (what the witnesses testified to, and hearsay is not allowed.)
Presumably, his attorneys already have those and are making their own decision whether to advertise them or not.
Notice phrases such as "The state brought criminal charges against my son that were eventually 'disposed of.'" Disposed of? Not dropped or dismissed? My guess - and it is no more than that - is that they are not dropped but held in abeyance until the patient completes specified treatment. They can't do that forever, but it might even be up to a year (I think).
These defendants aren't telling the whole story.
On the skeptical side, the reporter hasn't even been able to talk to the family. All their information comes from their GiveSendGo page and we just don't know what really happened. Also, they are raising money from this, so they do have some motive to play up their plight.
However, to address AVI's concerns, my experience as a paramedic was that it was a routine matter to have a patient sent to a crisis center for 72 hours of observation and a psych eval. If I determined someone having a psychological emergency was a danger to themselves or others, they always found a bed at a crisis center for that patient. It might be a long drive, but there was always a bed somewhere in the state. After 72 hours, it was up to the psychiatrist who did the eval whether to keep the patient in the system or release them.
Also, people who do not work with this daily don't know how to talk about it. The family says the son was hospitalized, but so what? That could easily mean taken to a crisis center for evaluation by people who don't know the difference. They are not professionals and it's unreasonable to expect them to use language like professionals.
Similarly, "disposed of" could mean any number of things coming from non-pros. It's reading way too much into this to argue that since they didn't use the terms "dismissed" or "dropped" that the charges were not in fact dismissed or dropped. We just don't know what they meant by "disposed of."
All that said, we still have a single-source story and the reporter hasn't even talked to this family, and the family are using this to generate sympathy and raise money, so I think skepticism is called for until we know more.
Those are fair things to point out. However, I still think they have weaknesses. The reports say he was involuntarily committed, which goes by different names in different states. Blue paper, temporary order, IEA, EDD, etc. It could theoretically be one of those and they overstated for dramatic effect, or because they didn't understand. But when it's you or your kid being locked up, you usually learn to pay attention real fast to exactly what is being said and done. They may not have known the niceties a month ago. they had damn well better pay attention to them now. Similarly with the charges. If you don't move in that world the distinctions might be new to you. But people learn quickly what the difference is between dropped, dismissed, nol prossed, held over, etc means when it's you.
And also the "all we were doing was target shooting," and similar statements. This is not the sort of thing I ran into only a few times. This was a major part of my job, listening to people unable to take responsibility for their own actions and seeking to externalise the blame to some sort of prejudice immediately. You can't start by assuming "well they hate trad Catholics" and then conclude there was never a thing underlying. You have to give some kind of evidence that there was unfairness, and then go back and look at the possible explanations why.
I looked into it again this morning, a bit deeper. Y'all can wait for more information to come out if you want, but I think I can save you some time. It's bullshit. Not even very original.
If you’re right, it’s a $32,000 felony fraud: Grand Theft many times over.
If we had any journalists left, it occurs to me on reflection that the closing action was allegedly aimed at the adults, so that wouldn’t have minor protections. If you could figure out the jurisdiction, you could sort this out.
AVI, your points are well taken.
I haven't looked into this any further, so I don't have the info to make a call on whether it's BS or not. The GiveSendGo page is now closed, so even the original message is gone.
Jeremiah is the chef at St Vincent de Paul's in Middletown, CT. That would only be a clue, not an answer.
I went to kindergarten in the next town over, but I don't know the place.
https://roddreher.substack.com/p/why-i-dont-support-the-rufini-family
Thanks, Tex. Looks like AVI's instincts were on target.
I chased this down as far as locating the correct Federal court, but I gather that you need to be an attorney to get their court records (which also have a per-page cost). However, I can’t be sure if the charges were in Federal courts, since an FBI investigation can produce state charges also — especially in terms of tertiary matters not touching on the person being investigated but those who lived with or near him.
Ultimately I would guess that the FBI probably did engage in some entrapment here because that is standard practice for Federal police. However, the rest of the story may not be as straightforward as they told it. Unfortunately American journalism is in a sad state, so there’s no guarantee that they will ask questions of produce insight.
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