[Ppnews] FBI accuses Travis Riehl of vandalizing a pair of recruiting stations

[Political Prisoner News]

Anarchist linked to local property crimes
http://www.kxly.com/news/?sect_rank=1&section_id=559&story_id=13801

<http://www.kxly.com/news//staff/index.php?id_staff=14>Jeff 
Humphrey / KXLY4 Reporter
Last updated: Friday, August 24th, 2007 07:06:38 PM

The FBI has accused Travis Riehl of vandalizing a 
pair of recruiting stations, including 
spraypainting this window with the words "Leave 
us alone" and an anarchy symbol.

SPOKANE -- In one of the first property crimes 
connected to Spokane’s growing anarchist 
movement, a grand jury indicted a Spokane man for 
vandalizing a pair of military recruiting stations in the city.

In October of 2005, someone threw a rock through 
the Air National Guard’s window and spraypainted 
the words “leave us alone” and an anarchy symbol 
on another window at the North Washington recruiting station.

Though the vandalism occurred in the middle of 
the night with no witnesses around, police 
recovered a paint can at the scene and were able 
to trace fingerprints on it to self-proclaimed anarchist Travis Riehl.

Riehl is a member of Spokane Lack of Action 
Collective (SLAC), a group that believes some 
non-violent property crimes are an acceptable 
form of getting people’s attention.

“We feel that corporations and logos and things 
like that that we are bombarded with, and 
ideologies and traditions, are all entrapping us 
and keeping us stagnant as a society,” Riehl 
states. “And we fell that atypical actions kind 
of break the spell that holds on people; we're trying to wake people up.”

Predictably, however, the FBI doesn’t share the 
same sentiments, and attempting to find the 
person responsible for breaking the law, they 
found plenty of evidence linking Riehl to the vandalism.

Court documents show that, in the days after the 
recruiting center was vandalized, early morning 
photos of the damage appeared on SLAC’s myspace 
page, with the date stamp on the photos matching 
the date an army recruiting center on the South Hill was also vandalized.

The FBI also determined that the pictures were 
taken by a Fuji Film Finepix 2600 digital camera 
and, after obtaining a federal warrant, agents 
recovered the same model camera from Riehl's North Spokane home.

As part of their investigation, the FBI – who 
handled the case since the Recruiting Station is 
considered federal property – secretly recorded 
Riehl inside his home. On the tapes, he could be 
found admitting responsibility for posting the 
pictures of the damaged recruiting stations.

Riehl also said he knows the people who set a 
Humvee on fire at a Liberty Lake car dealership back in 2004.

The Earth Liberation Front later claimed 
responsibility for the attack, but anarchists say 
a pro-environment, anti authoritarian philosophy 
is an important part of their platform.

"You can say a lot of the ideas would be 
anti-government," Riehl says, "But we would 
probably prefer that the idea is portrayed as pro 
self-government. We think people have the right 
and ability to govern themselves."

On advice from his attorney, Riehl would not 
discuss his upcoming trial, which gets underway in October.




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