[Ppnews] FBI informant who stung RNC 2008 anarchists connected to other plans
Political Prisoner News
ppnews at freedomarchives.org
Tue Dec 8 10:38:07 EST 2009
FBI informant who stung RNC 2008 anarchists
connected to firebomb plot on Brave New Books
and suicided Palestinian activist Riad Hamad
Posted By admin On December 8, 2009 @ 5:03 am In Prison Planet
Is Austin-area FBI Informant Brandon Darby, who
allegedly provoked anarchists into plotting with
molotov cocktails at the RNC 2008 connected to
plans to firebomb patriot bookstore Brave New
Books and a sting on suicided Palestinian activist Riad Hamad?
Aaron Dykes
Prisonplanet.com
December 8, 2009
AUSTIN, TEXAS Remember Riad Hamad, the
Palestinian man whos suicide left him at the
bottom of Lady Bird Lake in Austin with his mouth
gagged and arms duct-taped behind his back? (Kurt
Nimmo,
<http://www.infowars.com/did-palestinian-activist-riad-hamad-commit-suicide/>Did
Palestinian Activist Riad Hamad Commit Suicide? [1] )
According to reports, he was observed at meetings
with now-outed FBI informant/provocateur Brandon
Darby, who admittedly set up two
anarchist/leftists from Austin with molotov
cocktails who were subsequently arrested for
alleged plans to attack police cars outside the
RNC 2008 in Minnesota in connection with the RNC Welcoming Committee.
Since Darbys exposure as an admitted FBI
informant, flyers have been seen in coffeehouses
across Austin reading Wanted: Brandon Darby An Informant Rat Loose in Austin.
WHATS MORE Scott Crow, anarchist/leftist who
formed the Hurricane Katrina relief group Common
Ground Collective has made a number of
interesting connections with fellow member
Brandon Darby, whose role in Common Ground may
have coincided with his FBI/Police Informant
role, which may have begun in 2004, 2005 or 2006.
Scott Crow claims that in 2006, after Brandon
Darby was admittedly an FBI informant, Darby
attempted to recruit Crow on a plot to firebomb
Brave New Books of Austin, Texas. Crow
<http://www.pmpress.org/content/article.php/20090524183202965>writes [2]:
In Darbys revolutionary rhetoric over the
years he tried to get numerous people, including
myself, to do the things the two men were
eventually taken down for. I believe now he tried
to set me up in 2006 (after he, according to FBI
documents began informing and provoking) to
firebomb a bookstore called Brave New Books in
Austin. I was NOT interested at all and thought
it was stupid. I tried to talk him out of it. The
event never happened. He was allowed to change
his mind and move on. What if the Feds had raided him at the time?
This astonishing information was brought to my
attention by Harlan of
<http://www.bravenewbookstore.com/article_info.php?articles_id=5>Brave
New Books [3], but the connection to Riad Hamad I
found only afterwards in Crows posts. Harlan writes:
The vitriol that seems to chase Darby to this day
is due to the fact that two young activists David
McKay and Bradley Crowder have been sentenced to
a combined six years in prison for possessing
several Molotov cocktails that were to be used
during demonstrations at the 2008 Republican
National Convention and were convicted in large
part through the testimony of Brandon Darby. The
possession of the cocktails is not in question,
but what seems peculiar is why Darby an older,
seasoned activist would agree to take part in a
plan to firebomb a flock of police cars at the
RNC, according to the FBI, and not just persuade
the younger protégés to avoid instigating violent
action? According to the defendants, Darby had
encouraged the violence and had provoked the
younger activists to take this direction, an
allegation Darby denies. Darby admits that he was
asked by the bureau to be the eyes and ears to
monitor the small, loose-knit group of activists that included McKay.
<http://www.ntimc.org/newswire.php?story_id=9419&print_page=true>Crow
initially defended Darby against allegations that
he was reporting to the FBI [4], warning against
divisive rumors and COINTELPRO, even after
claims had spread that he was an FBI informant.
After Darby publicly admitted his role as an
informant, Crow expressed regret for his support
in a post titled
<http://www.freethetexas2.com/node/28>Eating
Crow [5], and then later expressed several
suggestive claims about the extent of Brandon
Darbys political provocateuring in the Austin
political scene, as posted on the
<http://www.pmpress.org/content/article.php/20090524183202965>PM Press [2].
Darby has appeared on
<http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1300>This
American Life/ NPR [6]and in papers like the
<http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A729400>Austin
Chronicle [7] to talk about his background as an
activist and his account of how he became an FBI
informant through a New Orleans cop once opposed
to his groups actions until he was swayed by
community relief efforts he witnessed in the wake
of Hurricane Katrina. Or so the story goes
Crow claims that Darby began contacting the FBI
earlier, however, when he traveled to New Orleans
in 2004 (prior to Hurricane Katrina) to see what
[the FBI] had on him in their files. Clearly, in
light of certain revelations, this may
demonstrate a much longer-lasting relationship inside the FBI.
Brandon Darby has some wild claims, as stated in
This American Life, that he traveled to
Venezuela to convince Chavez to fund their
Hurricane Katrina relief effort. While there, he
says he was referred to a meeting with the FARC
rebels who tried to recruit him to start a
revolutionary group in the swamps of Louisiana.
Darby says he turned them down.
Shortly afterwards, while back in Austin, he
admits to having reported to the FBI what he
claims was a Palestinian man trying to recruit
him for a bombing. This may have been connected
to Riad Hamad. Crow mentions the NPR storys
account of the interaction with Riad Hamad:
In the ['This American Life']/NPR story, they
mention Darby going undercover to stop a
Palestinian peace activist named Riad Hammad
[sic] from recruiting people for potentially
terroristic like activities. They dont mention
that Riad was found dead at the bottom of a river
here in Austin under very unusual circumstances
which the Feds ruled a suicide, but looked like
was done to him. And that there is NO public
evidence that anything that Darby is saying is
true. I dont know myself, but Riad cannot defend
himself against the accusations.
Scott Crow claims that Brandon Darby introduced
him to Riad Hamad and other Palestinians at Green
Muse Cafe coffee shop in Austin, telling him that
these were real revolutionaries and not just anarchists.
This inciting rhetoric, which Crow believes was
another attempt to provocateur him into
revolutionary action/violence was very similar to
supposed accounts of Darbys goading the Texas 2
prior to the RNC 2008 that they were weakling
vegetarians and couldnt handle potentially
violent revolutionary acts at the RNC. McKay
claims Darby further goaded them to find out if
they would take revolutionary action or not
once the RNC was underway. When he apparently
agreed, and stated an apparently unplanned
assault on a line of police cars, it led to the bust. Crow writes:
They also dont mention that when I went to meet
Darby at the Green Mews [sic] coffee shop in
Austin during this time he was often with Riad
and some men he described in excited tones as
real revolutionaries not activists. He could
not wait to tell me, as if I would be impressed.
I told him, as always that he needed to watch out
for people he didnt know, but what I didnt know
was working for the Feds. Silly me. So he is
bragging about this in a public place, did he
entrap Riad for the Feds like Brad and David? I
have know idea, but I know that Riad is dead
either because he took his own life because he
thought someone was after him, or someone else
took his life, because they figured there was an
informer in their midst. Either of those
scenarios are completely sad and scary, and not
the world I want to create or be a part of. [8]
Crow points out that Darbys accounts of when he
first contacted the FBI do not add up:
On at least THREE different and unrelated times
Darby has stated that it was the FIRST time or
reason he contact the FBI. The first was in 2004
when he, according to what he told me and my
partner, went to visit the New Orleans office of
the FBI to see what they had on him. It sounded
SOOOO paranoid. He explained the story in great
detail about his visit. The second time was in
recent interviews where he has stated he saw that
Brad and David were going to do something
harmful at the RNC in Minneapolis and he had to
intervene. And now he is saying that he had to
visit the Feds when he saw that Riad Hammad
[sic], his friend, was not in fact a school
teacher in Austin, but was involved in some other
nefarious activities. So which is the truth? I
know he met commander Bryson of NOPD in Oct/ or
Nov. of 2005. He has stated in interviews that
Bryson is the one who introduced him to the Feds.
Did he begin his work to spy on Common Ground and
all of us then? Where is the real Darby?
Crow says that while he knew Brandon Darby for
more than six years inside the Austin activist
community, his actions were consistently
violence-oriented, and with grandstanding, in
opposition to the views held by most of the other anarchist members.
For years he advocated blowing things up and
later using arson. I dont know if he did, but he
sure did try to get other to do it. So was it
revolutionary zeal or agent provocateur sh*t straight out of the manual?
Crow states that Darby seemed to merely adopt the
rhetoric of various activist groups while
differing from their common behaviors (most of
the activists were vegan, yet he ate meat; was in
favor of dictation over consensus, and slept
with a lot of women and acted in a macho or chauvinistic manner). Crow wrote:
Darby was NOT an anarchist. He actually never
claimed to be for the longest time. He disagreed
with horizontal organizing and many of the
underpinnings of anarchism. He DID however absorb
the language, when necessary for interviews or
speaking in public. He NEVER absorbed the
practice during the 6 years I have known him. He
actually was more of a quasi central-democratic
Marxist. He thought anarchist wasted time, energy
and resources. Myself and few excluded of course
. He would blurt in the same breath. He aligned
himself with what he thought the Black Panther
Party central committee would dowhether it was
true or not. He didnt have a liberation or even
an anti-oppression analysis, but enough information to get by
within radical circles.
He was the only anarchist I have ever known
that wanted to overthrow the government. I
debated and argued with him about the
impossibilities and reasons why that was a bad
idea on so many levels, but he took that message
many places to the chagrin and dismay of many radical circles.
Further information is found on the
<http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/brandon-darby-austin-activist-outed-as.html>Rag
Blog [9]
(<http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/brandon-darby-in-new-orleans-fbi.html>more
[10])
Harlan at Brave New Books writes:
Why was Darby choosing a bookstore as a target
for a direct action? Was his plan a way to
ensnare fellow activists in a plot that would
eventually be foiled by the heroic FBI? Or was
this plan another classic government provocateur
attempting to firebomb an actual threat to the
FBI and the state, wielding his useful idiots as
his accomplices all the while knowing he would be
provided the full protection of the FBI? The
latter seems justifiably more accurate given the
history of the FBI and its long train of abuses
using agent provocateurs to carry out its dirty
work. One need not look any further than the
FBIs clear infiltration of Elohim City using
Timothy McVeigh as their asset. One could also
look at the semi-retarded young religious men in
Florida that were drafted by the U.S. government
through the work of a joint terrorism task force
agent who had infiltrated their group and
persuaded them to express that they would be
willing to help the terrorism task force blow up
the Sears Tower in Chicago. Also, one should
never forget that the FBI helped train an
informant and provided materials to the informant
that were used in the 1993 bombing of the World
Trade Center. The bombing was allowed to occur
with full knowledge of its planning by the FBI.
There are loads of other examples that support
the notion that the FBI routinely uses agent
provocateurs in an effort to undermine its
political enemies and swell its rank and budget.
In regard to Brandon Darby, it is interesting to
note that he was committed to seeing the Molotov
cocktail bombing through at the RNC. According to
the radio show This American Life, that featured
Darby and people who knew him, Darby was willing
to go ahead with the plan to bomb the police cars
with David McKay in the early morning hours but
the younger McKay never materialized and the plot
was called off. This doesnt describe the
behavior of an innocent observer and sounds more
like the actions of an active participant willing
to commit an act of terrorism and then scapegoat
a pair of useful idiots. So would Darbys same
zeal for terrorism had occurred if there would
have been someone that would have been willing to
help in Darbys plan to attack the bookstore?
Luckily, we will never know because he was never able to execute his plans
----------
Article printed from Prison Planet.com: http://www.prisonplanet.com
URL to article:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/fbi-informant-who-stung-rnc-2008-anarchists-connected-to-%e2%80%98firebomb-plot%e2%80%99-on-brave-new-books-and-%e2%80%9csuicided%e2%80%9d-palestinian-activist-riad-hamad.html
URLs in this post:
[1] Did Palestinian Activist Riad Hamad Commit
Suicide?:
http://www.infowars.com/did-palestinian-activist-riad-hamad-commit-suicide/
[2] writes: http://www.pmpress.org/content/article.php/20090524183202965
[3] Brave New Books:
http://www.bravenewbookstore.com/article_info.php?articles_id=5
[4] Crow initially defended Darby against
allegations that he was reporting to the FBI :
http://www.ntimc.org/newswire.php?story_id=9419&print_page=true
[5] Eating Crow: http://www.freethetexas2.com/node/28
[6] This American Life/ NPR :
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1300
[7] Austin Chronicle:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A729400
[8] Image: http://www.efoodsdirect.com/holidaySpecial.html?aid=13&adid=14
[9] Rag Blog:
http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/brandon-darby-austin-activist-outed-as.html
[10] more:
http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/brandon-darby-in-new-orleans-fbi.html
Click
<http://www.prisonplanet.com/fbi-informant-who-stung-rnc-2008-anarchists-connected-to-%e2%80%98firebomb-plot%e2%80%99-on-brave-new-books-and-%e2%80%9csuicided%e2%80%9d-palestinian-activist-riad-hamad.html/print/#Print>here
to print.
Copyright © 2008 PrisonPlanet.com. All rights reserved.
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20091208/b463ce3d/attachment.htm>
More information about the PPnews
mailing list