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<font face="helvetica" size=5><b>Anarchist linked to local property
crimes</b> <br>
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<a href="http://www.kxly.com/news/?sect_rank=1§ion_id=559&story_id=13801" eudora="autourl">
http://www.kxly.com/news/?sect_rank=1§ion_id=559&story_id=13801<br>
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<a href="http://www.kxly.com/news//staff/index.php?id_staff=14">Jeff
Humphrey</a></font><font size=3> /
</font><font face="helvetica" size=2>KXLY4 Reporter<br>
</font><font face="helvetica" size=1>Last updated: Friday, August 24th,
2007 07:06:38 PM<br><br>
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.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font size=2>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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
“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.”<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Riehl also said he knows the people who set a Humvee on fire at a Liberty
Lake car dealership back in 2004.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
"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."<br><br>
On advice from his attorney, Riehl would not discuss his upcoming trial,
which gets underway in October.<br><br>
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