Christopher Bollyn's Address
To the Village Board of Hoffman Estates

January 15, 2007
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

UPDATES:

Christopher Bollyn Appears in Court
"Our First Soviet-Style Dissident"

Good evening Mayor McLeod, ladies and gentlemen of the village board, officials of Hoffman Estates, and members of the audience.

I am here tonight because of the criminal case that the police and Village of Hoffman Estates are pursuing against me. Two months ago I presented a letter to the mayor and the chief of police with an offer to settle this matter. To this day I have not received a response.

Why has the village not responded to my letter?

What occurred to me and my family at our home at the hands of the Hoffman Estates police on August 15, 2006 is not a trivial matter. It has weighed heavily on me and my family and it should be a matter of serious concern for the members of the board, the officials of the village and the public.

What happened to me and my family is extremely disturbing and troubling. The consequences of this case reach much further than the boundaries of Hoffman Estates.

After I had noticed a car with three heavily-armed men prowling around my house for two nights in a row, I called 911 to express my concern and ask for help. My first concern was for the safety of my family and children.

Fifteen minutes later I was shocked to see the very same suspicious car in front of my house with three heavily-armed men standing on my driveway confronting my wife and 8-year-old daughter.

Extremely concerned, I ran out to my wife and child and asked these men who they were and what they were doing at my house.

It should be noted that these men, wearing civilian clothes and body armor, adamantly refused to identify themselves or explain what they were doing. It actually took us one month to learn the identities of these men. Most importantly, they did not say that they were responding to my 911 call. So what were they doing at my house?

I asked these men to identify themselves and explain what they were doing prowling around my neighborhood with body armor and weapons, but they refused. Faced with three heavily-armed men who would not identify themselves or explain their business, I said that I needed to get my brother from the house.

I turned and went toward my house when I was suddenly attacked from behind and thrown to the ground. My left hand was handcuffed immediately and my right hand was pinned beneath my body. One man knelt with his full body weight on the side of my head while the other knelt on my right elbow, which he broke in the process.

At this point, with two men kneeling on me and unable to move my head or hands, I felt a square object pushed against my back. What followed next is hard to describe.

It felt like electrocution, an extremely painful shock running through my entire body. When it ended, I was offended to my core and felt deeply insulted and injured.

I ask, why was this TASER shock of 50,000 volts given to me? How was this justified?

And why was medical attention not given to me immediately on the scene or during the 6 hours I was held in a prison cell without water. When I was pulled to my feet I saw that there were many police cars, an ambulance, and a fire truck on the scene but I was denied any medical attention the entire time I was in police custody. Why?

Adding insult to injury, I was taken away in a police car and insulted continuously by an officer named Fitzgerald. When he put me in a cell without water, he told me to drink from the toilet.

While I was held in the cell, the police began crafting a report that is full of lies and fabrications. This report is the basis of their case against me, a case in which I have been charged with resisting arrest and aggravated assault on a peace officer.

These charges are preposterous and Kafkaesque. There was no reason to arrest me and I neither committed, nor suggested that I would commit, assault against anyone at any time.

Furthermore, when these men were on my driveway, I had no way of knowing if they were from the police or not. Why would the chief of police send a tactical squad of three armed men to answer a non-emergency 911 call? Especially when this heavily-armed squad was the object of my fears and concern?

I have seen the police report of this incident and can tell you with 100 percent certainty that it is full of lies, fabrications, and distortions. Why is this happening? What do the police hope to achieve with this malicious and dishonest report? Is this the way police business is done in Hoffman Estates?

As the great Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his letter from Birmingham Jail on April 16, 1963, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

The unjust attack and TASERing I was subjected to last August is a concern for all Americans and people around the world. The supposedly "non-lethal" TASER kills Americans every week. This hideous weapon is considered a tool of torture in nearly every nation on the planet.

The unjustified assault on me in front of my wife and child and the completely egregious abuse of the TASER weapon on me is a very serious matter. I would hope that you would appreciate the importance of this matter and act accordingly.

Why are the elected officials and the members of the village board silent about this? Why have you not answered my letter of last November? Why do you tolerate such corruption of the truth to be presented by your police force in a court of law against a resident of the village? What do you hope to achieve by such dishonesty?

As Dr. King said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

I will not be silent about this and I will fight this abuse of police power with every ounce of energy and fiber of my being. I am an innocent man who was unjustly beaten and TASERed in front of my wife and tender 8-year-old daughter. This malicious attack has scarred me and my family for life.

I would seriously advise the village elders to look at the complete police report, which is in the court, and ask the three officers if they are willing to take the oath that what is in that report is the truth, because my wife and I, along with my 8-year-old daughter saw what happened on my front lawn that awful day and it is not what is presented in that report. The position of Hoffman Estates rests on that report and I can tell you that it is a pack of lies.

In concluding, I want to offer you this thought from the great Martin Luther King, who we honor today:

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

Thank you and good night.

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Christopher Bollyn Appears in Court

Feburary 1, 2007

Today, once again, I was called to appear in criminal court. With an attorney, I appeared in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Third Municipal District, at 2121 Euclid in Rolling Meadows, Illinois. A dozen or so supporters were on hand to witness the events and provide moral support to the much beleaguered Bollyn family.

To those who attended and those who sent their prayers and support I send my sincere thanks.

BACKGROUND

I am currently facing two misdemeanor charges from an incident that occurred at my home last August 15 (2006): resisting arrest and aggravated assault against a peace officer. The charges were applied to me after I had called 911 (the emergency number) to report a suspicious vehicle cruising around my house for two nights with three heavily-armed men wearing body armor. This car and its armed men were the immediate cause of my concern.

Expecting a Hoffman Estates police officer to respond to my call, a few minutes later, I was completely shocked to see the very same three heavily-armed men confronting my wife and 8-year-old daughter in my front yard. I rushed out of the house and stood beside my wife and asked the men who they were and what they were doing around my house.

Despite repeated requests, the three men who stood in formation across my driveway, adamantly refused to identify themselves or explain what they were doing. Most importantly, they did not say that they had responded to my 911 call.

Having only recently returned to the area, I told the men that I needed to get my older brother, the permanent resident of the house, and turned toward the front door. Before I could reach the door I was suddenly and violently attacked from behind and thrown to the ground. With my right hand trapped beneath his body, two men held me firmly to the ground with their knees and handcuffed my left hand.

With one man kneeling on the side of my head with his full body weight and the other kneeling on my right elbow, I remember hearing: "Where's his other arm?"

I said, "It's under my body," although this should have been obvious to the men who were holding me down.

My wife said my face turned purple and my eyes were bulging out of my head. She wanted to photograph it but was threatened with jail if she dared to do it.

Unable to move, I felt a square device placed against my lower left back. A powerful shock of 50,000 volts was then delivered for several seconds. This was extremely painful and utterly uncalled for. I was deeply offended and insulted by this treatment.

www.iamthewitness.com/Bollyn-Speech-15Jan2007

THE PROCESS

On January 31st, in Room 102, the Bollyn family and their local supporters filled up several benches. My lawyer, who wishes to remain unnamed, consulted with the other attorneys and courtroom personnel and then called me outside. Walking quickly to the elevator in the hall, my attorney, who has served for many years as a supervisor in the state's attorney office, said: "They've appointed a special prosecutor to your case. In all my years, I have never seen that in a misdemeanor case."

Asked what that meant, he said that it meant that there is a great deal of concern about this case and that they want the case to receive special handling.

I asked my attorney where we were going. Court was ready to begin, after all.

He said that he was looking for the special prosecutor named Liz Hantzos. We did not find her before court began. Her full name is Elizabeth G. Hantzos (Finn), and I could later see that she is a slim, young prosecutor with long dark hair, who I assume is of Greek ancestry.

FRAMED ON CNN

Last night, on national television, I was effectively framed as an anti-Semite (on CNN's Paula Zahn show). Less than 24 hours later, I was called to appear before a left-handed judge named Alfred L. Levinson, and heard that I was scheduled (Marked "Final") for a bench trial.

As I had strenuously insisted, from the beginning, that if my case should go to trial it must be a jury trial, I had instructed my lawyer to request a jury trial. My request was granted without discussion.

My party left the courtroom, somewhat noisily, and went across the hall to Room 107, where we then appeared before Hyman I. Riebman. Hyman Riebman is a former president of the Northwest Suburban Bar Association.

See Hyman Riebman at: http://law.niu.edu/download/judges2006.pdf

Judge Riebman had some questions for my lawyer and I was glad to hear my attorney say that he needed to file subpoenas for the 911 tape and police transmissions. This material had not been turned over to the FOIA requests that I had submitted before I even had a lawyer. If this crucial evidence has been destroyed it may result in sanctions or a dismissal of the charges.

The judge scheduled a trial date of March 8.

My lawyer, who has been opposed to a jury trial, admitted that he is not sure where he is going with the trial. He said this to the group of my supporters. This does not bode well.

He has said that one has no right to resist an "illegal arrest."

I said that there was no arrest prior to the assault and that there was no resistance during the assault. So, where did I resist arrest, I asked.

The whole episode is so un-American that I feel I have to fight it. This is not the America that I grew up in. I first saw the use of un-identified police forces outside the White House in 2000. When protests occurred outside the White House, hordes of armed men wearing jumpsuits would appear with nothing more than a lapel pin as identification. There was nothing, even on the lapel pin, that would identify them to the average citizen.

Only the cognoscenti, who recognized the lapel pin, would know who these "palace guard" units were. This is common in Washington, but then there are different rules in Washington. Secrecy and spies are everywhere.

When these things happen in your hometown, it is not acceptable. Local police working on the public dime need to be accountable and recognizable to the public. Quasi-military squads of heavily-armed men out of uniform should not be acceptable on the streets of the United States.

The police need to operate transparently within defined borders and restrictions. The public has the right to know, and to be informed, of armed police activities in their neighborhoods. The police are not above the law.

"You are an idealist," my supporters say. "You need to think of self-preservation."

My lawyer says: "The truth doesn't matter."

No American or any other freedom-loving person should ever submit to illegal arrest by un-identified men. The only people that I know who were forced to submit to such arrests wound up being loaded onto boxcars in the Baltic States in 1941 and sent to Siberia, never to be heard from again. And then there are the dozen or so Estonians who survived the 1994 Estonia sinking, who were kidnapped from their hospital beds in Sweden – and never seen again.

I cannot accept such practices – nor should anyone else.

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