Pete Santilli, the preferred “shock jock” of extremists in the movement to illegally “take back” federal lands, appeared before a federal judge yesterday to plead for release pending trial. U.S. District Court Chief Justice Michael W. Mosman stood by an earlier decision to hold Santilli because he’s a danger to society and/or a fight risk. From The Oregonian:
"There's a handful of statements I can't discount as just shock-jock," bravado, Mosman said early Thursday evening.
Mosman said he couldn't ignore what seems to be Santilli's "deeply-held beliefs" regarding his distaste for federal law enforcement, and found Santilli could be "a real threat to pretrial service officers or U.S. marshals or others who have to deal with him.'’
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ethan Knight repeatedly cited Pete Santilli’s own words from his YouTube live stream broadcasts in which he said he’d shoot anyone who came in his door without being invited or calling first. In other words, pretrial services personnel or other law enforcement serving warrants could be in danger.
Pete Santilli’s attorney, Thomas Coan, made a surprising defense of Santilli’s violent rhetoric:
Coan, attempting to show that Santilli is not alone in his inflammatory but constitutionally-protected statements, played a clip of presidential candidate Donald Trump, where he boasted in Iowa that support for his campaign would not decline even if he shot someone in the middle of New York's Fifth Avenue.
In the end, Judge Mosman agreed with an earlier judge’s decision to keep Pete Santilli in jail pending trial. So, for now, Pete Santilli will continue to occupy federal property for the foreseeable future. Possibly for years to come.