Thursday, May 24, 2012

Terrorism by court

In the late 70s the Speedway Bomber set off several bombs in the town of Speedway, Indiana which ended up crippling one man who committed suicide because of his injuries a few years later. The bomber, Brett Kimberlin, was caught and sentenced to 50 years, but was released on parole in the 90s. His parole was revoked, however -- apparently a very rare occurrence -- because he refused to pay the results of a civil suit against him from the widow of the man he had crippled (Kimberlin was found liable for the man's death in court). Anyway, he was eventually released again.

Now people can reform. As far as I know, Kimberlin has not been involved in any other terrorist activity in the form of actual bombings or killings since the Speedway Bombings. However, he has become something of a serial litigator, someone who uses the court system to sue everyone who offends him for any reason or no reason at all. And in fact he seems to have established a habit of harassing people and their family members at their work places, trying to get them fired (sometimes succeeding), threatening them, and suing them when they complain. Which would mean that he's just one more thug except that he portrays himself as a political activist who is being targeted by political operatives or whatever. So people donate money to his cause because they think he's the one being harassed and that it's on account of the political beliefs he pretends to share with his donors. The man's a walking, talking tu quoque argument.

Anyway, the point is Kimberlin's latest target wasn't having any of it and knew the law better than him. Kimberlin then tried to frame him for a crime, falsifying evidence, and making threats against his workplace, which resulted in the target and his wife being fired from their jobs (which is exactly the wrong response to terrorism: to let them think it works). The target managed to get the crime thrown out of court, but he has been unable to get the district attorney to press charges against Kimberlin for falsifying evidence, trying to frame him for a crime, and using the court system to do it. Not to mention the fact that he and his wife are now unemployed.

This is a very brief summary. To read the rest, skip on over to Allergic to Bull and just keep scrolling. You can read his whole saga in installments starting with this one, or if you're brave you can try reading the whole thing on one monster post that takes a little while to load. Since he posted it other bloggers have picked up on the story, and at least one of them has had to leave his home and go into hiding due to perceived threats against him and his family from Kimberlin (he's still blogging though -- ain't the Internet wonderful?). Again, Kimberlin tries to portray this as a political issue to try and gin up support. But as Patterico, one of his other targets, puts it, this man targets people on the right and left who point out his bad behavior. He has no politics. You know what, maybe you should just skip on over to Patterico's and keep scrolling too.

No comments: