Police attack on fur protest triggered by false report of window smashing

On Black Friday, the 27th of November, the in-store protest at Miller's Furs ended in a police attack on the protesters. Two were handcuffed and two more were detained. Three escaped the scene entirely, as police arrived well after protesters had exited the store and as they were leaving the entire area. A total of 12 police cars showed up with sirens screaming. During the detainment, one of the cops mentioned having received a report that protesters were smashing windows at the store. None were broken or even hit in reality. If this report came from Manny Miller, he is guilty of filing a false police report.

Recordings of the call to police, plus photos of the unbroken windows would constitute prima facie proof that Manny Miller or whoever actually placed the call to the Montgomery County Police knowingly lied. The resulting high-speed, sirens blaring police response could have easily led to a traffic crash and injuries.

Although animal activists have the option of filing a criminal complaint against Manny Miller for this, Calvert County offers a cautionary tale. There, two activist were charged with filing a false police report-over a totally factual complaint about police using unsafe and violent procedures to extract them from the Feb 3, 2015 crane sit at Dominion's fracked gas export facility construction site. As of November 30, the case against Carling has been moved to the "stet" or inactive docket, but Calvert County is still trying to prosecute the other activist, Heather. She expects to face a jury trial,her next hearing is January 11. Both activists in the Calvert County cranesit were already convicted once for the cranesit. Heather did 33 days in jail after refusing probation. Afterwards, both activists filed complaints about the unsafe extraction and about a deputy choking Heather. Calvert County decided more criminal charges would be their response to this brutality complaint.

Given this bias on the part of police agencies and prosecutors in MD, a complaint against Manny Miller for his provably false police report would probably be ignored no matter now many lies he told the police. Surely the police were able to see the unbroken windows of Miller's Furs after frantically responding to a report that activists were smasking them, but this only meant the protesters were not arrested. Manny Miller did not leave the scene in handcuffs for his false report, while an activist in Calvert County(also in MD) is still facing a charge of "filing a false police report" for a factual complaint about dangerous tecniniques used by the Calvert County Sheriff's Dept to remove her from the Feb 3 cranesit.

All rights reserved.