Military Vet Detained For Psych Evaluation Over An

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Military Vet Detained For Psych Evaluation Over Anti-Government Facebook Posts


RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A former Marine involuntarily detained for psychiatric evaluation for posting strident anti-government messages on Facebook has received an outpouring of support from people who say authorities are trampling on his First Amendment rights.

Brandon J. Raub, 26, has been in custody since FBI and Secret Service agents and Chesterfield County police questioned him Thursday evening about what they considered ominous posts talking of a coming revolution. In one message earlier this month, Raub wrote: “Sharpen my axe; I’m here to sever heads.”

Police — acting under a state law that allows emergency, temporary psychiatric commitments upon the recommendation of a mental health professional — took Raub to the John Randolph Medical Center in Hopewell. He was not charged with any crime.

The Rutherford Institute, a Charlottesville-based civil liberties group, sent one of its attorneys to the hospital to represent Raub at a hearing Monday. A judge ordered Raub detained for another month, Rutherford executive director John Whitehead said.

“For government officials to not only arrest Brandon Raub for doing nothing more than exercising his First Amendment rights but to actually force him to undergo psychological evaluations and detain him against his will goes against every constitutional principle this country was founded upon,” Whitehead said. “This should be a wake-up call to Americans that the police state is here.”

Raub’s mother, Cathleen Thomas, said she was not surprised by her son’s plight.
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is the 214 Re-Education Camp to far behind
 
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Marine vet to sue over arrest for Facebook posts


The former Marine who was forcibly placed in a psychiatric ward by government officials who didn’t like his Facebook postings will sue for unlawful arrest, according to his attorneys.

“We are definitely going to move forward with a lawsuit,” said Nisha Whitehead, assistant to the president at the Rutherford Institute, the nonprofit civil rights firm defending Brandon Raub.

Mr. Raub, 26, a decorated former Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was arrested at his Richmond, Va., home Aug. 16 for anti-government statements and song lyrics posted on his private Facebook page. Secret Service, FBI and Chesterfield County police transported him to John Randolph Medical Facility in Hopewell, Va., for a psychiatric evaluation. Over the objections of attorney and Rutherford Institute President John Whitehead, Mr. Raub was then transferred to the VA Hospital in Salem, Va.

Mr. Raub won his freedom on Aug. 23 when Circuit Court Judge Allan Sharrett found his forced detention “so devoid of any factual allegations that it could not be reasonably expected to give rise to a case or controversy.”

The suit Mr. Raub is now filing is a civil complaint targeting all the government officials involved in both his arrest and detention, according to a written statement from the Rutherford Institute.

“Brandon Raub’s case exposed the seedy underbelly of a governmental system that seems to be targeting Americans, especially military veterans, for expressing their discontent over America’s rapid transition to a police state,” said Mr. Whitehead, in a written statement. “As we are learning, Brandon Raub is not the first veteran to be targeted for speaking out against the government, detained against his will. … Hopefully, by holding officials accountable, we can ensure that Brandon is the last.”
 
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