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by BUCKY YOUNG and NICK DEMARTINO
As this is written, about 20 people so far have been arrested,  rearrested, intimidated or beat in jail, intimidated or beat outside of jail, required to put up exorbitant bonds on exorbitant charges and/or generally harfassed.   And for what?
At most, for providing facilities for GI's to organize against the blatant repression they are constantly subjected to and against their being used as pawns in the mass murder that is Vietnam.   At least, for providing facilities where GI's can talk freely and just relax.
The establishment media call this sort of thin^ tyranny if it takes place in Russia.   When it takes place in their own back yard, they give it, at most, a reproving shake of the head and weak-kneed coverage.
The blue-tail fly decided the best way to tell the story would be to let the GI's and civilians involved tell it themselves.   We arranged to record a rap session at the Coffeehouse to do this.
About 30 or 40 people were present, some rapping and some just listening.   No names are used in the interview; we'd hate to be the cause of these people getting dumped on any more they they already have.
The interview begins with the Coffeehouse people (CH) answering a request to elaborate on their previous charges that people jailed for lcafleting March 5 and 6 were beat in jail.
CH:  Yeah, well, I don't know where to begin. There were seven of us in jail and also a black GI all locked up in what they call a bullpen upstairs -- this is in the Brandenburg Jail.   So there are eight of us in the bullpen and some of the GI's figured out that each person had the room in there of two and a half times the size of the average coffin.
But, anyway, that's another story.   They came -- I guess it was Tuesday - - I forget exactly what day it was -- Tuesday morning and didn't tell us anything. Just called one of the GI's and opened up the bullpen, and we hadn't even got out of bed yet so we had to get dressed and everything.   At that point we had no knowledge of what was going on on the outside because we had been completely cut off from the outside.
So we assumed they were taking us off to court and that we would probably be released or something. We didn't know.
They called one GI at a time, took them downstairs,
and at this time we just assumed everyone was getting out.   They took down three GI's, one at a time, handcuffed them behind the back and took them outside. Each one yelled as they went by the window,  "Power to the people" and we did some yelling to them.
The rest of us were still locked up in the bullpen and they'd take another person down until they took three people-down, and we figured out they didn't have the bullpen locked -- just hooked -- and so we opened it up and all just busted out and went out to the rest of the jail, still asssuming that all of us were going to be taken away.
It wasn't until they took three away and then told us that was all that was going to be taken.   Later that night we find out, or rumors in the jail said, that they had been sent to E'town (Elizabethtown).   It wasn't until later when we had gotten out that we found out that they'd been taken down,  separated into three different cells that the jailer down there had talked to the prisoners in those cells before they got there and later after they got there to tell them what the people coming in were -- get them all stirred up. '
One of the GI's was beat up.   Cut with a peice of glass by one of his cellmates.   And another GI that was in another cell finally was able to talk the trusty into taking the GI from the cell where he was beat up and putting him into solitary.
Then the next morning the jailer brought in several, I'm not sure how many, several new people that had just been busted and they were really pissed off about these two GI's who were still in separate cells and then they were moved -- before anything happened -- into solitary, too, and were gotten out the next morning.
So most of the stuff came down on one guy, but it looked like a- really bad thing.   And it was apparently organized by the jailer down there.   He had full knowledge of what was going on, and also Muldraugh Police Chief Ridenour, who took them down there from Brandenburg.
btf:  As to the Friday (March 6) night thing      the vigilante mob scence -- you've mentioned several times that you thought the mayor here and Ridenour were very much involved, that they were pointing out the leaders (of the coffeehouse) and that sort of thing.   Could you elaborate on that?
CH:  Well, Thursday night, all I know is that we got there and there wasn't anything organized, but people just kept getting larger -- large groups of people kept coming in.
Number Six