While I try and fail to get positive attention from a synchro-mystic clique slowly turning hostile toward me and my cryptic claim of being a harbinger of good synchronistic news, I wanted to provide some “bonus” content on a day I don’t normally post content.
I put “bonus” in quotes because normally when you see this word that means you have to be a paid subscriber on platforms, like Patreon. One of the synchro-mystics I had hoped to involve in spreading this good news told me, flat out, I didn’t pay him enough to get that kind of access.
In addition to this denied request, I learned this morning I’ve been removed from a podcast collective because I disrespected the youngster (27) with my entitlement and rudeness. This guy does the booking for Sam Tripoli, a fun conspiracy podcast I appeared on last November (episode 511).
Oh well, you win some, and you lose some. Now, here’s a little glimpse for these deniers of good news why I’m not feeling a bounty of patience regarding what’s happening here, in Missoula.
When I wrote Coming To Terms With The Power Of Things Not Happening earlier this month, I didn’t realize I was psychology prepping myself for the Johnny Lee Perry Coroner’s Inquest, a strange process of adjudicating a problematic death of a person while in some sort of official custody.
An inquest is a formal inquiry into the causes of and circumstances surrounding the death of a person and is conducted by the coroner before a coroner’s jury. A coroner’s inquest is a function of the Sheriff’s/Coroner’s Office. The County Attorney assists the Sheriff/Coroner to conduct the coroner’s inquest. Coroner inquests are less formal than a typical civil or criminal trial. There is not an adversarial party. The coroner oversees the proceedings, not a judge. The coroner shall, and the county attorney may, examine each witness, after which time the witness may be examined by the jurors.
The emphasis I’ve added is to highlight some of the helpful institutions I would need to involve IF I wanted to kill Johnny Lee Perry.
And, if we’re carrying out this thought experiment, why would I want Johnny dead? Would I, as a white man, be incensed that this black dude was just allowed to exhibit assaultive, unstable behavior around the community while the criminal justice system, mental health system, and homeless service provider charade all failed him?
That’s one idea. Or, another idea is maybe Johnny knew something that made his instability a liability. Who knows, all I know is, in this thought experiment, I want Johnny dead in a manner that doesn’t impact my ability to live a free and unencumbered life.
The key to my plan is getting Johnny to a spot of my choosing, adding some elements, like meth and a machete, then letting nature take its course. Is that what this guy did?
This dude, Jack, is the dog that didn’t bark. A very brave person who was the ONLY non-official to testify in yesterday’s inquest did so to provide some context that wouldn’t have been provided otherwise. From my understanding, this testimony was not eagerly sought by County Attorney HANDLER, Mark Handleman.
To understand how this helpful handler conducted himself yesterday, think of a passionate fighter for justice honing in on the seeming TOTAL FAILURE of the buzzcut badges and their alleged Crisis Intervention Training (more on that later).
Mark Handleman is the polar opposite of that.
If Handleman wasn’t a narrative-containment valve in this bullshit, he’d have found a way to emphasize the UTTER ABSURDITY of how Law Enforcement came to be out on the Southside Road in the first place.
You see the dude in the orange uniform, Jack, at some point felt threatened by Johnny. So he called 911, right? No, he didn’t have a phone, so borrowed one to CALL HIS DAUGHTER, who then called 911. And why could that be? Here’s a hint from his jail roster listing:
Once Johnny is out in the woods, high on meth (according to toxicology reports, pretty fucked up), and playing with the machete in a manner that made old Jack sad, the third-party 911 call triggers the response of our state-sanctioned executors who, we will learn, are TERRIFIED of nearly everything about RV camps in the woods, and how many meth users with guns could be lurking in and around all uncleared structures.
The law enforcement response came that August 29th afternoon in 2021 under the cover of a training called Crisis Intervention Training (CIT), but it’s clear from listening to Missoula County Sheriff Deputy, Justin White, that his heart is with his Special Response Team (SRT).
From this SWAT perspective, Justin White’s testimony clearly exposes how NOT into CIT he is. I’ve got to remind myself to tell Missoula’s guru of CIT, Theresa Williams, that her work is being wasted the Sheriff’s Department.
Deputy Justin White on the right with “liquid” expert, Bill Burt, to his left
Here’s how this scared buzzcut ensured his SRT assessment of the situation would lead to Johnny’s death.
The physical position this deputy placed his car, and thus communication capacity, was so far away from Johnny’s position that only a ONE WAY mode of amplified communication was possible. Johnny said something about “disappearing cars”, but that was one of the only fragments of speech Deputy White could recall hearing.
That’s not very CIT, Justin.
Another factor creating more fear for all the men with guns and badges is the quick and total disregard of the two other occupants of this remote RV encampment. These two people said no one else was out there, but that couldn’t be accepted at face value.
Fair enough, but if that’s the case, then why was poor old Jack taken at his word, despite no visible injuries, triggering one of the favorite law enforcement phrases of the day: FORCIBLE FELONY?
Yes, Johnny was accused and quickly determined to have committed a FORCIBLE FELONY. Deputy Justin White loved saying this phrase when he wasn’t fantasizing about the tremendous potential threat Johnny seemed to possess in his mind. People recreating on the river below could be at risk, he theorized. People driving by on the road could enter this scary world where every blue tarp hides unknown dangers.
So, after making a big show of having a less lethal method of shooting a projectile, the deputies who would use lethal force were pre-selected by Deputy White, and the second Johnny became somehow more menacing and less compliant (one observer theorized later they were just getting bored with the knife play), they moved in.
Sheriff Deputy Justin White ultimately fired four projectiles, speculating that three hit Johnny. Then, quickly after those four pops could be heard on the video, Deputy Sean Evans fires twice, hitting Johnny in the back.
On the ass-end of my now successfully planned execution of Johnny Lee Perry, I’ve got to be worried about State agencies coming in asking questions, like WHO GAVE JOHNNY A RIDE TO THE WOODS?
That’s where this jovial guy comes in, and I’m glad he did, because I was beginning to wonder if anyone actually exists at DCI.
Ryan Eamon, Major Case Section for DCI
Ryan Eamon not only exists, he drove all the way from Philipsburg to check out the scene that August. And yep, he said, it checked out just fine. After reviewing all the footage and such. And interviews. Like the one with Jack, who may or MAY NOT have provided a ride to Johnny. And the machete.
I made sure to let Ryan Eamon know how impressed I was with his work as we exited the courtroom in the form of a slow clap and an appreciative declaration that thanks to him, we will never know WHO GAVE JOHNNY A RIDE?
Good work, Ryan. My dastardly plan to have all those good Deputies of the Missoula County Sheriff’s Department enact my execution for me couldn’t be successful without help from the kind of western state that has proven itself to be so welcoming and hospitable to traffickers.
Of course, there are always limitations to how welcoming one will be, and when Deputy Justin White thought he saw a bulge in Johnny’s waistband, well, something may have clicked (or maybe I just imagined that row of buzzcuts twitching at the thought of this black man having a…gun).
During one of the last breaks, I showed the KPAX guy the footage I’m posting below. I spoke very loudly about the behavior he was about to see, and how this behavior could have been addressed BEFORE this lethal outcome, but the leader of our County Attorney’s office, Kirsten Pabst, didn’t think it warranted an intervention when he–JOHNNY LEE PERRY–was accused but NEVER CHARGED with the violent death of Sean Stevenson.
I’m writing this post on the eve of the coroner’s inquest attempting to get to the bottom of the shooting death of Johnny Lee Perry by Missoula County Sheriff deputies. While I’m curious to see what new information may emerge, an article from North Star with Shaun King offers some terrible perspective that I don’t think even remotely resembles reality.
Let’s begin with how the author thinks he’s going to be peeling away the layers of what’s going on here:
Sometimes, even amid the mess that is made by state-sanctioned violence or racist vigilantism, there is a neatness to the story that allows everyone who is exposed to it to be able to piece the puzzle together.
However, there are other stories of injustice that do not neatly fit into a convenient narrative or lead to a direct path of advocacy on behalf of the victim. Sometimes, a story is so distorted in its presentation, or so biased against the victim, that in order to adequately expose the foulness at hand, you have to peel back several layers to get to the root of how that person was wronged.
The story of the death of 31-year-old Missoula, Montana resident, Johnny Lee Perry, is one of those instances where the narrative does not line up as neatly as some of the more high-profile incidents of state-sanctioned violence against a Black life, mostly because the specifics of what led to the end of his life are not as cut-and-dry as other stories that raise our antennas.
The author, Donny Rose, concedes stories that raise one’s “antenna” are the ones that are more cut-and-dry. That won’t stop Rose from doing his best to weave something compelling together from what the family of JLP are telling him.
The problem is obvious from the beginning. Donny Rose is perplexed he’s just now hearing about this case, and that’s because a sister of JLP reached out to him on Instagram:
I became aware of Johnny Lee Perry’s story a couple of weeks ago after receiving a direct message from one of his sisters on Instagram. Initially, I thought her request for me to shed light on his death was more of a breaking news story, as I had not previously heard anything about him/his case. As it turns out, Johnny’s death that occurred just outside the city of Missoula, Montana happened last August, but there had been minimal coverage on it, outside of the local news, and their coverage was already based around a fixed narrative of Johnny’s role in his demise.
When Rose references “local news” he is DEFINITELY not referencing my citizen journalism, but mainstream news. I think this blindspot is a contributing factor to the crappiness of his article.
Regarding the official narrative, Rose makes it sound like JLP wasn’t seriously injured by the gunfire, but instead died while being transported to the hospital under mysterious conditions:
The police narrative around the death of Johnny Lee Perry is an abbreviated one, but goes as follows: Missoula-area cops were informed that a man was wielding a machete in a threatening manner, and went they went to intervene, the man turned the machete in their direction, forcing them to fire a shot at him after several “non-lethal” attempts to calm him went ignored. The man, Johnny Lee Perry, would later die in an area hospital despite being shot in the shoulder and bandaged on the spot.
Where this article goes off the rails, in my opinion, is allowing absurd speculation that a family member of Sean Stevenson could have been involved in setting up Johnny to be killed. Having interviewed Sean’s sisters, I find this idea to be ridiculous (emphasis mine)
Ms. White had received information that suggested that Johnny was lured to the mountains with the promise of drugs and alcohol, and allegedly by someone who was a family member of the person Johnny strangled at the homeless shelter. Johnny dealt with a meth and marijuana addiction, and the person that is alleged to have brought him to the homeless camp area in the mountains used his substance abuse as a temptation to bring him somewhere outside of his element.
The part of the story where JLP only sustained a flesh wound is news to me. If that’s true, then I would ALSO be wondering how he ended up dead in the hospital.
The next part of the story is where the police account and the eyewitness-to-mother account get conflated. Per the police account, Johnny was moving toward them with the machete, but per eyewitnesses account, as told to his mother, Johnny turned to run from the police. It was at that point that police figured Johnny to be a threat to other campers in the combine and fired a shot into his shoulder. After shooting him in the shoulder, the police narrative is that they immediately went to Johnny to render first aid. They also identified a cut in Johnny’s hand that they assumed came from him wielding the knife. Johnny would later be airlifted to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. Leaving Ms. White to wonder, what happened between first aid being administered to a flesh wound, her son being airlifted for treatment and dying in the hospital.
“My question to them is how did he die from a shoulder wound? If you all administered first aid to him? I mean, it’s very rare. I know it happens, but it’s very rare that a person died from a gunshot wound to the shoulder. And then from the policing statement, they were not trying to kill him. Hence the wound to the shoulder. I’m saying that they know what they are doing.”
“They should know where the arteries and things are, even in the shoulder, even though sometimes the shots will be off, but what happened there?”
Ms. White told me that she was uncertain as to whether the gunshot wound Johnny received claimed his life or if it was the treatment [or lack thereof] he received on the way to the hospital, and when he arrived at the hospital. Either way, the police were not able to provide her with clear answers.
I think Ms. White meant to say DEPUTIES and not police because this incident was not within city limits, so police were not the responding executioners.
I didn’t know the Coroner’s inquest for the shooting death of Johnny Lee Perry was happening this week until I saw this tweet:
I have to admit, I’m fully triggered on several fronts. Needless to say, I’ll be attending the inquiry on Thursday to hopefully find out a few things I’ve been wondering since posting an article about Johnny 13 days before he was shot dead by Sheriff Deputies.
First off, it would be nice to know the names of the Deputies who shot him. That information has been withheld since August 29th, 2021.
Second, how was it determined that Johnny was in a mental health crisis?
After recording the footage of Johnny where he made threats toward law enforcement and admitted to strangling Sean Stevenson, I spoke with a police officer who admitted to having Johnny IN HIS CAR previous to my interaction with him on that day. The police officer even told me he thought Johnny wasn’t a threat because he was high on just marijuana.
In lieu of a new episode of my temporarily back-burnered podcast, Zoom Chron, I want to update readers/listeners on two homeless individuals I interviewed over the past year.
First up is Glen Harley Stephens, one of the last old-timers I remember trying to manage during the old Poverello days.
I hadn’t seen Harley in months, but he popped up a few weeks ago like an ornery spring flower. I chatted with him last weekend and found out he had been staying at the Poverello Center, post surgery, in one of their medical respite rooms.
Harley proudly displayed to me his previous night’s earnings, well over a hundred bucks. He also told me that, thanks to a disability check he doesn’t use, he’s got over $20,000 in the bank. Yes, Harley might be using a walker now, and his grizzly meat hands are covered in fresh wounds and old scabs, but, overall, he’s doing pretty damn good.
To highlight the peripheral impact of Harley, I stopped in the tattoo shop on Higgins the next day to see how they’re managing. I spoke with the proprietor and he said Harley himself isn’t too problematic, but since he’s such an effective panhandler, he tends to be a popular figure on the streets. Stated more plainly: Harley funds the party.
This was a little frustrating, I was told, when a parade was going on last weekend, with plenty of kids around, and there’s Harley helping half the street people get fucked up on vodka. Good times. Harley also told me a little story about being dropped off at the Johnson Street shelter by a cop and how much fun he had partying over there for weeks.
The other homeless individual I interviewed, Geoff Roach, is a long-time Missoula resident with fascinating tales of a Missoula that no longer exists, especially the version of the Wilma Geoff worked at under the eccentric owner, Edward Sharpe.
Knowing how long Geoff has lived in this town makes it that much more maddening and offensive what’s happening to him, which, in my estimation, is tantamount to punishment.
And why is he being punished? Because his alcoholism and medical issue makes him not very mobile and very incontinent.
I saw this first hand before getting Geoff into my studio for the interview. He peed right near an entrance to the courthouse, causing a PRIVATE security officer to come out and call the real cops.
According to Geoff’s account of his time since the interview, he was given the proverbial boot from the Transitional Save Outdoor Space (TSOS–pronounced T-SAUCE) because he kept smoking cigarettes INSIDE one of the nice, new tents, and that was a bad enough transgression to earn Geoff a downgrade to the Johnson Street shelter, probably around the same time Harley was funding the party.
I asked Geoff if he was back on the street because Johnson Street closed, and he said no, he got kicked out BEFORE it closed because of that incontinent issues I mentioned earlier. So I guess you can be high on meth at the “low-barrier” shelter, but peeing on the floor will get you and your walker evicted.
I hope you enjoyed this peek into how Missoula enables and punishes homeless people. I have a feeling, with the weather getting warmer, that things are going to get quite active as move toward summer.
