Pity the Poor, Persecuted Police

The Man Who Terrorizes Sunriver, Oregon's "Finest"? Robert Foster, with his daughter Rebecca.

Michael Kennedy is Chief of Police in tiny Sunriver,Oregon, an unincorporated resort village in the Beaver State's Deschutes County. Kennedy insists that his police force has been terrorized for years by a marauder namedRobert Foster. 

“He breaks the law all the time,” Kennedy insisted in a June15, 2010 sworn deposition. 

“Well, have you ever arrested him?” asked Portland attorneyFrank Wesson, who was representing Foster at the time.

“I have not,” admitted Kennedy.

“Has anyone in your department ever arrested him?” Wessonpressed.

Kennedy sought refuge in evasion: “Not to my knowledge, sir.” 

Bearin mind that Kennedy isn’t supervising the LAPD; he heads an eight-memberpolice force (supplemented on occasion by a 30-member volunteer citizenspatrol) in a town of fewer than 1,500 permanent residents in which actual crimeis all but nonexistent. 

An honest answer would have been: No, Foster had never beenarrested, because no evidence exists that he ever committed a crime. Honestywas not Kennedy’s first choice, however, nor does it appear to be his strongsuit. He went on to list among Foster’s alleged crimes “disorderly conduct,interfering with a police officer, menacing, harassment, and stalking.” 

“Was he ever arrested for any of those?” Wesson persisted.

“No; fortunately for him, no,” Kennedy replied. The Chiefmade that statement in apparent ignorance of the fact that he had justadmitted, under oath, to incompetence in the administration of the law –assuming that Foster was the serial offender depicted in Kennedy’s testimonyand internal department memoranda. 

Chief Kennedy (r.) with State Rep. Whisnat (c.)

One official report from Sunriver OfficerDree Warren to Chief Kennedy describes Foster as glaring at Sunriver policeofficers and emitting a sinister laugh like that of “the villain the Joker fromthe Batman cartoons." Surely an archfiend of that magnitude can’t be allowedto prey upon the innocent people of Sunriver, and their gallant protectors!

 “I’m curious, do youknow why your officers wouldn’t arrest Mr. Foster if they thought he wasbreaking the law?” asked the defense attorney.

After a brief bout of dissimulation, Kennedy tried todismiss the question by insisting that he “can’t account for what every officeris thinking.”

This is true, of course. It is also entirely irrelevant. IfFoster were a one-man crime wave, leaving him at large would be a grave derelictionof duty, both for Sunriver’s “Finest” and their bold and intrepid leader.  

Rather than instructing his officers to arrest Foster ifthere was evidence that he had committed a crime, Chief Kennedy, by his ownaccount, told them “to document every time they had a problem with Mr. Foster.”He did this because “Mr. Foster was harassing and stalking our officers.” 

After tabulating a number of “unwanted contacts” withFoster, three of Sunriver’s “Finest” induced a judge to issue a Stalking ProtectionOrder forbidding him to come within eyeshot of his cringing, terrorized “victims.”Under the terms of that order, the “victims” – Officers Kasey and TiffanyHughes (a married couple) and Sgt. Joseph Patnode – can literally arrange forthe arrest of Foster any time he comes within their field of vision. 

Thanks to the efforts of Robert Foster’s daughter, RebeccaKossler, I’ve been able to review several hundred pages of detailed informationon every aspect of this controversy. This includes numerous official policereports, several sworn depositions, legal filings, photographs taken of Fosterby the police during several “unwanted contacts” with Foster, and a transcribedaudio recording of a July 6, 2010 traffic stop involving Rebecca Kossler’shusband, Ian. 

The police accounts describe Mr. Foster engaged in suchsuspicious activities as sitting in his pickup truck, shopping, buyinggasoline, and otherwise conducting routine business that brings him within visualdistance of Sun River police officers. These incidents were breathlesslydescribed as "evidence" of some unspecified criminal activity. 

Nowherein any of the accounts provided by the supposed victims in this matter --thepeople with guns and badges and the purported authority to use lethal force inthe name of "officer safety" -- is there any evidence of an actualcrime or a threat to commit the same on the part of Mr. Foster. (Chief Kennedyrefused to respond to repeated requests for an interview.) However, those reports are valuable evidence of unlawfulactivity – the unwarranted harassment and unlawful surveillance of RobertFoster by the Sunriver Police Department. 

The record of the July 6, 2010traffic stop provides compelling evidence of a criminal conspiracy to deprive IanKossler of his constitutionally protected rights, and an oblique admission that the department haddone the same to Robert Foster.

Hughes (c.) and Patnode (l.)

 The officer conducting the traffic stop was Kasey Hughes,one of the “victims” who filed a stalking order against Foster. When IanKossler asked why he was being pulled over, Hughes replied: “You weren’twearing you seat belt when you passed me. In fact, when you were actuallyfollowing me.” 

“I wasn’t following you,” Kossler objected. 

That detail is important, since Hughes, his wife Tiffany,and their supervisor, Sgt. Patnode, insisted that Foster had “followed” them onvarious occasions, thereby subjecting them to “coercive” or “threatening”behavior. 

During his encounter with Ian Kossler, Hughes told Sgt.Patnode via radio that Kossler had been “following” him, and that he had beenparked next to Robert Foster at a local restaurant called Blondie’s.

“I’m gonna ask him in a minute and then … the fact that heis stalking me too -- he can have his concealed weapons permit revoked veryquickly,” Hughes informed Patnode. 

After returning to Kossler’s vehicle, Hughes issued acitation for not wearing a seat belt – and then brazenly attempted to provoke aconfrontation.

“Keep following us around and that’s what’s gonna happen,OK!” sneered Hughes.

“Dude, I wasn’t following you,” replied a composed butpuzzled Kossler.

“You were following me around,” reiterated the petulanttax-feeder.

“I was not following you… Why are you so paranoid?”responded Kossler, whose patience was understandably beginning to evaporate.

“You stalk us and you’ll lose your concealed weapons permit,too,” gloated Hughes.

“I am not stalking anybody,” replied the only adult who wasa party to that conversation. 

The order that targeted Foster amounts to a bill of attainder.Chief Kennedy and three of his subordinates have disposed of the necessity ofproviding evidence that Foster has ever committed a crime. Instead, they havecriminalized the person of RobertFoster – and they won’t be satisfied until they’ve contrived some way to puthim in prison. 

The traffic stop involving Foster’s son-in-law establishes apattern on the part of the Sunriver Police: Identify a troublesome person,accuse him of “stalking” them, and use that accusation to deprive him of hisrights. Just a few weeks after that encounter, Foster filed his civil rightscomplaint – which may be the only reason why Ian Kossler hasn’t been the subjectof a spurious stalking order.

Foster’s civil case has been submitted to third-partyarbitration. Under the terms of the police department’s settlement offer,Foster would be subject to a 10-year permanent stalking protection order thatcould not be modified, or he could choose a 5-year permanent stalking order andpay $10,000 in legal costs. 

Whichever option he selected, Foster would also be requiredto withdraw his tort claim against the police, and the existing legal record ofthe case – including the damaging admissions made by Chief Kennedy – would beexpunged. This would mean that the police would be able to arrest Foster forviolating the stalking order at their leisure.

Incredible as it will seem to people burdened with acapacity for rational thought, the arbitrator, Bend Attorney William Flinn, isinsisting that Foster accept that deal. (Like Chief Kennedy, Mr. Flinn also refused to respond torepeated interview requests.)

"I know Bob feels that, had he accepted the[settlement] offer, the police still would have found some way to construeepisodes of his future conduct as stalking,” Flinn wrote to Foster’s currentdefense counsel on July 11. “But, I don't think that was a good reason toreject the offer."  Four days later,Flinn reiterated his demand that Foster submit to a settlement that was manifestlynot in his best interest, telling his attorney that  “there is virtually no chance that Bob willprevail in court, despite your excellent trial skills and some evidence of paranoia/lack of candor onthe part of the police."  (Emphasisadded) 

A more appropriate term to describe the “lack of candor” Flinn refersto is “perjury.” 

Not only are the Sunriver police paranoid, according toFlinn, but in his opinion they also pose a threat of potentially lethalviolence. That’s an eminently defensible assessment – one that Flinn fashionedinto an argument that Foster should submit to their demands.

"The skirmishing between the Sunriver police and BobFoster has been going on for over five years, wrote Flinn to Foster's lawyer. "So far, no one has resorted tothe use of weapons, but it appears the risk increases with every new encounter.If I were the judge hearing this case, my priority would be to defuse thesituation before it gets violent. No judge wants to be blamed, in retrospect,for passing up an opportunity to prevent armed conflict and the loss oflife."

In his sworn deposition, Chief Kennedy admitted that Fosterhas never been seen carrying a firearm. The only threat of violence inany of those encounters is that posed by the armed children under Kennedy’ssupervision. That threat can, and should, be defused by ordering Kennedy andhis kiddie patrol to withdraw their complaint and leave Foster alone, unlessthere is evidence that he’s actually committing a crime. Instead, the “mediator”is making common cause with people he describes as dishonest and potentiallyviolent -- and who are engaged in something that can properly be described asextortion. 

The fearsome figure who causes Sunriver’s “Finest” to lose bladder control is a wiry, soft-spoken51-year-old entrepreneur who runs a hot tub installation and maintenance company. A lifetime residentof rural Oregon, Bob Foster is the kind of blessed troublemaker who carries copies of the U.S. Constitution in hispickup truck, but – unlike nearly everybody else in Deschutes County –rarely carriesa rifle in his gun rack, a fact Chief Kennedy artlessly tried to obfuscate inhis sworn testimony. 

Foster is blunt but not abrasive. He is a devotedgrandfather. He is also an accomplished guitarist whose irreproachable tastein classic rock is demonstrated by the fact that his favorite band is ThinLizzy. Most importantly for the purposes of the present discussion, Foster isan outspoken critic of what he describes as Sunriver’s ruling political clique.

Before 2008, Sunriverwas one of the few places in the known universe where police were required bylaw to act as peace officers, rather than law enforcers. Although they werepermitted to arrest people for crimes against person and property, they wereforbidden to act as armed tax farmers by detaining and mulcting motorists whoviolated Oregon’s invasive seat belt law, or who committed other infractionsthat would result in traffic fines elsewhere.

“No seatbelt? No citation. No tail light? Noticket. In too much of a hurry? Not to worry,” reported aMarch 3, 2007 AP story from Sunriver. “Sgt. P.J. Beaty watches people inthis upscale development breaking traffic laws, and sees plenty of them. But hecan't pull them over. A man swerved head-on into Beaty's lane, and then backout again and Beaty couldn't law a glove on him.” 

Owing to the fact that Sunriver was actuallygoverned by a private homeowners association, its streets were exempt from mostof the obnoxious enactments used as pretexts for roadside shakedowns by police.As local reporter Susan Lawson of the Sunriver Scene told Pro Libertate in a May 2007 interview, “if someone were robbing themini-mart up the road the police would obviously have the power to arrest thesuspect. The police are simply not permitted to enforce a very small number –it's either six or eight – of laws dealing with minor traffic infractions,because our roads are the equivalent of private property.”

 This was an unconscionable state of affairs,according to the SROA, which prevailed on Oregon State Rep. Gene Whisnat tosponsor H.B.3445, which extended police “authority” to include roads and streets on “premisesopen to the public that are owned by a homeowners association....” That measurewas passed, and another freedom-promoting “loophole” was closed. But that wasn’tthe end of the matter.

In 2003, the SunriverOwner’s Association (SROA), which functions as a municipal government, had createda special service district within Deschutes County. In 2008, following passageof H.B 3445 – which put the police in the business of collecting revenue atgunpoint – the SROA enacted a special multi-million-dollar tax assessment forthe specialservice district. 

Bob Foster, who has lived in the area nearly all his lifeand is a well-respected local businessman, became a conspicuous presence atpublic meetings, where he would politely but forcefully express his oppositionto the service district and the tax assessment.

Like any small town dependent on tourism, Sunriver isacutely sensitive to economic trends. During one public meeting in which thetown’s economic challenges were discussed, Foster suggested that the SROA couldsave several millions of dollars each year by seceding from Deschutes County, therebycanceling the expensive service district agreement. He also recommended thatthe duties of the police be scaled back to their pre-2007 role, and thatSunriver contract with a nearby town called La Pine for emergency services.

 “That’s the kind of talk that made me Public Enemy NumberOne,” Foster told Pro Libertate during a lengthy interview. He is a legitimate threat tothe Sunriver Police – not to the physical safety of any of its officers, but to the agency's continued access to a steady stream of plundered revenue. This is why everygesture or public utterance by Foster is treated by the Sunriver Police asevidence of his criminal intent.

In an October 8 2010 petition seeking the extension of thestalking protection order, Officer Kasey Hughes accused Foster of making “violentand aggressive” statements that displayed a “distorted perception” of thepolice department. Among those supposedly criminal utterances was “You’re apublic servant, I’m your boss.” On another occasion Foster “referred to theSunriver Police as `the local Gestapo’” – an assessment which, given thedepartment’s behavior, barely qualifies as hyperbole.

Foster “appears to be a highly volatile person,” simperedHughes, accusing him of “obsessive behavior that could turn to aggression atany point.” Besides, Foster “has access to guns,” pouted Hughes, who – unlike hissupposed persecutor – carries one with him at all times. 

A report filed by Officer Hughes a few weeks beforesubmitting that petition suggests that he, not Foster, is hostage to bizarreobsessions. Hughes described how he and two other officers were responding to acitizen complaint at the Crossroads Gas Station in Sunriver when he saw Foster “sittingat a table directly in front of his truck,” writing in a notepad. A few minuteslater, while interviewing a local resident, “I saw Foster standing outside hisvehicle, staring at me,” Hughes continued. “I also noticed him washing hiswindshield very slowly.” 

Foster’s "threatening" behavior was supposedly noticed by theindividual Hughes was interviewing. “Man, he’s eye-f**king you,” the resident told Hughes, according to the officer’s unsupported account. According to thereport, this incident was enough to frighten Hughes away – although, oddlyenough, his supposed stalker “was still at the gas pumps when I left.”

If Robert Foster is compelled to accept the Sunriver PoliceDepartment’s settlement offer, Hughes would be able to transmute a peculiar sexualfantasy of that kind into a criminal complaint. He or either of the other two “victims”would also be granted a license to stalk Foster and have him prosecuted for violating the permanent stalking order.  

Robert Foster’s experience can appropriately be described as “Kafkaesque”– but it is not unique. There are uncanny similarities between his story andrecent developments in Quartzsite, Arizona, another small rural town (populationcirca 3,600) that is largely dependent on tourism. In recent months, somethingperilously close to open warfare has erupted between the Quartzsite TownCouncil and its reform-minded Mayor, Ed Foster (the shared surname is anotherstriking coincidence).  

Foster is convinced that the Council has engaged in corruptand dubious bookkeeping. His suspicions were sharpened by the Council’srefusal – in defiance of municipal ordinances and state law, and with thesupport of Police Chief Jeff Gilbert – to allow him access to the appropriaterecords. On several occasions, the Mayor and several other prominent critics ofthe Council have been arrested or harassed by the police in transparent acts ofretaliation. This ledten members of the Quartzsite Police Department to file a public protestdenouncing Gilbert’s abuse of “authority.” The Council has responded bydeclaring a state of emergency, suspending all but three members of the policeforce, and placing the dissenting officers under a gag order. 

One member of Quartzsite’s Town Council, Joe Winslow, persuadedJustice of the Peace Karen Slaughter (a retired sheriff’s deputy with no legaleducation) to issue aninjunction against a local businessman named Michael Roth, who was accusedof “harassing” and “threatening” Winslow by shooting him dirty looks andspeaking to him disrespectfully. The court order requires that Roth surrenderhis firearms to Chief Gilbert and his praetorian guard – not because ofanything the citizen has done, but because the offended Council member, whoadmits to purchasing a shotgun, describes himself as “more concerned about my reaction to hisaggression than anything else.” 

In other words:This Mundane has frightened me and made me angry, so he must be disarmed beforeI either kill him or have one of my armed minions kill him on my behalf. There is little, if any, material difference between that demand and the terms being forced uponRobert Foster.

A third case of a similar kind is unfolding in Renton, Washington, where police and the CityAttorney seek to arrest and prosecute an anonymous parodist who createdseveral animated cartoons mocking the scandal-plagued police department. 

The videos “target specific members of the Cityof Renton and Renton Police Department with the intent to embarrass and emotionallytorment the victims,” asserts police investigator Ryan Rutledge in a July 11affidavit filed in the Superior Court for King County. Rutledge contends thatthe videos – which by any rational definition constitute politically protectedspeech – are covered by the Washington State “cyberstalking” statute. In an example of what would be irony were it not related to the institutionalized corruption called "government," the Renton Deputy Police Chief Tim Troxel was given a trivial reprimand for ordering an off-duty police officer to stalk his wayward girlfriend.

Althoughno institutional or personal names were mentioned in the cartoons, Rutledgereports that “three individuals have come forward and identified themselves asbeing the persons targeted by embarrassing and emotionally tormenting commentsabout past sexual relationships or dating relationships that were discussedwithin some of these videos.” Once again, the "offense" in question consisted of making public comments that hurt the feelings of corrupt public officials.

One case of this type can be regarded as an anomaly; two canbe described as coincidence; however, three or more examples constitute apattern. 

Wherever they can get away with it, police are using wiretapping statutes to prosecute Mundanes who record their public behavior. Now local police, and the entrenched political elites they serve, are using anti-stalking and anti-harassment laws to disarm and criminalize their critics. We can expect depraved ingenuity of this kind on the part of the tax-devouring class as the retreating economic tide lays bare layer after layer of official corruption -- from Washington to Wall Street to City Hall. 

Thanks again for your help, and your patience...

... as I get the promised copies of Global Gun Grab to those of you who have been so generous.

Pro Libertate Radio has ended its run on the Liberty News Radio Network, which has changed formats. I have been approached about resuming the program with another network, and will provide details as they become available.

 Dum spiro, pugno!