BONUS: Full text, Brandon Raub’s proclamation: Take our Republic back
CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WTVR)--Was the decorated U.S. Marine veteran who was questioned by FBI agents about his Facebook postings and then hauled away from his Chesterfield County home in handcuffs Thursday some kind of threat?
CBS 6 checked his criminal history and found it to be clean. Brandon Raub’s mother says he had no mental health history.
“He never was violent or psychotic or anything like that,” Cathleen Thomas told CBS 6. “There were just conversations we had back and forth, very deep.”
Cell phone video shot by a friend that showed Raub being thrown to the ground and then put into a police car has gone viral on Youtube. His story, portrayed as a patriot whose free speech rights have been violated, has shot across the country.
Raub was taken in for an emergency mental health evaluation after the FBI came to his Chesterfield County home because of concerns over his Facebook postings.
This is called an emergency detention order, or a green warrant, and it is to evaluate someone who is believed to be a threat to themselves or others. The officers who went to his house felt that was the case, according to a statement from the Chesterfield County Police Department.
No charges have been filed, even though police reported Raub fought with them.
Raub’s younger brother arrived at the house just as his brother was being thrown to the ground and forced into a police car.
“The only threat he is, is to the corruption that is in this government and that is why he has been taken away,” Brent Raub said.
Raub, a Marine combat engineer sergeant who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, went before a judge Monday morning and was committed for up to 30 more days.
“He had an opportunity to share and respond to the questions being asked him about his Facebook posts,” his mother said.
“He responded and explained himself, and the judge also allowed me to give some facts and basically a character representation of my son, which I did. And then he proceeded to read the (mental health) evaluation that was given on Brandon. The evaluation, I was told by my son, was 15 minutes long, and basically the evaluator said that he was not ready to go back into society and he needed additional psychiatric treatment.”
Raub’s postings seem no different than those questioning the government’s version of the 9/11 or the role of the Federal Reserve. He believes the government is corrupt and ready to fall, which is why he has a home business dealing in silver coins.
His Facebook postings under his name, Brandon J. Raub, talk about the beginning of the revolution and his role in leading it. There are some mild threats of violence. The judge was told that most of that was in conversations between a few friends on a private page in context of a game.
The Rutherford Institute, a Charlottesville-based civil liberties group, is representing Raub and his family.
In a statement today, the non-profit’s president, John Whitehead said Raub’s First Amendment rights were violated. “This should be a wake-up call to Americans that the police state is here.”
In recent months and years, authorities have come under fire for not doing more to stop mass murders committed by people who had shown clear signs of instability.
Raub’s mother, brother and friends say he isn’t violent, just a patriot who deeply loves his country. They said they saw no signs of him unraveling.
“He is an amazing man,” said longtime friend and housemate Kati Woods. “He’s extremely intelligent, logical, extremely compassionate, too.”
“My brother doesn’t even own a gun,” Brent Raub said.
Brandon Raub’s postings remain on Facebook and on website for the Richmond Liberty Movement, which he created, perhaps indicating the authorities are more concerned about Raub than his writings.
His mother wants America to understand the context of his son’s postings, which are often views she also shares. She says she has posted similar views herself about the government’s role in the attacks on 9/11, for example.
“Our views are very strong because we are patriots,” Thomas said. “Our stance in this family is to question everything . . . when we lose the right to be able to stand up and say how we feel, no matter what it’s about, I think that we need to be very concerned. Because what it speaks to me is that they’re trying to shut people up. They’re trying to squelch the message.”
She noted that her son volunteered for his second tour in the Middle East. And she said her son’s love of this country is what is driving him to question authority.
Thomas offered one of her son’s writings called “The Truth”” in which he rails against corporate greed, the Federal Reserve, a compliant media and a one-world government out to control the masses with monopolies and computer chips installed humans.
He writes of taking the country back, not by force but by the democratic process.
“This system we created works. Really works . . . Force is not the way because liberty is a very powerful concept . . . We can govern ourselves. We do not need to be governed by men who want to install a one world banking system. These men have machine hearts . . . We gave them the keys to our country. We were not vigilant with our republic. There is hope. BUT WE MUST TAKE OUR REPUBLIC BACK.”
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