REMEMBER THOSE ARRESTS BEFORE THE RNC? Well, it was because an informant warned of firebomb plans:
ST. PAUL, Minn. — To some of the people who know him back home in Texas, Brandon Darby is a traitor.
In his own mind, he’s proud of what he did — feeding the FBI information that led to the arrests of two men accused of trying to disrupt the Republican National Convention.
“I feel like, as an activist, I played a direct role in stopping violence,” Darby, 32, said in an interview with the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Darby’s role as a confidential informant in the case leaked out in a pretrial hearing. It was a remarkable transformation for a man known to many back in Austin as a fiery, grass-roots activist with a mistrust of government.
Darby was key to the investigation of David Guy McKay and Bradley Neal Crowder, both of Austin. The two men are scheduled for federal trial on Jan. 26 for allegedly building Molotov cocktails during the convention. They have pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors claim the two men built the firebombs because they were angry that police had seized a trailer filled with riot shields they’d built and hauled to Minnesota. In a conversation recorded by the FBI, McKay allegedly told Darby he planned to use the explosives on law-enforcement cars parked in a lot near the Xcel Energy Center.
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: A reader notes that there’s already a website aimed at attacking Brandon Darby. A WhoIs search says that it’s registered to a Robinson Block of Bellaire Texas, presumably the same guy who wrote this letter on Israel.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Julie Stacy writes: “I’m sure it’s completely unrelated, but the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw your post was the the unsolved firebombing of the Texas Governor’s Mansion in Austin last year. The there’s the firebombing of Bush’s childhood home in Midland, which is a small museum, and the torching of Sarah Palin’s church, all in one year. Yes, surely all unrelated, but in 2008 there was a bit of a pattern of anti-Republican arson happening. Not that the press would take notice.”