Libertarian activist abused by police, paramedics, hospital staff

Rights advocate Julian Heicklen is grabbed, punched, pounded on, stripped naked, and stuck with needles against his will.

NOTE: All quotes in this article, except where noted, are taken directly from Heicklen's own written account dated Monday, November 23, 2009. His current and past reports are routinely posted on the New Jersey Libertarian Party website by NJLP newsletter editor Len Flynn.

Julian Heicklen is confronted by police while distributing FIJA fliers
on federal property. Apparently "federal property" does not qualify
as "public property." (screenshot from a video shot by "bile" on
November 16, 2009)

Penn State University Professor Emeritus Julian Heicklen keeps returning to the scene of the crimes committed against him by Homeland Security police who confront him whenever he attempts to distribute Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) pamphlets to his fellow citizens.

But he likely didn't expect to be grabbed, punched, pounded on, stripped, and involuntarily stuck with needles.

Yesterday, Heicklen arrived at his customary position outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan as he does every Monday morning (it's jury selection day) to perform his peaceful and Constitutionally protected act of free speech on public property.

In the past, Department of Homeland Security officers have arrested Heicklen and transported him to a hospital psychiatric ward.

On one occasion, as described in Libertarian freedom activist forcibly hospitalized and drugged, Heicklen was taken to Bellevue Hospital where he was forcibly held down by four men and injected with Thorazine, a potent and potentially dangerous antipsychotic drug.

This time, however, when Heicklen informed the police officers that they had no Constitutional right to run him off of public property, "One of them grabbed my arm and placed me under arrest."

Exercising his usual tactic, Heicklen dropped to the pavement and remained limp and silent.

The police called fire department medics who "pounded on my chest and shoulders to try to get me to respond." Then, on the way to New York Downtown Hospital in an ambulance, "The ambulance attendants also punched me in the chest and shoulders to get me to talk, which did not work."

At the hospital, he was "treated by 4 nurses, who stripped me naked and gave me the most thorough medical exam of my life. This included two intravenous injections, blood withdrawal," and other involuntary medical impositions.

Heicklen later discovered that police had told the hospital that they had found a man lying unconscious in the street.

Heicklen later signed the release form “John Galt” and left.

The libertarian activist explained his continuing cause in a separate email to the Libertarian News Examiner and to his other supporters.

"Originally, I went to the US District Court in Manhattan to inform juries of their rights. For me this is now the secondary issue. The primary issue has become freedom of speech. Jury nullification has become the vehicle to reclaim this right."

In spite of this, some people see Heicklen as "insane." One reader, identified only as "duh," commented on Heicklen's Vietnam era antiwar-proven protest tactic of going limp and silent when confronted with arrest. "It sounds to me as if he's been acting crazy all [a]long, has a habit of acting crazy, and needed to be evaluated to make sure he is not a danger to himself and others."

The fact that Julian Heicklen is fighting for the very right of "duh" to disagree with him seems to completely escape "duh."

With the caveat that "The Federal Protective Service is intercepting my e-mails" and "Be prudent if you write to me," freedom-loving people can join Heicklen's open or blind email list at jph13@psu.edu. "We now have 88 Freedom Fighters," Heicklen reports.

But this too elicited mockery, from a reader named "Scottish Son" this time. "Why would the Government 'want' to spy on a bunch of insignificant pions [sic] such as yourselves?"

The word "pion" was apparently meant to be "peon."