Unusual follow up to beating of young girl: threats issued, but from whom?

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CRAWFORD CO.—It appears someone is flexing his or her official muscles in an illegal attempt to call attention off a Facebook page set up to request prayers for a beating victim.

“Prayers for Harley Johnson” was started up today after word got out that the young girl in the title was possibly fighting for her life in Carle Clinic after she was severely beaten. There’s little mystery to the situation—there were more than a dozen witnesses to the brutal alleged accosting of the 20-year-old, and many of those are trying to tell people “she asked for it.” Highly unlikely that a woman would ASK to be beaten so severely that she would have resultant seizures in the middle of the road where she was found, but that’s the pathetic mentality of some youth of today, who were speaking in defense of the person or persons who allegedly wielded the punches and kicks to Johnson, with someone allegedly videotaping.

But worse…when the page was created, and much support was shown it, the admin of the page began being threatened, and earlier this evening, she announced that it would be shut down in a few hours due to the threat:

screencap of the majority of the post in question

Ang is right. “Someone”—police, prosecutor, influential people—CAN NOT demand a person shut down a Facebook page. And while we haven’t pinned it down yet, we’re hearing that it’s one of the aforementioned who has issued the threat—and if they are a public official (and it’s our understanding that they are; we just can’t say in what capacity yet), that’s INTIMIDATION under the law:

 (720 ILCS 5/12-6) (from Ch. 38, par. 12-6)

Sec. 12-6. Intimidation.

(a) A person commits intimidation when, with intent to cause another to perform or to omit the performance of any act, he or she communicates to another, directly or indirectly by any means, a threat to perform without lawful authority any of the following acts:

(1) Inflict physical harm on the person threatened or any other person or on property; or

(2) Subject any person to physical confinement or restraint; or

(3) Commit a felony or Class A misdemeanor; or

(4) Accuse any person of an offense; or

(5) Expose any person to hatred, contempt or ridicule; or

(6) Take action as a public official against anyone or anything, or withhold official action, or cause such action or withholding; or

(7) Bring about or continue a strike, boycott or

other collective action.

(b) Sentence.

Intimidation is a Class 3 felony for which an offender may be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 2 years and not more than 10 years.

(Source: P.A. 96-1551, eff. 7-1-11.)

Those aren’t our words, and they aren’t suggestion. They’re THE LAW. The paragraph in bold (paragraph 6) is what applies here. And we have news for whomever is doing this: We’ve just received word that we have some attorneys ready to take on OUR case against someone who has intimidated someone in our operation. North counties will hear about this soon enough. But it simply CAN’T be done, and there are lawyers out there willing to take the cases. Whoever is responsible for this threat, be it direct or indirect,  had better pay close attention, because this kind of thing won’t be tolerated.

Already one little mouthy twit, Brianna Stifle, has put in her two cents and has been deleted:

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It’s unclear exactly who’s behind the threat, but if this is any indication, we’re getting closer to finding out.

Updates on it as we get them.

Short URL: http://www.disclosurenewsonline.com/?p=14928

Posted by Jack Howser on Sep 8 2012. Filed under Breaking, Crawford. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry