Brandon Pinney "Fuck Cops" Trial
Channel: FreeKeene
Date: 06/03/2016

Brandon Pinney is a NH native who is now facing a year in jail for telling state police to fuck off. His is a classic case of being oppressed for freedom of speech. Historically, people arrested for flipping of or telling off police have, on appeal been vindicated. It may not be nice to say mean things to cops, but freedom of speech is meant to protect unpopular speech.

Brandon was arrested at Surrey Dam when after doing five-miles over the speed limit he was confronted by a forest ranger. We don’t know exactly how their interaction went, because Brandon did not record video. According to Brandon, the ranger berated him about the speeding and Brandon blew him off in an unkind manner. The ranger then said he would be calling the police and Brandon followed him back to his office. The ranger claims Brandon was pounding on the office door yelling at him, while Brandon says he was not pounding on the door and was in no way threatening the man.

However, the ranger’s testimony was that he was frightened and when state police arrived, Brandon told them to fuck off, and when he repeated it at the request of one of the staties, Brandon was arrested.

Here’s full video of Brandon’s trial from January and the sentencing hearing from February. As judge Edward J Burke found Brandon guilty, Brandon and his attorney will be appealing to a jury trial. Stay tuned to Free Keene for the latest.

One note – during trial, Burke said nothing about his shirt, but at sentencing, wearing the same shirt, Brandon was told if he did it again it would be contempt of court. Not only can you not express yourself to police, you can’t express yourself via your wardrobe. Whatever happened to freedom? You generally don’t find it at the district court level.