When the trial had finally gotten underway and witnesses were being called, district attorneys Kate Molina and Todd Jackson called John Barnett Slaughter to the stand.
You may remember Slaughter as the one who filed the phony police report from an entirely separate non matter that Molina presented as fact. Well, it turns out he was the one who organized the gang to attack me on July 7th, 2016. This is what he told detectives and what he testified to on the witness stand.
He spoke about how he had people stalking me during the protest, and how the confrontation was “organized” and “strategic.”
Slaughter then proceeded to lie several times, both to the detectives and later to the Judge during the trial.
At first Slaughter was claiming that I was repeatedly taking my gun out to load and reload it, “click-clacking” as Slaughter called it. Then he contradicts himself and says people couldn’t see my gun because it was concealed. Then he later admits he doesn’t know for sure because he didn’t see anything and was relying on third party hearsay.
John Slaughter went on to repeat these same contradicting and untrue statements during the trial:
The truth is I had loaded my gun at home, before I had even heard there was going to be a protest. I’m not an “open carry” kind of guy because I don’t like to attract attention. I was carrying concealed the whole time, under my jacket, because there was no reason to do otherwise. And yes, I had a Concealed Handgun License that I first attained 5 years before this protest.
So this whole part about him saying the reason they had to confront me was because I was supposedly “click clacking” my gun is completely untrue. Where he comes up with this stuff, I have no idea.
In fact, it turns out John Barnett Slaughter was violating ORS 40.315, as he was testifying to things that he did not have direct, personal knowledge of.
Chris Trotter and Jason Short, as usual, didn’t point this out to the judge and continued on without clarifying any of this, leading the judge to believe that what Slaughter had testified to was the truth.
All these other people whom Slaughter continually referred to? All of these “we” and “us” references? Well, come time for the trial Slaughter all of a sudden came down a case of amnesia and couldn’t remember who any of these people were.
They thought organizing a gang to physically confront me and “forcibly eject” me from the area was the “safest way” to deal with me?
And these people whom he conspired with to confront me? Turns out some of them were armed themselves:
With all this talk of Slaughter and his co-conspirators being so concerned about someone with a gun, let’s take a look at John Slaughter at the start of this march and protest, where he himself calls on everyone to carry guns everywhere:
John Slaughter would also testify that he saw police everywhere during the protest, which was untrue. Had the police been there, following their own basic directives of having a strong, visible presence at protests, then I doubt the mob would have ever confronted me, and even if they would have, I could have just run to the police. Instead I was left to fend for myself.
If you can believe it, this was actually a witness that Jason Short was cross examining, rather than Chris Trotter. However we were all taking notes and I was pointing out to Trotter all of the lies Slaughter was telling.
You’d think a competent attorney would have gone through, statement by statement, pointing out Slaughter was lying repeatedly.
You’d think a competent attorney would have played my video, uncut, from start to finish and ask Slaughter to point out each time I had allegedly pulled my gun out to “click clack” it, or to point out whenever he saw one of these groups of police that he claims were everywhere.
You’d think a competent attorney would have called a witness or two to rebut some of the things Slaughter was saying.
You’d think a competent attorney would have played the video of Slaughter himself calling for people to carry guns, since that sort of discredits his own supposed concerns about someone at the protest with a gun.
You’d think a competent attorney would have raised the issue of Bias Witness, since Slaughter was already familiar with me before the incident that he helped to premeditate and already had some sort of issue with me.
You’d think a competent attorney would try to subpoena Slaughter’s phone records and other messenger records to find out the identities of these other people with whom he conspired and call them as witnesses.
But don’t underestimate the incompetence of Chris Trotter and Jason Short. They didn’t bother to do any of those things.