I was criticized in private by a member of the community for daring to use Mike Reinoehl and Alan Swinney in the same tweet as an example of how the justice system uses and hides charging documents (indictments and warrants) in certain cases.

The claim was that I was comparing the two directly, and I want to make it unequivocally clear: I do not see them as the same.

Two of the three people are alt-right associated by their actions and affiliations, one was a leftist activist. Mike and Alan were at ideologically different sides of the spectrum. The only thing these three have in common is that they are, at the time of writing, all innocent.

In our justice system, people are innocent until proven guilty by a jury of their peers. Yes, people outside of court will say “so and so is guilty”, but saying it doesn’t make it so in a legal perspective unless they plead guilty or a jury says they are.

Alan Swinney and Chandler Pappas have not pled guilty to any of their charges. Thus they are innocent.

Mike Reinoehl did not plead guilty, so when he was gunned down by federally deputized law enforcement, he was an innocent man.

The differences between these is the charges were Mike could have had a case for self defense. He never got to bring that up. The DA dismissed the charges against Mike after his death. He died an innocent man.

Alan Swinney and Chandler Pappas are still alive. Their fate will be decided by a jury of their peers, in the due course of time.

Mike should have gotten that opportunity.