Pete Santilli

When I met Pete for the first time I wasn’t incredibly impressed. To someone who just arrived, the appearance was that he was hanging around with Idaho III%. I almost completely wrote him off until the next evening when Brandon Curtiss held a “meeting” in his hotel room and Pete and I were shoulder to shoulder at the door. It was then that I noticed that he was not your typical fair weather patriot. As Curtiss and Aggresta pumped out the most oxymoronic statements known to man and attempted to tie in the unlawful detention of the Hammonds to self-imagined Islamic terror in Idaho, Pete rolled his eyes and turned his camera back on, obviously wanting to capture the idiocy on display. (He obviously had as big of an issue with the “clearing” of Kalashnikov styled weapons as I did, since none of these so called militia knew how to actually put their rifles on Safe and swept the entire room with hot weapons as they set them against the wall.) I wasn’t completely sold on him but made a mental note to refrain from judging others until I had observed them for more than a few moments. Later on, I asked him what exactly was going on at the Refuge and he told me that the only way to find out was to go and see for myself.

His style is obviously much different than any other reporter I’ve ever encountered. While others live inside their tablets and phones, Pete holds his out at an arm’s length on a pole and records arguably the most dangerous situations that have unfolded in recent US history. While others spit out party lines and pre-drawn conclusions and attempt to twist the responses of their targets, Pete speaks only the truth. But more importantly, he speaks the truth bluntly with no fear.  When others feared entering the Refuge, he walked in boldly and said his piece. He was taken prisoner while directly engaging the FBI after the assassination of our brother LaVoy. True to form, he is unrepentant of offenses he did not commit and stands his ground to this day.

Perhaps the biggest travesty in all this is the federal government's blatant flaunting of contempt for the First Amendment. Regardless of what name a media outlet incorporates under, the honest reporter is a rare breed. At nearly every outlet, fear, hate and lies are propagated under the guise of Patriotism. Pete has exemplified the meaning of Freedom Of Expression under the Constitution as intended by our Founding Fathers. With any luck, he will soon be free to expose the truth once again.

Deb Jordan operates the Guerilla Media Network and posts regular updates on the website.

Peter T Santilli #79401065

Nevada Southern Detention Center

2190 East Mesquite Avenue

Pahrump, NV 89060