Free Republic

The Culpeper Flag is often mistaken as a modern variation of the iconic “Don’t Tread On Me” Gadsden Flag – and rightly so. What many don’t know is that the Culpeper Flag was inspired by its Gadsden counterpart, and both have become touchstones of the Second Amendment Movement. While remarkably similar to its Gadsden relative, the flag of the Culpeper Minutemen is arguably cooler – and significantly more obscure. While it has the same coiled rattlesnake and “Don’t Tread on Me” legend, the Culpeper Flag is white, it carries the additional motto “Liberty or Death,” and when historically correct, a...

As founder of the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL.org) we led the effort to reform Virginia’s concealed handgun permitting system in 1994. Previously it was near impossible to get a CHP in much of Virginia and when they were issued they usually went to white businessmen while women and minorities received the runaround. The Clerk of Court is a key individual in the CHP permitting process. Culpeper is currently charging the maximum fee of $50 to obtain a concealed handgun permit. In contrast the Orange County Circuit Court and other jurisdictions only charge $15. Marshall Keene has pledged to reduce...

In a sweeping defeat for Obama-era holdovers at the U.S. Department of Justice, a federal court has tossed out a case in which the department had subpoenaed a Christian pastor’s views on Islam. The Islamic Center of Culpeper, Virginia, had already won a favorable settlement in its Obama-aided case against the city, which agreed to provide a permit for the mosque to pump sewage from a site where it wants to build a mosque, even though state environmental officials had said the site was not suitable for a septic system. But that wasn’t enough for the lawyers who staff the...

Yesterday, I reported on an outlandish effort to shake down a Christian pastor about his views on Islam by the Justice Department in an Obama-era holdover case. Today, a federal court entirely dismissed the Justice Department's case. United States District Court Judge Norman Moon ruled that the case was moot because the mosque settled with Culpeper County. The mosque obtained a settlement allowing it to pump and haul sewage from the land. The United States had sought to keep the case alive, and to conduct wide ranging and intrusive discovery against third parties such as Pastor Steve Harrelson of...

The United State Department of Justice has issued subpoenas to force a Christian pastor in Virginia to disclose under oath his views on Islam. Pastor Steve Harrelson of the Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church in Boston, Virginia, has been served with a wide-ranging subpoena by lawyers for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. The subpoena demands his presence to testify under oath in response to questions from Justice Department lawyers about his views on Islam as well as several other issues: DOJ Subpoena listing documents targets must provide to the government Harrelson is not a party to any lawsuit or other...

Concerned residents in a small Northern Virginia community have dug up misleading information in the application by a local Islamic center for a permit that would have cleared the way to build a mosque, and it may be an example of a pattern of deception practiced around the country. The information includes: An apparent attempt to mislead residents on the use of facilityAn apparent attempt to mislead residents on the size of the facilityAnd an apparent attempt hide the identity of the owner of the property where the facility would be located Attorney and constitutional law instructor Karen Lugo is...

The Justice Department filed suit Monday contending that Culpeper County, Va., acted in a discriminatory manner in denying an approval needed for the construction of an Islamic house of worship there.

A former Culpeper police officer has lost an appeal of his voluntary manslaughter conviction stemming from the shooting of an unarmed woman. The Virginia Supreme Court refused to rehear 35-year-old Daniel Harmon-Wright's case. Harmon-Wright's lawyer, Daniel Hawes, tells the Culpeper Star-Exponent (http://bit.ly/1FLyGsz ) that his client will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Harmon-Wright received a three-year prison sentence following his conviction in Culpeper Circuit Court in January 2013. He was responding to a report of a suspicious vehicle in a church parking lot when he shot 54-year-old Patricia Ann Cook on Feb. 9, 2012. He has said he shot...

WASHINGTON -- After an elderly couple got the boot from their local McDonald's for sitting too long, management and the owner are not answering the question if there really is a 30-minute sitting limit at the Culpeper, Va. fast food restaurant. Carl Becker, 87, a World War II veteran, and his wife Barbara Becker, 81, say they both were at the Culpeper McDonald's on Feb. 21 at about 2:30 p.m. when they were approached by the manager. The location is a place the pair has frequented for years. "And he says 'You two are going to have to leave.' He...

19Daniel Harmon-Wright, the police officer in Culpeper, Virginia, who shot and killed former Sunday school teacher Patricia Cook in February 2012, has been sentenced to three years in prison. This is what the jury recommended upon convicting Harmon-Wright of manslaughter three months ago. According to WJLA, the Cook family will proceed with its lawsuit against Harmon-Wright. Here's a brief recap of the damage done to Cook by Harmon-Wright: The first two rounds, fired at point-blank range, tore into Cook’s face and arm. Another round, fired as Cook was driving away from the shooter, entered her brain. A fourth round severed...

A former Culpeper police officer was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and other charges Tuesday for killing a 54-year-old homemaker during a routine suspicious-vehicle check that spiraled out of control last February. A Culpeper Circuit Court jury deliberated for about nine hours before returning the verdict in the trial of Daniel Harmon-Wright, who fired seven shots into Patricia Cook’s Jeep Wrangler when she tried to drive away from the then-officer. He faces a maximum of 25 years in prison.

The widower of the woman shot and killed by a Culpeper police officer on North East Street in February was found dead in his Friendship Heights apartment Tuesday, seven months after his wife’s untimely death. According to Virginia State Police, a maintenance crew who entered Gary D. Cook’s apartment to conduct routine service for the apartment complex discovered his body. He was 62. Preliminary findings of an autopsy by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Manassas revealed Cook died of natural causes, according to VPS spokeswoman Corinne Geller. Culpeper County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to Cook’s residence around...

CULPEPER, Va. - June 8, 2012 A Culpeper police officer is free on $100,000 bond after pleading not guilty to murder and gun charges. Police have said Harmon-Wright was responding to a report of a suspicious vehicle in a church parking lot when he fatally shot 54-year-old Patricia A. Cook on Feb. 9. [Culpeper is halfway between Fairfax and Charlottesville in Culpeper County, Virginia] Video at link. . .Please see comment #1 for background concerning the murder of Patricia Cook, appointment of a special prosecutor and special investigative grand jury, and the indictment.

A special investigative grand jury Tuesday handed down a murder indictment against the Culpeper town policeman who shot and killed a 54-year-old unarmed woman on Feb. 9. Thirty-two-year-old Daniel Harmon–Wright, aka Daniel Wayne Sullivan, aka Dan Wayne, turned himself in to Prince William County authorities Tuesday night near his home in Gainesville, sources said. According to the Virginia State Police, Harmon–Wright has been charged with one count of murder, malicious shooting into an occupied vehicle, malicious shooting into an occupied vehicle resulting in a death and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. The charges stem from...

The special prosecutor assigned to review the Feb. 9 fatal shooting of local housewife Patricia Ann Cook by a Culpeper Police Officer has requested a special grand jury investigate the matter. Potential grand jurors from Culpeper could be summoned as early as next week to commence their work the first week of May, according to Fauquier County Commonwealth’s Attorney James P. Fisher. The special prosecutor said he was hopeful the grand jury review and evidentiary review could be complete by the end of June at which time all the forensic and scientific evidence would also be finalized. “Whether such an...

By AUDREY BARNES/myfoxdc CULPEPER, Va. - Investigators are trying to figure out what led to a police shooting that killed a 54-year-old woman in Culpeper. A telephone pole on North East Street is where police say the confrontation between Patricia Cook and a five-year veteran of the Town of Culpeper Police Department ended. Ironically, it began about 75 yards up the street outside of the church Cook attended. And if you had to pick a person least likely to be shot and killed by police, the victim's next door neighbor said it would be Patricia Cook. “She’s always talked really...

In tribute to the brave men of Culpeper, Orange, and Fauquier counties who helped establish our lasting heritage of Freedom and the identity we all share today The Minute Battalion of Culpeper County, Virginia 1775 - 1776 Left to Right: Private Man, Officer in Captain Taliaferro's Company, Private Man, Officer in Captain Wm. Pickett's Company Military Uniforms in America Plate No. 259 Copyright 1973 by Company of Military Historians Provided to Culpepper Connections! by Chip Culpepper who received it from Gene Norris Culpepper. At the Virginia convention held May 1775, in Richmond, Patrick Henry and the Committee of Safety ordered...

After heading the Culpeper Department of Human Services for the past 21 years, and being elected mayor of the Town of Culpeper last May, DHS Executive Director Calvin “Chip” Coleman is retiring from the post at the end of this month. Since taking the reigns in February of 1989, Coleman has overseen the Department of Human Services’ growth from about 20 employees to more than 180, and the development of a myriad of local programs to help DHS’ clients with everything from finding work and obtaining transportation to accessing affordable childcare.

Culpeper County public school officials have decided to stop assigning a version of Anne Frank's diary, one of the most enduring symbols of the atrocities of the Nazi regime, after a parent complained that the book includes sexually explicit material and homosexual themes. "The Diary of a Young Girl: the Definitive Edition," which was published on the 50th anniversary of Frank's death in a concentration camp, will not be used in the future, said James Allen, director of instruction for the 7,600-student system. The school system did not follow its own policy for handling complaints about instructional materials, Allen said....

The hundreds of civil war gravestones in Culpeper cemetery tell of the town’s bloody history. Halfway between the opposing capitals of Richmond and Washington, it saw more battles than anywhere else in the United States. Today this town in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge mountains is a battlefield of a different kind. In 10 days’ time Virginia, which last November voted for a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time since 1964, goes to the polls for a governor in the first electoral test of the Obama presidency. This contest between Bob McDonnell, a Republican, and Creigh Deeds, a...