Showing posts with label John Willard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Willard. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Michael Fanone, the modern day John Willard

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 22, 2025

Michael Fanone could be the modern-day John Willard.

Would the victims of the Salem Witch Trials have carried what we now call #PTSD? Absolutely! We know this because of what happened to Dorothy Good, who was forced to not only confess to witchcraft but accuse her mother, Sarah, of being a witch. She was only four when it happened and left the dungeon condemned to suffer for what was done to her.

There are modern-day victims of horrors who will never be the same. Never to be able to trust others in their own communities. Michael Fanone is one of them. What Mike Fanone Can’t Forget from TIME on August 5, 2021, tells his story.
Fanone—40, nearly broke, living with his mother, seeing ghosts, unable to return to duty in the only job he’d ever loved, possibly forever—had seen the footage a hundred times. But this was the first time he’d viewed it with other people, watched them witness what he lived through, see it through his eyes, feel his aggression, his valor, his abject terror. He sat there crying for a good 20 minutes. At some point he looked up and realized he was surrounded: everyone in the bar had come inside from the patio and gathered around him, watching the footage on the screen.

The months since Jan. 6 had not been easy for Fanone. Still recuperating from life-threatening injuries and posttraumatic stress disorder, he’d found himself increasingly isolated. Republicans didn’t want him to exist, and Democrats weren’t in the mood for hero cops. Even many of his colleagues didn’t see why he couldn’t just get over it. That very day, a GOP Congressman had testified that what had happened was more like a “tourist visit” than an “insurrection.” But no one could see this footage, Fanone thought, and deny what really happened that day. History would be forced to record it.
Michael Fanone files for protective orders against those who assaulted him on Jan. 6 NBC News
Michael Fanone, who was one of the law enforcement officers that responded to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, has filed for protective orders against five individuals who assaulted him that day. President Trump issued pardons for federal criminal defendants involved in the attack who are now being released.

Fact: The Capital was attacked on January 6 by citizens and defended by officers risking their lives to save those inside the building. In the process, many officers were injured. They were vilified by some and hailed as heroes by others.

Evidence has shown that the reason for the attack was based on lies that the 2020 election was "stolen." The evidence used to put the attackers on trial was based on video footage and confessions. 1,500 were convicted and recently released after receiving pardons.

The threats against people who speak out for justice for the officers risking their lives to defend the Capital have already begun. One of them is Michael Fanone.

Listening to Michael Fanone speak about seeking protective orders from individuals threatening him and his family, it became impossible to avoid finding parallels to what happened in 1692 to John Willard and his family, along with many others of like mind who found the courage to speak out. In Massachusetts, there were no cameras to record evidence. There were no laws at the time to prevent what was happening to innocent people. The only thing necessary to subject innocent people to the horrors of the Witchcraft Trials were accusations.
In 1692, John Willard was a Deputy Constable for Salem Village, responsible for serving warrants and transporting people, including those accused of witchcraft, to jail. Later testimony during his trial claimed he was heard to say, “Hang them! They are all witches!” According to historian Charles Upham in his 1867 work Salem Witchcraft, however, Willard refused to arrest any more people by the spring of 1692, after spending time with both accusers and accused. Said Upham, “All he heard and saw, his sympathies became excited on their behalf: and he expressed, in more or less unguarded terms, his disapprobation of the proceedings. He seems to have considered all hands concerned in the business—accusers, accused, magistrates, and people— as alike bewitched.”
He was right. The accusers and judges must have been bewitched, but not by non-existent witches. There were other forces behind their bewitchment: power and greed. In today's terms, we would have suggested that Satan had the accused by the balls. John Willard was just one more example of what would happen to anyone trying to stop the torment, torture, and murders. He refused to arrest more people, seeing the injustice committed by the townsfolk.
When John Willard was examined, the magistrates made it clear they believed the fact that he’d fled arrest was a sign of guilt. Said Willard, “… I was affrighted and I thought by my withdrawing it might be better, I fear not but the Lord in his due time will make me white as snow.” The afflicted in attendance, among them Ann Putnam Jr., Mercy Lewis, and Mary Warren, fell into fits at Willard’s gaze. But it was the accusations leveled against him by his wife’s family that carried the most weight. “In 1692, the Wilkins family turned with particular ferocity against this outsider…,” said Boyer and Nissenbaum. “The finger of witchcraft was pointed at him by no fewer than ten members of the family.” Not only was he blamed for the death of Daniel Wilkins and the illness of Bray Wilkins, but he was accused of spousal abuse by family and neighbors. “For all his natural affections he abused his wife much and broke sticks about her in beating of her,” said his brother-in-law, Benjamin Wilkins.
John wanted his wife Margaret to be called to testify as to the charges he beat her. She wasn't called.  If the claim of John Willard beating his wife was valid, would she have gone to such lengths to free him?
John Willard denied the charges, saying they were all lies, and asked that his wife be called to testify. Margaret was never questioned. In early August, John Willard was convicted and condemned to hang. Two days before his scheduled execution, Margaret made a final attempt to free her husband. According to Marilynne Roach in her book The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-By-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege, Margaret somehow obtained John’s temporary release from prison. Says Roach, “… the necessary papers had not yet reached Salem. So Goody Willard made her way from Boxford to Salem, hired a horse, and headed for Boston to see for herself about the delay, however, to no avail.” She was too late. John Willard, along with John Proctor, Reverend George Burroughs, George Jacobs Sr., and Martha Carrier, was hanged on Proctor’s Ledge at Gallows Hill on August 19.
The 400 people of Salem Village were not satisfied, accusing other members of the Village. Their targets spread throughout Massachusetts. Nineteen innocent people were hung, and Giles Corey was crushed to death after refusing to make a plea of guilt, which would have spared his life or declared his innocence. His wife Martha was among those hung.

When anyone dared to speak the truth, they were targeted by those in power. It didn't end with them. The accusers targeted their family members.

We should all wonder who will stand for the truth and defend the innocent. Had there been more brave people in Salem in 1692, would there have been so many caused to suffer because fear consumed what was good and fed a banquet of hatred to the powerful?