By Michael V. Hannigan/HCNow
In an amazing turn of events, it was learned last week that the standoff with John Joe Gray has ended.
“John Gray is a free man to walk wherever he wants to walk,” said Henderson County Sheriff Ray Nutt.
Gray had been sequestered on his 47-acre property along the Trinity River since being charged with assaulting a Department of Public Safety trooper in Anderson County back in 1999.
But it turns out what has been called the longest standoff in American history has been over for a little more than a year. The Anderson County District Attorney’s Office dropped the charges against Gray in December 2014.
Nutt said he learned that the Gray standoff was over when a reporter from the New York Times told him on Wednesday. The reporter was interviewing Nutt for a story comparing the situation in Trinidad with the current Oregon standoff.
Nutt said he immediately called the Anderson County District Attorney’s office to verify the information.
“It relieves a lot of pressure off a lot of people here,” Nutt said.
Nutt said he went to Trinidad to talk to Gray and told him the news, who also did not know.
“You could see that he was relieved,” Nutt said.
Thank you for this report. It gave more information than others I’ve seen. Now I know that Joe Gray and his family are aware of the news. Other reports weren’t clear on that. I still do want to find out why the DA in Anderson Co. didn’t bother to let anyone know about the charges being dropped. Surely the HCSO expended money on any surveillance of the property during the last year or so.
This is just how stupid our local cops are: They didn’t know the stand off was over, until a NYT reporter told them? Why didn’t Anderson county advise them a year ago? LMAO. I got pulled over in Trinidad because the cop (a Trinidad cop and a Malakoff cop) said that my bumper ball hitch was blocking the view of my license plate. A friend of mine was pulled over there because the cop said his license plate lights (which both were working) weren’t “bright enough”….
And when both of those incidences were reported to the chief of police there, the chief backed up the cops. He didn’t say, “That’s a bit of an over reach. I apologize, you shouldn’t have been pulled over for such a minimal issue”.. Oh no. He took up for them. Ridiculous behavior by a police department.
This is Great news for Henderson County and the Gray family who stuck to their “guns”. We now have a much bigger Stand being made in Oregon, led by Ammon Bundy. The main stream media is not covering this historic event. The Pete Santilli Show is covering this story on YouTube and many other alternative media sites are covering it as well. #Stradog in Gun Barrel City, Texas with Citizens Action Network, Texas Revolution, We The People-United and Support for TX Bikers to DC #OregonStand #All41 #Waco #Bikers #aslongasittakes
“Sequestered on his 47 acre property” ? A “standoff”? For HOW MANY years ?
Sounds like someone was afraid to go after him. The dropping of charges a year ago sounds like a tall tale of convenience.
East Texas can indeed be a strange place…