By Cheryl Biren(about the author)
opednews.com
Animal welfare activist and former hunter, Steve Hindi, is no stranger to confrontation. As founding president of SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK), Hindi has gone to great lengths to stop animal abuse.
His methods have ranged from using ultralight aircraft to patrol for poachers in wildlife sanctuaries to securing hidden video documenting animal abuse at rodeos and targeting their big-name corporate sponsors.
In February of last year, Hindi positioned a boat on the Delaware River outside the Philadelphia Gun Club in a quixotic attempt to prevent members from shooting live pigeons that are catapulted out of boxes and sometimes left to suffer slow and tortured deaths.
Despite his efforts, the pigeon shooters were not thwarted. Hindi remained in the boat as shots peppered the water and, according to his account, the boat and Hindi himself.
The stakes were raised on February 22, 2011 in Warminster, Pennsylvania, when Hindi found himself facing the barrel of a semiautomatic gun on a public roadway in broad daylight. What might otherwise sound like a whopper of a tale was, in fact, video-documented by Hindi's girlfriend and SHARK partner, Janet Enoch.
This begs the question - why, three weeks after an incident in which Warminster police and Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler appear to have had ample time to sort through eyewitness interviews and video evidence [see below], have no charges been filed or findings made public?
According to an affidavit obtained by Opednews, the protest was drawing to a close as planned around 1:00 pm when events took a sudden and dangerous change of course.
A brief car chase, with Hindi following Carlton Pools operations manager Robert Olsen, culminated in a face-to-face confrontation on a well-trafficked public street with Olsen pulling a gun on Hindi.
Soon after, both men dialed 911 charging assault by the other. As one might expect, their stories begin to diverge within the first few paragraphs of the five-page probable cause affidavit.
The affidavit stated that Mr. Olsen had phoned police earlier in the day complaining that Mr. Hindi had blocked one of the entrances to the driveway of Carlton Pools. Olsen said that this caused him to, in turn, block one of the lanes on York Road as he tried to enter the driveway.
The document reveals that when officers responded to that call around 11:00 a.m., they spoke to Hindi who told them that a car had "entered the parking lot at a high rate of speed and nearly struck him."
Subsequent to the gun incident, Olsen provided new details to Detective James Boston of the Warminster Police Department, stating that "Mr. Hindi jumped into the path of his vehicle and that he was forced to come to a stop."
Mr. Hindi's statements to Det. Boston regarding this event were consistent with his earlier conversation with officers at the scene; that Olsen nearly struck him at a high rate of speed.
Olsen further described, in the affidavit, how he drove by the protesters once as they were ending the protest and twice "slowly" as they returned to their vehicles which were parked away from the business on 10th Street. He explained to the police that his intent was to document the license plates of the protesters including Steve Hindi's white van.
After the third pass with his maroon Ford Expedition, Olsen stated that he saw Hindi's white van "whip around" and that it was "obviously coming after" him. Olsen went on to describe how he accelerated rapidly, making various turns with the white van in pursuit. Olsen acknowledged accelerating, "As best as my Ford will give me."
He further stated he was "concerned for the safety of himself, his passengers, and persons in his vicinity due to the excessive speeds that they are going in his flight from the white van."
Unable to shake the other vehicle, Olsen "brakes his vehicle and swerves to the left toward the parking area at the Post Office." Skidding, he stops "in an angled direction in the east bound lane of Lemon St."
The affidavit also includes the description provided to Det. Boston by Janet Enoch and Steve Hindi. "Mr. Olsen acted in a threatening and intimidating manner," reads the document, "when they saw him on Tenth Ave."
Hindi told the detective that he recognized Olsen's vehicle from the incident at Carlton Pools earlier in the day. As Olsen passed them the final time, Hindi told Janet Enoch to get the video camera to document the vehicle description and plates in order to provide the information to the police and to "see where they would go." As they made the turn onto Lemon St., Hindi read aloud the registration information so that it would be captured on the video recording.
Below is video of the pursuit and confrontation taken by Janet Enoch as posted on phillyburbs.com.
[Edited out is Hindi reading aloud the plate numbers on Olsen's vehicle less than five seconds before it skids to a stop. The full video can be found on SHARK's youtube page]
According to the affidavit, "After the incident on Lemon St. Hindi makes contact with the 911 center and Enoch continues to film the Olsen vehicle as Olsen reenters his vehicle and drives off. Enoch and Hindi report Olsen has threatened them with a firearm without provocation or cause and report Olsen assaulted Ms. Enoch."
It also relates that Olsen called 911 immediately after getting into his vehicle and remained on the line until police arrive at his location. Olsen reported that after stopping his vehicle he "walks to the rear of his vehicle with his open palms up in front of him and is saying to Mr. Hindi 'This is crazy, what do you f*cking want? This has got to stop.'
Olsen stated that at that point he hears Enoch "screaming or yelling at him from his left side." He explained that he "put his left hand up to block the camera and she pushed into his hand whereupon he probably pushed it back." He could not remember, he said, as he was struck suddenly on the right side of the face disorienting him and causing him to stumble.
He reported that he also did not remember pulling his gun out and that as he recovered from the blow he realized his gun was in his hand, but still holstered. As per the affidavit, he then removed the gun from the holster and pointed it in Hindi's general direction. Olsen told Det. Boston that the gun was in his right hand and "his left hand is up with an outward palm" as he tells Hindi to, "Stop and to get down."
Regarding the alleged assault on Enoch, Olsen said that "at no time did he grab the female, or her camera, and that other than the front of the camera against his hand there was absolutely no contact between him and the female (Enoch)."
Steve Benedetto, one of two passengers in Olsen's car, "observed Mr. Hindi slug Mr. Olsen in the face with a closed fist." Benedetto also stated to Det. Boston that "as soon as Olsen raised his hand to block the camera Hindi slugged him."
In the affidavit, Det. Boston reports, "Both Enoch and Hindi claim that Mr. Olsen physically grabbed Ms. Enoch and in response Mr. Hindi pushes him away. Mr. Hindi denies punching Mr. Olsen, although he acknowledges that when he pushed Olsen one of his hands may have made contact with his face. Ms. Enoch in response to a question as to why they did not leave the area after securing the registration number but stopped, got out, and escalated a confrontation stated, 'Because that's what we do.'"
After calling 911, Hindi informed the police that the incident had been documented on the video camera and offered to burn a copy for evidence. When it was noted at the station that Hindi had the camera connected to his laptop, the police expressed concern that he could have deleted and/or edited files and that there was probable cause to believe that the video camera and computer contained evidence of a crime, specifically the crime of simple assault.
Police then seized both devices from Hindi and six days later, on February 28, Detective Boston filed an application for a search warrant with the Bucks County District Attorney's office with a request to conduct a forensic examination including, but not limited to, creating a forensic image of the hard drive from the digital camera and then examining files or data relative to the occurrences on February 22.
They also requested permission to conduct a similar examination of Hindi's computer so that the files on the computer that were transferred and/or accessed on or about February 22, 2011 could be recovered. The request for a search warrant was approved on the date of the application by the DA's office.
Readers may recognize a few discrepancies between the statements given to police and the video of the incident. But, one issue that is not mentioned in the aforementioned affidavit is possible evidence of a crime recorded by the other occupant of Mr. Olsen's car, namely Stanimir Tesrovski.
Did the Warminster Police seize and apply for a separate search warrant of the cell phone that Mr. Tesrovski is holding out the window of Mr. Olsen's car during the incident?
The parties involved dispute whether Enoch was assaulted by Olsen as she filmed him with the video camera. Whatever contact was made caused the camera to bounce around making it impossible to easily assess the physical exchange between Olsen and Enoch as well as between Hindi and Olsen. Is there reasonable cause to believe that the cell phone contains images or video of those events in question?
Stay tuned to opednews for updates on this case, including the eventual findings of the investigation by the Warminster Police Department and Bucks County DA's office.
Opednews held an extensive phone interview with Steve Hindi after he and his partner, Janet Enoch, returned from Pennsylvania to their home in Illinois.
A forthcoming article, based partially on this interview, explores inconsistencies between the police reports and the video, the handling by Warminster police of Hindi's property, a response by Carlton Pool owner, Joseph Solana, Jr., expansion of Pennsylvania's Castle Doctrine, and the compelling history between SHARK and Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler.
Note: Calls to Warminster police, the DA's office and Joseph Solana, Jr. were not returned at the time of this publication.
