Is this even shocking to anyone anymore? Horrifying and infuriating? Yes. But not shocking.
So, remember when the FBI memo was released that showed that the intelligence community had targeted traditional Catholics as public enemy number one? They later denied it but we all knew it was true. It turns out that at least part of their plan was to goad a child into posting questionable memes and then arrested the family at gunpoint and threw them in a van.
This starting to sound like the Stasi to anyone else?
American Greatness has the story and I’m going to post some of it but I urge you to go read the whole thing over there. We have to support good outlets that post these kinds of stories.
A traditional Catholic family was allegedly “dragged out of their home at gunpoint, handcuffed and locked in a van” earlier this year after the FBI “goaded” their 15-year-old son to post “offensive memes” online. The teen, a volunteer firefighter and altar boy, was then hospitalized on mental health pretenses, according to his father, Jeremiah Rufini.
The FBI’s aggressive “investigation” only resulted in a misdemeanor conviction against the boy for breach of peace, but financially devastated the family with substantial legal expenses.
The FBI targeted the boy as part of a sting operation catfishing traditionalist Catholic teenagers with “extreme political content,” Rufini explained in the family’s GiveSendGo crowdfunding site.
The family’s difficulties began early in 2023 when Rufini’s father became too ill from chemotherapy to work at the family business or care for his 93 year-old grandmother who lives in an in-law apartment at his home.
The home-schooled 15 year-old took on the responsibility of caring for his great grandmother until his father got home from work each day.
“It was a very stressful time, compounded by several unrelated deaths in the family that happened in the same time period,” Rufini explained. The long hours alone with his grandmother led the boy, equipped with a brand new cell phone, to become ensnared in an FBI scheme targeting trad Catholics.
None of our children, including my son, had been raised with cell phones or unrestricted internet access. It became necessary for him to have a phone so we could communicate while he was alone at my father’s house caring for my grandmother, and so we reluctantly allowed him to have a cell phone. He spent a lot of time alone with nothing to do but wait and think and the cell phone became a welcome distraction. His interests in history and theology led him down a rabbit hole where he was recruited into group chats targeting teenage traditionalist Catholics with extreme political content. We later learned that these chats were being closely monitored, and possibly operated by, FBI agents as part of an effort to investigate Traditional Catholics that was downstream of a broader domestic investigation spurred by the events of January 6th.
Indeed, since the early days of the Biden regime, the DOJ has executed a policy of treating traditional Catholics and pro-lifers like violent domestic extremists.
The kid felt guilty for his social activity and then stopped logging on to social media. The FBI used him disconnecting as a sign that he was escalating to actual violence. Why? Because they needed to say that in order to arrest him. Think about it. If the kid had continued using online media and escalated, this would’ve been seen as a reason to step in and make arrests. If he went offline, which is what he did, this would also be the pretense for arresting him.
No matter what the kid did, the family was screwed.
They ended up throwing the kid in a mental health facility after raiding the house and finding nothing. The Department of Children and Families then opened an investigation into the family. Coincidence?
Our leftist overlords will stop at nothing to arrest, frighten, or intimidate faithful Catholics.
