Along Came Long, Lean Lanky Jones... on the MCP

[XLFD]

Yesterday, just before noon, I went to the local district court and received my fourth criminal arraignment in the last three years.  Each of these arraignments have originated from the Ludington Police Department (LPD) and have been eagerly accepted by Mason County Prosecutor Beth Hand.  The actions that led to the four arraignments:

-- walking peacefully through an open public park during the middle of the day

-- standing peacefully outside a city hall door doing nothing

-- being in a public park when city contractors illegally started shooting firearms, endangering my life 

-- presumably having an expired driver's license

The latter two arraignments have yet to be adjudicated, so out of caution we will save the defenses and details for motion briefs and hearings and just give their background here and here.  Prosecutor Hand repackaged the DWLS charge into driving with an expired license for my fourth criminal arraignment.  Under the law section she is filing this under, the penalty for driving with an expired license (first offense) is up to 90 days in jail and a $100 fine.

Judge John Middlebrook ruled that I was constitutionally protected from being criminally charged for trespassing in the first case back in September 2025.  A jury of my peers ruled that standing quietly outside city hall was not disruptive to a public meeting back in June 2026.  The other charges will suffer a similar fate when justice prevails, but the damage to my reputation will live on long beyond that, as arraignments make the local Ludington news, but dismissals of charges and court victories for the wrongly accused does not.

Not too surprising that the headland source of my four arraignments, LPD Chief Cristopher Jones (aka Thief Jones for his own criminal exploits), took to local bootlicker extraordinaire Rob Alway's pages at the Mason County Press to gaslight us all by playing the victim to persecuted little me. 

It seems that he did not like my revelations that he was no longer living in Ludington, as he bragged often about the first couple of years after he moved here from Maryland.  In fact, the title of his letter to the editor was "A letter to the Ludington community", as if he was in denial of living over a dozen miles away from the outskirts of town.

The letter shows the basic lack of good character of Thief Jones, nor does it link to the original Ludington Torch article highlighting the hypocrisy of a police chief advocating for a special assessment to enrich the LPD without telling us that his tax bill wouldn't change.  Perhaps it was our own assessment of his lack of good characteristics that taunted him into writing a letter targeting this reporter, just as his department has done with the four unbased prosecutions mentioned.

In his first section, he falsely claims the LPD has owned all of their mistakes.  In one of the LPD's biggest mistakes, the Mendez DUI and the following public cover-up, we see in his press release after Jones was caught 18 months after the incident no contrition or admission that Mendez should have been treated differently or any reason as to why the LPD felt it was necessary to bury that incident.  The Forfinski incident and his willful destruction of a public record have yet to be acknowledged and definitely not owned in any sense, along with many other lesser mistakes of the LPD I've brought to these pages and the city council, and some I have to remain mute about for fear of the victims of the LPD suffering even more.

The next section, he tries to justify his FOIA actions, by making a lot of easily disprovable lies.  Jones, with or without help from the former city attorney, crafted a FOIA Cost Estimation Worksheet that did not follow the city's FOIA policy or the practice beforehand, and charged $229 for what had been granted freely for years before that.  The deposit was paid and I reported it to the sheriff's office, it never went to the MSP, even after Sheriff Cole said it would. 

Jones would send me another cost estimate for the same eight minute body cam video without any edits thereon that nearly doubled that cost, saying it was for editing the material.  The FOIA policy would only be changed months later by the city council allowing them to unlawfully impose such charges.  His account is a total lie, and those lies are fully documented in these pages and the recordings/minutes of council meetings. 

He avoids dealing with this year's willful destruction of public records by him even after I paid their ransom-- another act of public extortion, fraud, and willful destruction of public records, all crimes-- and instead takes the opportunity to belittle my contributions and say: "[XLFD] has never offered a solution. He offers hatred and fear, and nothing else."  I have eighteen years of evidence here on the Ludington Torch and Pitchfork to the contrary of this rash assertion by the man whose fear of what I have to say about his actions/policies and the solutions I have to offer has led to four criminal arraignments against me on baseless charges crafted by the department he runs.  

The next section describes his own fears and reasons for leaving the community he saddles with a $25,000 bill whenever he recruits a new officer and allows his captain to earn a paycheck and a pension check at the same time (both also mentioned in the article he addresses but fails to refute because of their truth).  He offers a couple of anecdotes on why he moved so far away, better illustrating his innate cowardice.  You can bet the two stories are as untrue as the rest of his essay, because why wouldn't he tell us the names of the two citizens that allegedly shouted at him when he lived in Ludington and made him label our citizens' "lack of respect for boundaries" as one of the primary reasons he moved away from Ludington.  Good riddance.

Jones disputes it wasn't taxes that played a part in his move, it's one thing that I cannot disprove.  But the source who originally told me about his move overheard him saying that was the case, so maybe Jones was lying then instead of now?   He does talk of taxes uncapping, so it seems like he used taxes as part of the calculus, just like most homebuyers.

Then he goes into full victim mode, saying that my release of his home address (which is readily available to anyone who looks up voter records) was done solely for intimidation, not for any journalistic purpose.  That claim is unfounded, the article's purpose was to let people know that Jones had moved out of the Ludington community and the police head honcho had about a 15 minute minimum response time for anything happening in Ludington during his off hours.  This wasn't known by many before.

Jones then addresses the claims by Jason Miney found in the article and denies each, effectively saying that Miney's car alarm either did not go off during his comment (it did) or that Miney or an associate set it off.  This might be believable if Miney had come up with a prepared statement, hit a remote, and pointed out the car alarm, but that didn't happen.  He started talking and when his comments were getting intense, the alarm went off.  Why would he or one of his associates interrupt his own message?

In his letter's last section, he wraps things up with a lot of homilies and thus avoids veering from the truth; he says something I could probably agree with:  "To those who have no idea what is going on or simply do not care: your apathy and indifference are dangerous, and they are part of the problem."  The problem is that our quest at the Ludington Torch is to bring knowledge of what is going on to the people and make them care.  The quest of Jones is to block FOIA requests with unreasonable paywalls, destroy records requested that show the LPD acting badly, spend tons of money on double-dipping and $25K signing bonuses, and dump lies and bullshit like Jones' letter does, obscuring the truth from getting out.  

He ends with the simple phrase "Enough is enough", and this turns into the title of a companion letter by City Councilor John Terzano published the morning before my fourth arraignment.  Another coincidence?  You may remember Terzano from my jury trial back in June, where he testified that I was disrupting a meeting by being behind a door.  Then this practicing attorney made the big mistake of looking in on the courtroom for minutes from behind a door when he was under sequestration; he was unknowingly helpful in getting the jury to decide "not guilty".

Terzano in his letter to the MCP (which only seems to publish letters critical of one citizen by Ludington city officials) wisely sticks to generalities to get behind Thief Jones and lovingly embrace him and his words.  Because he uses that as his basis, he talks about the public and their "contempt and personal hostility", "personal attacks", "suspicion", "division", "intimidation", "distrust", "cruelty", and "attacking [an official's] personal life and family".  

This is the same guy who listened to dozens of upset and animated citizens at the special assessment meeting on September 28th and said "Tonight was courteous, people spoke with passion, people spoke with conviction, and it's extraordinary because that's how government works."  One wonders what Terzano would find discourteous in my article, without Jones' embellishments of anecdotes and the contents of my article.  Perhaps if he actually read it, he may be upset with me calling Jones a "thief" rather than a "chief" but if one shoe fits better, you wear it.

Jones does not show any leadership qualities to be proud of; he's not a chief as that term is commonly understood.  Jones committed fraud and public extortion to enrich himself and/or the LPD.  Without proper authority, he allowed for $25K signing bonuses and double-dipping by his captain, assuredly he's also collecting a retirement pension from the Newark (Delaware) PD because he feels justified to do so.  The title of "thief" is very appropriate, and as someone who has just been arraigned for the fourth time in three years courtesy of this guy, I should have the street cred to assign that title to him.

[Golf~6~Romeo]

If Ludington needs heroes and martyrs that means something is deeply wrong and needs to change......

Let me get this straight, you have documented data that shows that the LPD will tamper/destroy/prevent evidence from it's citizens OVERTLY.  That same evidence shows that the entire judicial system has and will continue to afford legitimacy to these actions.

Knowing that! you dox the Police Chief?

Gutsy move, I hope that works out for ya.

If there is one thing I have learned in all my training, you never give a man a reason to kill you.  If you do, you better be ready.  Endangering a man's family, well that's beyond the pale.  

Yeah, it may be legal, but aren't you always touting moral and ethical behavior?  

You are providing the information that many Ludington citizens need to make informed decisions.  Don't let them make you the story.  This could invalidate progress you have made thus far.  They are no longer pretending that what they have been doing is ok.  You have them explaining themselves, let them!!

[XLFD]

Be mindful of the terms you use when you characterize what I did with the article "Along Came Jones".  Doxing is a legal term that requires some intent.  One can congratulatory slap a teammate on the back after he has scored a goal and not be guilty of assault, just as one can reveal a police chief's address and ask questions of why he would move from the city he served without letting the people know after all of those times he boasted about community policing by example was now complete BS and all of those times he advocated for raising taxes to fund his department wouldn't be affecting him as a taxpayer.  And what about all of those emergency situations that may happen in town that should be immediately handled by a police chief that lives 15 minutes away? 

It's kind of important where your police response team lives, and you can find that Jones and his captain live outside of Ludington and ill equipped to handle any emergency with any immediacy unless it happens during normal business hours. 

The Residency Act passed by the MI legislature does not restrict a city from putting  residency requirements onto volunteer firefighters, but police only have to live within 20 miles and can get an exception, like I believe was given out once by this chief for Officer Marshall Law.  But everyone should be insulted that the city never told us that the chief who prided himself on 'Ich bin ein Ludingtoner' was now living deep into Hamlin Township, fifteen minutes away from being an emergency incident commander.

Jones came out so defensive about having his address given out publicly, but he tacitly approved the current mayor's attempts to force people to dox themselves at televised city council meetings.  Here's a transcript where I was bullied by the mayor, who stole many precious minutes of my public comment back in April 2023:

"Tom Rotta, Third Ward"

"Mr. Rotta, do you still reside at 137 East Dowland?"

"Your honor, with all due respect, I have the floor, and you are out of order...

"Your honor (laughs), I'm sorry, Mr. Rotta, boy that was, anyway, do you still live at 137 East Dowland?"

"Your honor, I will repeat again, with all due respect, I have the floor, and you are out of order.  Robert's Rules of Order..."

"Mr. Rotta (cross talk) do you live at 137 East Dowland."

"You are interrupting me once again, your honor.  You're out of order."

"Your time is due to expire.  You're using your time.  Do you live at 137 East Dowland?"

"Robert's Rules of Order, 11th edition, p. 44, although the presiding officer..." (gavel bangs repeatedly)

"Thank you, thank you Mr. Rotta.  Next.  (I remain at the podium) If anybody else wants to speak before council, please come forward.  Okay does anybody else wish to speak to council?

"Tom Rotta, Third Ward."

"Do you live at 137 East Dowland?"

"Your honor, with all due respect, I have the floor, and you're out of order."

"Mr. Rotta, at last meeting you said you lived at 602 North Lakeshore Drive and you don't, so I need to know are you still a city resident?"

"Yes, I'm still a city resident."

"Do you still live at 137 East Dowland?"

"Your honor, with all due respect, I have the floor, and you're out of order.  You said I could come up here and give my three minutes..."

"After you complied with the guidelines that states that you are required to give your home address and your mailing address.  Do you still live at 137 East Dowland?"

"Page 44 Robert's Rules of Order.  "Although presiding officers should give close attention to each speaker's remarks, he cannot interrupt the person who has the floor so long as that person does not violate any of the assembly's rules and no disorder arises."  You're the only one creating disorder, your honor."

"You're making a public comment based on guidelines, have... do you still live at 137 East Dowland?"

"And again, you're interrupting the speaker, I have the floor."

"Next speaker please. (gavel raps, I head to my seat) Thank you."

Before one says that I was violating the rules back in 2023 by not giving my address, as Mayor Barnett suggests, there was no rules promulgated by the council back then (or since) that required the speaker to give out their address.  Nevertheless, I cede your point that I have given the city an opportunity to not only use mischaracterizations of my article as propaganda against me, but also the potential to prosecute a federal crime (18 U.S. Code § 119) by suggesting evil intent where none existed.