THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 23, 1994 TAG: 9407230233
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: EDENTON LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
Elizabeth City native John Dear was released Friday after spending more than seven months behind bars for hammering on an Air Force jet in an antiwar demonstration.
Smiling and squinting into the sun three hours after his 6 a.m. release, Dear, 34, talked briefly about his experience and again defended his actions as a symbolic call for disarmament. ``I just feel fantastic,'' Dear said outside the Chowan County Detention Facility. ``I'm just delighted to be out of jail.''
Dear and three others, including well-known longtime activist Philip Berrigan, stole onto Seymour Johnson Air Force Base at Goldsboro on Dec. 7 and banged and splashed blood on an F-15E Strike Eagle.
Prosecutors and witnesses said the hammering and blood caused about $27,000 damage to the jet.
The four defendants were involved in a mistrial Feb. 15 after a noisy courtroom demonstration involving more than 20 spectators, including actor Martin Sheen. Each of the four was found guilty of damaging government property in separate April retrials.
The trials and sentencing brought such notables as a former U.S. attorney general and high-ranking Catholic church officials to federal court in Elizabeth City.
Dear, who was born in Elizabeth City to the former publishers of The Daily Advance and who is now a priest who works with the poor in Washington, D.C., compared his group's efforts with the work of suffragists and civil rights activists.
``All social movements require some people to go to jail,'' Dear said. ``Change has required that people make a sacrifice.''
Dear said he would return to Washington this weekend. He is scheduled to meet with a probation officer Monday to discuss the terms of his 4 1/2-month home confinement.
Dear said he would continue to ``work for peace'' but had no immediate plans for similar actions.
Berrigan, who was sentenced July 6 to eight months, was reportedly transferred to a Virginia facility Thursday to be sentenced for a separate demonstration. The other two activists, Lynn Fredriksson and Bruce Friedrich, are scheduled to remain jailed for several months. by CNB