OCR Text |
Show John Singer's Brother Relates Seriousness of Case to Governor "There are many other people in the state that don't send their children to public schools, why not go after those other people?" So stated Harald Singer, younger brother of John Singer, Sin-ger, who met with Governor Scott Matheson last week to warn of possible bloodshed, if another attempt is made to arrest his brother. Held at Singer's request, the half-hour meeting included Public Pu-blic Safety Director Larry Lun-nen Lun-nen and a Logan attorney, a friend of Mr. Singer's. When questioned about the meeting, the governor's press secretary, Maggie Wilde, stated stat-ed Mr. Matheson considered the discussion private and declined de-clined to reveal the details. However, Mr. Singer, who is an accountant and ten-year resident of Logan, Utah, freely talked about the meeting, saying say-ing that it had not been an attempt to mediate the conflict between his older brother and the State of Utah. "I can't mediate anything, I just wanted to indicate to the governor the seriousness of the situation and ask him not to do anything that would lead to bloodshed," he said. Convicted of child neglect for not sending his five school-age children to public schools, John Singer pulled a gun on officers of the Public Safety Department Depart-ment last month when they tried to arrest him. He is now charged with assaulting police officers in connection with that incident, although he defends his action on the grounds that he is just trying to hold his family together. to-gether. Summit County Sheriff Ron Robinson told the Record this week that authorities continue to work on plans to apprehend Singer at his home near Ka-mas, Ka-mas, which he has not left in over a year. He said the main concern in those plans would be the safety of the children. Singer and two friends remain armed, saying they will resist any arrest attempt. And Singer's brother fears somebody is going to get hurt. "If the state insists on pursuing this course, it will eventually mean blood flowing," flow-ing," said Harald Singer, who called his brother a "very determined man." Singer said the governor did not indicate to him what course of action he intended to pursue. pur-sue. "He said to me that he was keeping a close watch on the case, but whether he was sympathetic or not, I could not tell," stated Singer. Harald Singer's own children attend public schools in Logan, but he said he supported "the principle" for which his brother bro-ther has confronted the law. That principle, he said, was one of separation of church and state: "The state wants to interfere in the religious pursuits pur-suits of its citizens ... it has no business there." He went on to state that he felt the entire matter had been "blown out of proportion," and that his brother was being "singled out." Calling it a "ridiculous waste of taxpayers money," he observed: ob-served: "I think the judges in the case opened up a can of worms they don't know how to handle." "I suggested to the governor that he could forget about the whole thing, and that time would heal all things." He concluded: "The best alternative is to just have one of those judges declare a holiday, and for everybody to forget about it." |