Ray Luc Levasseur, in a statement at the U.S. District Courthouse in Springfield in 1989: “I was born into a particular class of workers that was severely exploited and subjected to certain kinds of conditions. And that left an imprint on my mind that I was going to have to do something about it, when a factory owner puts more value on his profits than your health and life.
“The way I grew up was to love my country. Even though I felt like I was being totally exploited in the work that I was doing at the time. I felt I had an obligation to serve my country like my father and my uncles and my grandfather.
“I enlisted in the Army in 1967. I went to Vietnam and I served a full tour of duty, 12 months. And what I saw there was… another side of US foreign policy. Bombings, killings, search and destroy, devastation, poverty, hunger. I was part of a foreign occupation Army. I saw human rights violations when I was there, and I saw violations of international law. … And I saw the human suffering of the Vietnamese people, and in particular, women and children.
“I came from an area in Maine where it was natural to grow up with a .22 or .410 shotgun, as I did. The first pistol I ever fired was in Vietnam… I was trained to kill. … I came back enraged by what I saw. … To see young mothers forced to sell their 13 and 14 year old daughters into prostitution, so that American GIs could prey upon them, that was a shock to me.
“I never saw so many missing arms and legs before. We used to say that’s the walking wounded. They’re more valuable to us than dead Vietnamese because they can be seen every day by the other people as a warning of what happens if you oppose the United States government. After Vietnam I asked the most seditious question of all; why? Why is this government committing crimes in our name?”
Robert Cox, Head of Special Collections and University Archives at UMass: “The UMass Libraries developed this forum as an opportunity to focus on terrorism, one of the most difficult social issues confronting the country. However, it is now clear that given the strong reaction generated by this event, we can no longer achieve the kind of meaningful exchange intended. Continuing with this talk would be counterproductive, but the Libraries will continue to seek avenues to explore significant issues in social change.”
From the MassCops blog on Tuesday, November 10, after news came that Levasseur had been invited a second time by UMass faculty:
“Re: Cop Killing Gang Leader/Terrorist Speech at UMass is back on!
“Word coming in that more and more departments and groups are interested in picketing Douchebag’s speech. Nothing definite yet but it wouldn’t hurt to start organizing carpools to ride west (or north, or south, or east depending on where you are) for Thursday night. If this does come to pass there will likely be some meet points and/or staging areas designated. The terrorist recruiting drive and kick-USA-in-the-bagfest is rumored to start around 7PM…”
“The widow of New Jersey Trooper Phil Lamonaco will be making the trip up from New Jersey to protest this piece of human garbage. I imagine she will be accompanied by a large number of out-of-state LEO’s and supporters. I will make the trip to Amherst to be by their sides. Will you?”
Prof. C. G. Caffentzis, Department of Philosophy, University of Southern Maine, in a letter to UMass Chancellor Robert Holub: “I am writing to protest the decision to cancel the lecture, ‘Ray Luc Levasseur: Defendant in the Great Sedition Trial of Western Mass.’, scheduled for next Thursday, November 12 in the UMass Campus Center. … The lecture was to deal with the crime of sedition, an issue that is important to all students of U.S. history—especially in the Western Massachusetts area, the home of Shay’s Rebellion. … We cannot deepen our knowledge of U.S. history without opening the public space in academe to figures who were involved in that very history. Can we in academic life, then, afford to have speakers in practice vetted by state police organizations and right-wing talk show hosts?”
Donna Lamonaco, widow of New Jersey state trooper Phil Lamonaco, who was killed by Levasseur associate Tom Manning, speaking of Levasseur: “He’s of no use to our soul, our compassion—he’s of no use whatsoever. He got 18 years; I got a life sentence.”
