Biography
John Heid is an anti-drone activist arrested at Beale Air Force Base for protesting unmanned aerial vehicle operations. Convicted in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia under 18 U.S.C. § 1382 (entering a military reservation) for participating in the School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch) annual nonviolent civil-disobedience action at Fort Benning, Georgia on September 2002. The action targeted the U.S. Army Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) — formerly the School of the Americas — which had trained Latin American military officers later linked to assassinations, torture, and massacres including Romero, the four U.S. churchwomen, the Jesuits in El Salvador, El Mozote, and Plan Cóndor. Defendants typically received 3 to 6 months in federal custody plus a fine.
The July 2025 Ground Zero report describes the March 5 Raytheon protest arrest in Tucson and a not-guilty plea to third-degree criminal trespass. At publication a September 2 bench trial was still prospective. This earlier account adds protest and charging context but does not replace the later conviction and community-service disposition already recorded, and supplies no multi-day jail interval. Source: https://www.gzcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/July-2025-newsletter-for-website.pdf#page=2
The January 2026 Ground Zero account confirms the October 27, 2025 sentence of twenty hours of community service following the Raytheon trespass trial. Judge Robert Forman expressly considered a fine and incarceration inappropriate and imposed no probation. Murray’s offer to accept jail instead of a fine did not become a jail sentence; Heid described performing service at the Tucson Catholic Worker breakfast program. Source: https://www.gzcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GZ_2026_1_January.pdf#page=7
The Winter 1998–99 Nukewatch Pathfinder names Joel Kilgore, John Heid, Bonnie Urfer and Sarah Arndt as arrested for trespassing during the October 4, 1998 Project ELF protest. It reports possible fines or suspension of Wisconsin driving rights, not an imposed jail term or an individual physical-release date. Source: https://www.laka.org/docu/magazines/nukewatch_pathfinder/1998-4-winter.pdf#page=2
February 1986 verdict and intervening freedom
The Trident II Pruning Hooks report names Greg Boertje, John Heid, Roger Ludwig, Sheila Parks, Suzanne Schmidt and George Veasey as convicted February 4, 1986 before Judge Thomas Needham of possession of burglary tools, trespass and malicious destruction of property. It expressly says all six were free pending future March 31 sentencing. Thus initial April 1985 detention and later sentenced custody cannot be counted as one uninterrupted interval. Greg’s brief courtroom lockup ended when trial resumed, not a separately established multiday stay. Any existing separately verified later sentence and actual discharge must be preserved; this issue alone supplies neither a first later admission nor final discharge.
The Nuclear Resister No.38, March 10, 1986, original PDF pages 6.
Additional original custody evidence
The Trident II Pruning Hooks update confirms John Heid’s actual September 23, 1985 release and says he was helping Suzanne Schmidt and Sheila Parks prepare for trial. Roger Ludwig, George Veasey and Greg Boertje remained imprisoned; their continuing seventh month is not assigned as Heid’s duration. His first jail-admission day and complete served total are not supplied by this issue. This initial pretrial episode is distinct from the later February 1986 verdict and March sentencing.
The Nuclear Resister No.35, October 24, 1985: PDF page 7.
The original individually names John Heid among the six Trident II Pruning Hooks participants arrested April 18, 1985 and continuously held on $18,000 bond at publication. This fills the existing initial custody phase, preserving its independently established later release and bail gap. This John Heid is not the unrelated John Hyde profile.
The contemporary report documents a separate custody episode: Overnight custody for unpaid 2001 protest fine.
The Winter 1997–98 Pathfinder individually identifies Heid’s October 25 arrest and custody after declining to identify himself, October 27 arraignment before Robert Eaton, and subsequent release on a signature bond. The physical release day remains unprinted. Source.
The Nuclear Resister reports that John Heid and Elizabeth Murray represented themselves at a September 2, 2025 bench trial before Robert Forman in Pima County. Written guilty verdicts were mailed the following week; the report does not establish an exact verdict date. This trial context does not change their later October 27, 2025 community-service sentences.
The December 28, 2012 participant report records John Heid’s arrest by Tucson police at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base after a request to meet the official responsible for the drone program was refused. He was charged with trespass and released from jail at 11 p.m. that day. This establishes same-day jail custody but no completed elapsed prison day; the report supplies no later verdict or sentence. Gretchen Nielsen and Jim Marx joined the meeting request but are not individually reported arrested.
Contemporary participant reports, The Nuclear Resister, December 31, 2012.
The April 23, 2010 Nuclear Resister report individually identifies John Heid among the five arrested at Fort Huachuca on November 15, 2009. Harris’s later guilty plea, probation and community service are reported separately from any unestablished jail custody. The report does not supply an individual prison-admission or physical release date. Source.
The October 2016 Catholic Worker account includes this activist among the Creech arrestees taken to Clark County Jail on October 9 for unlawful assembly. The report explicitly lists twelve people released five to seven hours later, distinguishing them from Marcus Page-Collonge’s separate overnight detention. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
John Heid remained jailed after the August 6, 2005 Oak Ridge protest until court on August 9. The report individually records the release after three elapsed days. The arrest-processing releases of other protesters and their different sentences are separate.
Sources: The Nuclear Resister, No.138.
Taken to jail after the Raytheon protest
The October 3, 2011 report says John Heid was stopped near the Raytheon gatehouse in Tucson, arrested and taken to jail. It does not give his release date or a completed detention total. Contemporary report.
January 2011 detention in Tucson
The January 17 report individually names this participant among three men arrested after entering Davis-Monthan Air Force Base during a Martin Luther King Day peace witness. They were taken to Pima County Jail and later released on recognizance; no exact release date or total is given. This was a separate event from the January 29 Nevada Test Site protest. Contemporary report.
