Saturday, August 23, 2014

Open Letter of Warning to Governor Nixon From Missouri Oath Keepers

 
There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. - Marine General Smedley Butler - Two-time recipient of the Medal of Honor.


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Governor Nixon:

The events in Ferguson have shown us daily that the looting and violence by a few is not being stopped, while the right of the people to peaceably assemble and petition government for redress of grievances is not being respected. The current riot control tactics of the local police, rooted in outmoded techniques developed in the 1950's - and only made worse by the ongoing militarization of our police - are failing the people of Ferguson, giving them a false choice between rampant looting on the one hand, and hyper-militarized police and curfews on the other (which also fail to stop the looting, leaving the mistaken impression among many of the American people that even more militarization and curtailment of free speech and assembly is needed).  Our local boots on the ground, made up of retired police officers, military veterans, and intelligence workers (with critical input from current serving Missouri police officers) have answers that could provide the people of Ferguson the relief they need and deserve while respecting their rights.   It is time to change a losing game.

The militarized police response we saw in Ferguson did not work.  All it did was violate the rights of peaceful protesters and media, alienate the community, and make our country look even more like a police state, with big, intimidating displays of heavily armed, militarized officers, in full "battle-rattle" and backed by BearCat type armored vehicles, firing CS gas and rubber bullets into peaceful protesters and even at media personnel, while failing to stop those relative few who were actually looting, throwing Molotov cocktails, and shooting.

The police focus on peaceful protesters, with lines of policemen equipped in riot gear, in fundamentally static positions - at best, slow, plodding, on-line advances - are easily thwarted by modern looters and thugs with cell phones and team work.  Such outdated tactics fail to apprehend those actually looting and shooting.

What they do succeed in doing is alienating the local population while risking additional shooting incidents due to unsafe gun-handling.  There were multiple instances of police officers pointing M-4s and sniper rifles at unarmed, peaceful protesters, media, and local residents just going about their business, in displays of spectacularly unsafe weapons discipline and methodology.   As one of our police sniper veterans pointed out, even police snipers deployed in response to prior incidents of shots fired should have used spotting scopes to observe the crowd and search for potential threats, not their rifle scopes.

Even worse were the well-publicized incidents of officers routinely pointing M-4s at unarmed protesters at close range for no apparent reason other than to intimidate.  An officer facing an actual lethal threat should be moving to cover, not standing there in a static bunch with other officers, using the rifle as a threat display. 

More @ Oathkeepers

2 comments:

  1. I love Smedley - need that on a teeshirt and a mug!

    ReplyDelete