Category Archives: Police Watch

Oath Keepers Protect St. Louis Until Being Disbanded By The Police They Effectively Replaced

In response to the looting that has damaged numerous businesses in Ferguson, MO since last Monday’s announceemnt that former police officer Darren Wilson would not be indicted for killing Michael Brown, a group called the Oath Keepers descended onto Ferguson to protect businesses from being damaged or destroyed by rioters, oftentimes by setting up armed sentries on rooftops. Over the long weekend, St. Louis County’s police officers demanded that the group disperse.

Threatened with arrest for operating without a license, the volunteers argued but eventually left their positions early Saturday, Rhodes said.

“We are going to go back as protesters,” Rhodes said Saturday afternoon.

(…)

“We thought they were going to do it right this time,” Rhodes said of government response to the grand jury decision released Monday in the Michael Brown case. “But when Monday rolled around and they didn’t park the National Guard at these businesses, that’s when we said we have got to do something.

“Historically, the government almost always fails to protect people,” he added.

The Oath Keepers were started in 2009 as a militia-like force that advocates military and law enforcement personnel disobey orders that are in violation of the Constitution of the United States. Despite accusations of racism, they were started in 2009 by a Mexican-American, Stewart Rhodes, who graduated from Yale Law School and once worked for Ron Paul. They have dodged criticism for years and are regarded by some as extremists or domestic terrorists, though they maintain a 30,000 strong member base and are highly regarded among libertarian parts of the Tea Party movement.

I am personally sceptical of the Oath Keepers because I feel their tin-foil, Alex Jones-like views on the government are extreme to say the very least. Any group that gains traction due to the election of one man and finds common cause with the birther movement tends to draw scrutiny. With that said, I find it very hard to blame anyone locally for being very happy to see them. Whatever one’s views on Michael Brown’s killing – I was very dim on the “no indictment” ruling – the fact is that St. Louis County has handled the entire situation in Ferguson and surrounding areas in an illegal, borderline evil fashion. They instigated an already edgy populace from moment one, turning military-grade weapons on the citizens they “police” in a method of crowd control so poorly conceived it raised legitimate questions as to whether or not the police were intentionally trying to rile their citizens.

As the grand jury’s announcement approached, the mistakes continued. It was announced at 8PM CST, with advance warning and a preemptive call for National Guard support. They gunned for a fight, prepared for a fight, and then stoked a fight. Since then, the overly militarized police, and the actual military, guarded the police station but left local businesses to burn. After blaming the failure to indict a man who shot at an unarmed teenager twelve times on social media, they proceeded to protect their own stuff while totally abandoning any pretense of protecting anyone locally. The failures of the Ferguson and St. Louis County police departments are so legion, so flagrant, and so damaging that multiple people involved in them should never hold jobs in authority again. Their treatment of those doing their job for them only exemplifies what has been a clown car.

In light of that, is it any wonder that the Oath Keepers – at heart, an anti-government organization that is convinced martial law is imminent – would show up? This isn’t just why they were conceived; it proves all of their fears, all of their statements, and all of their actions to be legitimate, or at the very least to have a degree of truth to them. “The government is against the people!” isn’t just the cry of a guy who failed Western Civ; in this case, it’s a provable fact. The police in this area have shown more effort in going after football players than they have in any form of police work.

In striking down the Oath Keepers, the local authorities might have made them more powerful than they could ever imagine. I expect membership to spike, hard.

Christopher Bowen covered the video games industry for eight years before moving onto politics and general interest. He is the Editor in Chief of Gaming Bus, and has worked for Diehard GameFan, Daily Games News, TalkingAboutGames.com and has freelanced elsewhere. He is a “liberaltarian” – a liberal libertarian. A network engineer by trade, he lives in Derby CT.

5 Thoughts On Ferguson And Mike Brown

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As the country has watched the events unfold in Ferguson over the past week, we have been horrified by the rioting and the wanton destruction of property in the wake of the grand jury’s decision to not indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson on criminal charges for the shooting of Michael Brown. Tempers have been flaring as people have taken to social media to argue their side of the case. I’ve been trying to figure out what to write on this and putting together what to say on this. So here we go:

1) The Grand Jury Came To The Right Decision

After looking at the evidence, here’s what we have essentially; some eyewitness testimony that claimed Mike Brown was essentially murdered by Darren Wilson, most of which was proven false; Officer Wilson’s version of events; eyewitnesses that corroborate Wilson’s events; and finally an autopsy and forensic evidence which also corroborate Officer Wilson’s version of events that showed a struggle for his gun and that Brown was shot in the front.

Given all of this, there was no basis for an indictment for anything. Even if he was indicted, there was no basis for a conviction so a trial would’ve simply been a waste of taxpayer money.

2) Having Said That, There Should’ve Been A Special Prosecutor Appointed In This Case

I agree with Stephen Littau that the outrage here is not that the grand jury was through in the Darren Wilson case, it’s that they indict everyone else. No wonder why many people protesting can see a possible conflict of interest.

If it’s even possible to appoint a special prosecutor, this is such a case. It may have lessoned the charges of impropriety and conflict of interest.

Criticizing the process is not grounds for calling for an indictment though, it’s just grounds for calling for a special prosecutor. I think the special prosecutor would’ve come to the same conclusion as this prosecutor and grand jury did.

3) Anyone Calling For Violence Or Making Excuses For It Is Disgusting And Morally Rephrensible

One of the things that has been disturbing in this case is the calls to violence in the media. An anarchist magazine says we need to stop “riot shaming.” An op-ed writer in Time wrote a defense of rioting. A libertarian blogger called the rioting and violence “just and necessary.”

These people and others like them who are supporting the riots are disgusting. There is no excuse for the destruction of private property and businesses. These riots have runied the livilihoods of the employees and business people, most of whom are black. These people didn’t kill Michael Brown.

A brief look around shows that there are non-violent alternatives to pursue change. Civil rights laws were enacted in the 1960s and legislation defending the right to vote was enacted as a part of it. If you want to change the law and how policing is done, get out there organize and vote for candidates who agree with you.

4) Ferguson Not Only Demonstrated The Worst Of America, But The Best Of America As Well

Enough about the riots. Let’s talk about how people have come together in the aftermath. One of the businesses destroyed in the Ferguson riots was a black-owned bakery. They’ve raised $200,000 in donations from a GoFundMe page to enable them to rebuild. The store that Michael Brown allegedly robbed before his encounter with Officer Wilson was also looted. They too have setup a GoFundMe page which has raised almost $25,000 in two days. Please give some money to them.

The people that gave money to these two minority business owners were of all races and creeds. The attempt by many of the Ferguson rioters to start a race war failed miserably.

Other Ferguson businesses have setup GoFundMe pages and in a future post, probably tomorrow, I will feature everyone I can find. Let the best of America outshine the worst of America.

5) Although Mike Brown Is Not The Proper Poster Boy For Corrupt And Racist Policing, We Need To Address Police Brutality

Mike Brown most likely died assualting a police officer and going for his gun. Darren Wilson most likely did nothing wrong when he killed Michael Brown. However, police brutality is a real problem, especially in minority communities.

We need to ask ourselves why African-Americans are so afraid of law enforcement and work together to change it. We also need to end or rein in police militarization and the Federal government does need to get involved to create stricter oversight of local police departments. There will most likely always be police officers who abuse their authority, but right now we have too many on the force. We’re not going to solve this by blocking freeways, annoying Black Friday shoppers, and rioting; we’re only going to solve this by dialogue.

In the end, what we have here is a tragedy all around. An 18 year old young man is dead and regardless of the circumstances, it’s still a tragedy. We have a police officer who had to take that young man’s life. I hope and pray that the family of Michael Brown and Officer Darren Wilson find peace. I pray that the business owners of Ferguson have their shops restored and I pray for peace and more importantly, for understanding and that out of this tragedy, some change that ensures something like this never happens again.

I’m one of the original co-founders of The Liberty Papers all the way back in 2005. Since then, I wound up doing this blogging thing professionally. Now I’m running the site now. You can find my other work at The Hayride.com and Rare. You can also find me over at the R Street Institute.

Quote of the Day: Grand Jury Decision Aftermath Edition

Scott Shackford over at Reason made an excellent point in the wake of the grand jury decision finding insufficient probable cause to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the killing of Michael Brown.

Based on the information [St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Robert P.] McCulloch described tonight it may seem unlikely Wilson would have convicted, and perhaps that would have been the right decision by a criminal jury. That raises yet another question, though: Should we be upset at the amount of deference and effort made to find reasons not to indict Wilson in this case or should we be upset that the same doesn’t happen to the rest of us? Is the outrage that a grand jury didn’t indict Wilson or is the outrage that the grand jury indicts just about everybody else?

As far as I’m concerned, my outrage is that grand juries indicts just about everybody else. This jury heard the evidence with all the conflicting testimony and the rest of us have not. I cannot say whether this is a just outcome or not and neither can anyone else at this point. We will most likely never know for sure what happened that fateful day.

I imagine that at least a few of the protesters in Ferguson who have themselves (or know someone who has) been indicted with very little evidence then either strongly encouraged to take a plea deal or were convicted. It’s not to hard to see why some might feel that the criminal justice system works one way for the police and a different way for everyone else, regardless of the specific circumstances in this case (the specific circumstances in this case being all the grand jury should have been concerned about).

Quote of the Day: #Ferguson Edition

Here’s a great observation for Lucy Steigerwald writing from Rare:

Whether the shooting of Brown by Wilson was justified or not, it’s important to remember that there were good reasons people distrusted the Ferguson police’s narrative of events.

Police did everything wrong after Brown was killed. They left his body in the street, they refused to answer questions or identify the officer. They used military tech to answer the protests that resulted. They repeatedly teargassed crowds, arresting peaceful protesters and members of the media.

Officer Darren Wilson shouldn’t be punished for the impression that people — especially minorities — have of the police. If he doesn’t deserve prosecution, he shouldn’t be prosecuted. Whether he deserves harsh, little, or no punishment is still up for debate.

Read the whole thing. The entire article is worth quoting but I thought I would just wet your beak.

President Obama Appoints Drug War Opponent To Head DOJ’s Civil Rights Division

President Obama has appointed attorney Vanita Gupta to head the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. What should be of interest is Ms. Gupta’s opposition to the Drug War and calls for prison reform.

Reason has more:

A drug-war denouncing, prison-reform crusading, longtime civil-rights attorney is President Obama’s new pick to head the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Venita Gupta, 39, will take over as acting assistant attorney general for civil rights next week, and the White House will likely propose making it permanent within the next few months, according to The Washington Post.

Gupta has called the drug war “disastrous”, the asset forfeiture program “broken”, and police militarization “out of control”. She supports marijuana decriminalization and eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing. “It’s time for states to end the costly criminalization of marijuana and recalibrate sentencing laws so that the punishment actually fits the crime as opposed to a politician’s reelection agenda,” she wrote in a September op-ed for CNN.

This is a positive step from an administration that has been all talk on drug policy. While it is unknown if Gupta supports legalization, even just moving towards an approach of decriminalization, eliminating mandatory minimums, and reining in police militarization and the asset forfeiture program would be a very big positive step for civil liberties.

There has been one positive to the Eric Holder Justice Department, which is that the Holder Justice Department has been relentless in launching civil rights investigations in response to police brutality committed by local law enforcement. Gupta’s record and previous writings show that she would be as aggressive in this role as her predecessor, which is a very good thing.

All in all, this is a very good appointment by the Obama Administration that should be praised by anyone concerned with civil liberties.

I’m one of the original co-founders of The Liberty Papers all the way back in 2005. Since then, I wound up doing this blogging thing professionally. Now I’m running the site now. You can find my other work at The Hayride.com and Rare. You can also find me over at the R Street Institute.
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