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The above
photo represents an assault on the Bill of Rights
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An Open Letter To Missouri
Governor Nixon from 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.
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 Such outdated tactics fail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. And a
properly trained and disciplined professional keeps his rifle pointed
down, where it is pointed in a safe direction but still ready to bring
up on target within a second at close range, and it stays pointed down
unless and until he identifies an actual lethal threat, while he uses
his presence and voice, first and foremost, to control the situation -
all without covering anyone with his muzzle.
Such
over-the-top threatening displays, with rifles pointed-in
indiscriminately at protesters and residents, only anger and frighten
the people and reinforce the perception that it is "the police vs.
the people" rather than the police vs. a small number of
criminals, while risking the lives of the very people our police are
supposed to be serving.
And
much like over-the top and indiscriminate threat displays and use of
force in Iraq lost the hearts and minds of the locals, so too does it
lose the battle for hearts and minds here at home - assisting in the
agendas of those who wish to divide us along racial lines and create an
"us vs. them" mentality among both the people and the police.
The
overt displays of heavily armed officers lined up to intimidate the
crowds were also tactically unsound for the officers themselves,
leaving them exposed in the streets. The more skilled the
opposition, the more such tactics fail. So far, it has only been
random, inaccurate, handgun fire directed at the police in Ferguson,
not rifle fire. Against rifle fire, a long line of exposed
officers standing in the open would be a disaster for the police.
One active duty police sergeant told us, "I don't want my guys
stationary - they just become targets for the thugs throwing bricks and
taking pot shots at us with their pistols." The analysts in
our group take this kind of feedback from the rank-and-file very
seriously, and you should too. And, again, it doesn't get the job
done. It doesn't secure the arrest of those who are looting and
shooting. It leaves the officers exposed while it only punishes
and threatens those who are there to protest - those who are not
looting and shooting.
Likewise
for the imposition of curfews, which violate the right of the people to
peaceably assemble, while also failing to stop the looters and shooters
who ignore such decrees. The First Amendment prohibits
"abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of
the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a
redress of grievances" period. It doesn't add on
"unless a politician declares a state of emergency and imposes a
curfew." Nor does it say "unless other people are
looting and being violent, in which case all of you lose your right to
peaceably assemble." Curfews punish the peaceable majority
for the actions of a violent few, and again, alienate the community and
send the message that the police see them all as the enemy and seek to
trample on the rights of all of them.
The
local police are capable of handling the current situation in a way
that both respects the rights of the people and gets the actual
criminals off the streets, but only if a paradigm shift in strategy and
tactics can be made. The leadership, starting with you, Gov.
Nixon, and on down the chain of command, must make the changes that are
needed to bring sane, effective, and constitutional policing to this
situation.
A
Constitutional and Effective Strategy
One
retired Special Forces veteran in our group suggested that instead of
grouping the police officers in large blocks (50 to 100 men),
that you should break up these groups into rapid reaction teams
of 20 to 25 officers and disperse them, staging them in places spread
around Ferguson, with a focus on the looters, not the protesters.
Our intelligence and police veterans concurred, and added that you
should also task some officers to go out in street clothes to blend in
to the crowds and work as Scouts, identifying threats and
looters. The plainclothes Scouts should be directing the rapid
reaction teams to protect the businesses from the ongoing crime, and
refocus the police assets away from unconstitutional activities like
shooting CS gas at peaceful protesters and enforcing curfews, and get
to the business of putting the real criminals behind bars.
If you think you need more minority officers for this role, you could
easily find them in the St. Louis County Police Department, St. Charles
County Sheriff Department, and other local municipal police
departments. The plainclothes officers can identify and locate
the trouble-makers and their caches and resources, such as gas cans and
bottles for Molotov cocktails, bricks, etc., and they can also film the
trouble-makers in support of later arrests and prosecutions.
Those
plainclothes Scouts can also be directly backed up by small teams of
five to seven additional plainclothes officers to take down identified
looters in a manner that uses minimum force along with effective
surprise applied only to the actual suspected looter. And those
plainclothes small reaction teams can be further backed up by the
uniformed rapid response teams, if needed, as they apprehend the
looters and shooters. If possible, each officer should have
a small, discrete camera - such as a badge camera - pinned to their
clothing and running at all times, so that there is a recording of all
that occurs.
An
additional recommendation from one of our members was that, rather than
closing portions of West Florrisant Avenue and ordering protesters to
disperse, officers could place cones on the street to reserve the
center lane for police use only (warning that any others entering that
lane will be arrested), staging officers at various points along that
center lane and using it for police vehicles, while leaving traffic
free to move North and South (with appropriate turn lanes
interspersed), leaving the sidewalks open for protesters and media, and
not trying to confine either to any particular area. That
preserves the middle lane for police to move freely back and forth
along that critical two mile stretch while not restricting free speech
and assembly rights.
The
initial response of the Highway Patrol, to deescalate and demilitarize
the situation, was on the right track. However, it also failed to
secure the arrest of the looters. In fact, officers were
explicitly told to not go after the looters. De-escalating of
militarized policing against peaceful protesters was a good idea.
But the "de-escalation" toward the looters and shooters -
intentionally NOT going after them - was insane and failed to protect
the people and businesses of Ferguson. Backing off and letting
the looters run free failed to solve the problem and actually made it
worse, with the success of the looters drawing trouble-makers from all
over the country, who came to Ferguson to loot and shoot and incite
more violence. As evidence of the failure, we now have local
business owners having to hire private security to protect them from
looting because the police in their community are failing to do so.
De-escalation
and demilitarization must go hand-in-hand with effective policing that
stops the looters and shooters. The officers must be told that if
they see an act of looting or violence, they must arrest that
man. That needs to be the policy from the beginning to the
end. Again, we recommend the use of plainclothes officers and
small reaction teams to effectively arrest looters and shooters while
respecting the rights of the peaceable protesters.
With
hundreds of criminals stealing the businesses of Ferguson blind and
damaging private property, how many arrests of actual looters took
place? The percentage is embarrassing (and arrests of
otherwise peaceful protesters for "failure to disperse" or
"failure to keep moving" don't count). The Highway
Patrol's tactics did not work, and it is time to admit it.
It was a mistake to remove St. Louis County from a command role.
Instead, Governor, you should have directed them to use their
considerable assets to go after the looters while respecting the right
of the people to peaceably assemble.
Likewise,
bringing the National Guard in for "force protection" secured
the Command Location, but what about all the other locations where
people's lives were being destroyed? The National Guard was not
the answer. Effective, smart, focused policing was. You did
the right thing by finally pulling the National Guard back out.
Now you just need to direct the application of effective, focused
policing.
We
need officers focused on looters, not on bullying the media and
protesters. We need officers to put violent criminals in jail,
not shoot tear gas and rubber bullets at reporters too ignorant to not
shine lights in the officers' eyes while they are trying to work.
We need a Governor smart enough to reject the riot control tactics
developed before cell phones - tactics that are now failing
catastrophically - and smart enough to not try to stifle free speech
and violate our Bill of Rights. We need a Governor to show enough
wisdom to lead our state by the Constitution rather than against it
with ineffective abuses like curfews. Governor Nixon, tell us you
are wise enough to defeat the criminals without violating our rights.
No, SHOW us you are wise enough to change your failing tactics and
demand from your men that they discern between peaceful protesters and
looting thugs. SHOW US, you will protect the rights of the FREE
PRESS and have the courage to demand your officers arrest the real bad
guys. Stop gassing the innocent and start arresting the
looters!
Wisdom
and discernment will go a long way on the streets of Ferguson, and it
is time you focus the police on putting real criminals behind bars, not
reporters and peaceful protesters. It is time the people of
Ferguson look up and see a beautiful moon, instead of a cloud of smoke
and tear gas. Truth demands change.
A
Critical Warning
In
closing, we must warn you that you are making a grave mistake by
continuing the pattern of militarization and abuse of rights that we
saw during Occupy Wall Street (with curfews imposed on peaceful
protesters, who were wrongly ordered to disperse and then
pepper-sprayed at point-blank range); with the egregious death of
Marine combat veteran Jose Guerena at the hands of a Tucson SWAT team
while serving a mere search warrant; during the response to the Boston
Bombing (with families being ordered out of their homes at gun-point,
with many veterans telling us that the people of Iraq were treated with
more respect and consideration than they saw in Watertown,
Massachusetts); and with the recent horrendous use of "First
Amendment Areas," military trained snipers, and militarized,
heavy-handed Federal law enforcement at Bundy Ranch in Bunkerville,
Nevada that galvanized veterans from all across America to travel there
to prevent that ranching family from being "Waco'd" (with the
Washington Times later disclosing that the Obama Administration did, in
fact, consider using military force against the Bundy family and their
supporters, but thankfully decided not to). Those examples only
scratch the surface of a systemic problem that has been ratcheting up
over the years in nearly every community in America, as Washington Post
journalist Radley Balko has exhaustively documented.
The
rapidly escalating militarization of America's police is fundamentally
incompatible with our Constitution and incompatible with a free nation,
and inevitably leads to violence against We the People and gross
violations of our rights, for which so many of our brothers have
fought, bled, and died throughout this nation's history.
For
us, this is not about race. This is about defending the Bill of
Rights, which is a shield against government abuse that is meant to
protect ALL Americans, of whatever color. Those of us who served
as Marine or Army infantry learned to see only one color: green.
Some of our brothers in our fire-teams and squads were dark green,
while others were medium or light green, but they were all our brothers,
and in combat, they all bled the same color - red - in defense of this
nation and in defense of the Constitution, which each of us swore an
oath to defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And the
same can be said for those constitutional Sheriffs and police officers
among us who still know what it means to be a peace officer, not a
"law enforcer."
The
militarization of our police is not a "black problem."
It's an American problem, and it affects all of us. Senator Rand
Paul is right. We must demilitarize our police. Governor
Nixon, you stand at a critical moment in history. You must
reverse course and set the example for other states to follow, to
demilitarize our police and bring police methods back within the bounds
of the Constitution. A failure to do so will further place
millions of us American veterans who still take our oaths seriously on
a fateful collision course with a burgeoning police state that is going
down the same road that other nations have traveled, with tragic ends.
Our
grandfathers and fathers fought against totalitarian police states
overseas. Please don't force us to fight against one here at
home. Demilitarize the police now, and let us all live in
peace under the Constitution, with liberty, and justice, for all.
Missouri Oath Keepers
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