White Nationalist Terrorism

[cradleandshoot]

No surprise here, cops and military full of bigots

https://apnews.com/article/oath-keepers ... f98f3e5a26

The names of hundreds of U.S. law enforcement officers, elected officials and military members appear on the leaked membership rolls of a far-right extremist group that’s accused of playing a key role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to a report released Wednesday.

The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism pored over more than 38,000 names on leaked Oath Keepers membership lists and identified more than 370 people it believes currently work in law enforcement agencies — including as police chiefs and sheriffs — and more than 100 people who are currently members of the military.

So is their any evidence in particular against any of the people that they were involved in the protest of 1/6? You may despise these people but unless your active duty military you still have your rights granted to you under the 1st amendment? If you have the right to burn our flag in public you have the same right to belong to whatever unpopular group that you choose to. You can't have it both ways. That is what freedom of speech looks like in a free country. When whatever group conspires to commit violence to advance their cause, then the rules have changed.

I think the accusation is that the organization, which is avowedly bigoted and anti-government, include a whole lot of police and military, including quite a few in significant positions of authority. 370 from law enforcement. And that's just one organization.

And yeah, that organization communicated, from the top, about their plans for Jan 6...

Americans do have the right to be bigoted, but do we really want them in our police forces? Do we care that they're part of an organization that actively participated in the worst of the violence on Jan 6 ?

Now, if someone had joined the organization thinking its principles were quite different and then who resigned from the org after seeing the org be part of Jan 6, ok, mistake corrected...but if not?

Would you have been cool with all the sheriffs and police officers and elected officials in the KKK during Jim Crow?

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate ... th-keepers

The question is, aside from having/creating a zero tolerance policy and I’m not sure what the tolerance would be of exactly, is this a big story that +/- 1% of this group is govt officials and law enforcement? Would we expect to have more, less or around 1% of those groups to be comprised of people who are problematic or challenged?

In other words before this story if you asked me what proportion of people of these professions/jobs had associations and philosophies contrary to their jobs and the functioning of their organizations I would’ve guessed higher than 1%. Polling margin of errors is 3-5%, slippage in retail or manufacturing is higher than 1%.

I’m not saying it’s nothing or good but I don’t learn anything really new finding out that 379/38,000 is in these seats for their work. It certainly wouldn’t imply some effort to “infiltrate” certain areas of govt though you could thne make the case if it were truly rifle shot targeted to the most influential seats (key city police in like major metros of swing states or things of that nature).

Of course it’s maybe something to be monitored but not sure any action should be taken absent specific acts that justify it. Their in the seats now and presumably didn’t actively conceal their affiliation but tweaking hiring and promotion policies are probably worth considering and if these folks violate their positions theyre affiliation is certainly context for adjudication of punishment.

It's actually a much lower percentage (assuming that's all) of the organization than how it's described in Wikipedia based on prior research. that said, prior research indicated a much lower # of members...it's quite possible that they've attracted a heck of a lot of new recruits. Ferguson was a big recruiting moment for them.

Oath Keepers is an American far-right[1] anti-government militia[1][3] whose members claim to be defending the Constitution of the United States.[4] It was incorporated in 2009 by founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes, a lawyer and former paratrooper.

The group encourages its members to disobey orders which they believe would violate the U.S. Constitution. Research on their membership determined that two-thirds of the Oath Keepers are former military or law enforcement, and one tenth are active duty military or law enforcement. Most research determined the Oath Keeper membership to be approximately 5,000 members, while leaked data showed Oath Keeper rosters claiming membership of 38,000.[5][6][7][8]

Several organizations that monitor U.S. domestic terrorism and hate groups describe the Oath Keepers as a far-right extremist or radical group.[1][9] In 2015, Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) described the group as "heavily armed extremists with a conspiratorial and anti-government mindset looking for potential showdowns with the government".[10][11] According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the group's leadership has ties to antigovernment, extremist groups and espouses a number of conspiracy and legal theories associated with the sovereign citizen movement and posse comitatus movement, chiefly, that sheriffs are the highest law enforcement authorities in the United States.[12][13][14][15] Former SPLC senior fellow Mark Potok describes the group as "an anti-government group who believe in a wild set of conspiracy theories".[16] The FBI describes the Oath Keepers as a "paramilitary organization" and a "large but loosely organized collection of militia who believe that the federal government has been coopted by a shadowy conspiracy that is trying to strip American citizens of their rights."

Oath Keepers were present wearing military fatigues during the 2014 and 2015 unrest in Ferguson, Missouri[18][19][20] when members armed with semi-automatic rifles roamed streets and rooftops.[21][22]

Multiple members of the group participated in the January 6 United States Capitol attack. By September 2021, twenty members had been indicted for federal criminal offenses, with four pleading guilty.[23][24]

The organization was subpoenaed by the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack in November 2021. Eleven members of the organization, including its founder and leader Stewart Rhodes, were indicted for seditious conspiracy in January 2022.[25] By late April 2022, 2 of those 11 indicted Oath Keepers had pled guilty to seditious conspiracy,[26] and another member who had not been named in the initial indictment pled guilty to the same charges on May 4, 2022.[27][17]

Note that this doesn't mean that active law enforcement and military have high percentages of these folks, but also note that this is just one such organization. That said, they say that they actively target recruitment of law enforcement and military, though mostly former not active.

I'm only arguing that they shouldn't be allowed to be active law enforcement or military. That's a few hundred a-holes from this org, maybe a few thousand across the board...recruit and pay well those who aren't these sorts of a-holes.

So the FLP a-holes at the SPLC should decide and pass judgement on American citizens? They are entitled to their opinion but who the eff died and left them in charge of anything??? Let me know MD when you sign up for a ride along with the Baltimore police. You can express your feelings to the officers and enlighten them as to how they should be thinking. I'm sure they will appreciate your input.

So are the oath keepers more of a danger to America than say a FLP group of scum called ANTIFA? If a police officer has allegiance to ANTIFA does that also ruffle your feathers? BTW, is it illegal to be an oath keeper? I would never agree with their philosophy any more than I would agree with radical groups that take great pleasure in burning our flag in public or shouting " pigs in a blanket fry em like bacon" at a parade. I do know you are very picky about what vile and disgusting behavior gets your attention. Please spare me your typical patronizing bullchit response. No need to waste your time.

The SPLC are "a-holes"???
really, that's your carefully considered view?

No, I definitely would not be ok with someone who declared themselves members of Antifa, claiming that they should use violence to oppose fascist violence, to be on the police force.

I may sympathize with the Antifa point of view more than the Oath Keepers, and I could argue that Antifa is not "anti-government", but it's not ok to be violent. Outside the law and that conflicts with law enforcement job.

But yeah, the Oath Keepers is darn easy no-go.

Anti Fascists are the bad guys.

Now there is a tough call. Fascists or FLP liberal terrorists? I guess you need to flip a coin.

[MDlaxfan76]

No surprise here, cops and military full of bigots

https://apnews.com/article/oath-keepers ... f98f3e5a26

The names of hundreds of U.S. law enforcement officers, elected officials and military members appear on the leaked membership rolls of a far-right extremist group that’s accused of playing a key role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to a report released Wednesday.

The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism pored over more than 38,000 names on leaked Oath Keepers membership lists and identified more than 370 people it believes currently work in law enforcement agencies — including as police chiefs and sheriffs — and more than 100 people who are currently members of the military.

So is their any evidence in particular against any of the people that they were involved in the protest of 1/6? You may despise these people but unless your active duty military you still have your rights granted to you under the 1st amendment? If you have the right to burn our flag in public you have the same right to belong to whatever unpopular group that you choose to. You can't have it both ways. That is what freedom of speech looks like in a free country. When whatever group conspires to commit violence to advance their cause, then the rules have changed.

I think the accusation is that the organization, which is avowedly bigoted and anti-government, include a whole lot of police and military, including quite a few in significant positions of authority. 370 from law enforcement. And that's just one organization.

And yeah, that organization communicated, from the top, about their plans for Jan 6...

Americans do have the right to be bigoted, but do we really want them in our police forces? Do we care that they're part of an organization that actively participated in the worst of the violence on Jan 6 ?

Now, if someone had joined the organization thinking its principles were quite different and then who resigned from the org after seeing the org be part of Jan 6, ok, mistake corrected...but if not?

Would you have been cool with all the sheriffs and police officers and elected officials in the KKK during Jim Crow?

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate ... th-keepers

The question is, aside from having/creating a zero tolerance policy and I’m not sure what the tolerance would be of exactly, is this a big story that +/- 1% of this group is govt officials and law enforcement? Would we expect to have more, less or around 1% of those groups to be comprised of people who are problematic or challenged?

In other words before this story if you asked me what proportion of people of these professions/jobs had associations and philosophies contrary to their jobs and the functioning of their organizations I would’ve guessed higher than 1%. Polling margin of errors is 3-5%, slippage in retail or manufacturing is higher than 1%.

I’m not saying it’s nothing or good but I don’t learn anything really new finding out that 379/38,000 is in these seats for their work. It certainly wouldn’t imply some effort to “infiltrate” certain areas of govt though you could thne make the case if it were truly rifle shot targeted to the most influential seats (key city police in like major metros of swing states or things of that nature).

Of course it’s maybe something to be monitored but not sure any action should be taken absent specific acts that justify it. Their in the seats now and presumably didn’t actively conceal their affiliation but tweaking hiring and promotion policies are probably worth considering and if these folks violate their positions theyre affiliation is certainly context for adjudication of punishment.

It's actually a much lower percentage (assuming that's all) of the organization than how it's described in Wikipedia based on prior research. that said, prior research indicated a much lower # of members...it's quite possible that they've attracted a heck of a lot of new recruits. Ferguson was a big recruiting moment for them.

Oath Keepers is an American far-right[1] anti-government militia[1][3] whose members claim to be defending the Constitution of the United States.[4] It was incorporated in 2009 by founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes, a lawyer and former paratrooper.

The group encourages its members to disobey orders which they believe would violate the U.S. Constitution. Research on their membership determined that two-thirds of the Oath Keepers are former military or law enforcement, and one tenth are active duty military or law enforcement. Most research determined the Oath Keeper membership to be approximately 5,000 members, while leaked data showed Oath Keeper rosters claiming membership of 38,000.[5][6][7][8]

Several organizations that monitor U.S. domestic terrorism and hate groups describe the Oath Keepers as a far-right extremist or radical group.[1][9] In 2015, Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) described the group as "heavily armed extremists with a conspiratorial and anti-government mindset looking for potential showdowns with the government".[10][11] According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the group's leadership has ties to antigovernment, extremist groups and espouses a number of conspiracy and legal theories associated with the sovereign citizen movement and posse comitatus movement, chiefly, that sheriffs are the highest law enforcement authorities in the United States.[12][13][14][15] Former SPLC senior fellow Mark Potok describes the group as "an anti-government group who believe in a wild set of conspiracy theories".[16] The FBI describes the Oath Keepers as a "paramilitary organization" and a "large but loosely organized collection of militia who believe that the federal government has been coopted by a shadowy conspiracy that is trying to strip American citizens of their rights."

Oath Keepers were present wearing military fatigues during the 2014 and 2015 unrest in Ferguson, Missouri[18][19][20] when members armed with semi-automatic rifles roamed streets and rooftops.[21][22]

Multiple members of the group participated in the January 6 United States Capitol attack. By September 2021, twenty members had been indicted for federal criminal offenses, with four pleading guilty.[23][24]

The organization was subpoenaed by the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack in November 2021. Eleven members of the organization, including its founder and leader Stewart Rhodes, were indicted for seditious conspiracy in January 2022.[25] By late April 2022, 2 of those 11 indicted Oath Keepers had pled guilty to seditious conspiracy,[26] and another member who had not been named in the initial indictment pled guilty to the same charges on May 4, 2022.[27][17]

Note that this doesn't mean that active law enforcement and military have high percentages of these folks, but also note that this is just one such organization. That said, they say that they actively target recruitment of law enforcement and military, though mostly former not active.

I'm only arguing that they shouldn't be allowed to be active law enforcement or military. That's a few hundred a-holes from this org, maybe a few thousand across the board...recruit and pay well those who aren't these sorts of a-holes.

So the FLP a-holes at the SPLC should decide and pass judgement on American citizens? They are entitled to their opinion but who the eff died and left them in charge of anything??? Let me know MD when you sign up for a ride along with the Baltimore police. You can express your feelings to the officers and enlighten them as to how they should be thinking. I'm sure they will appreciate your input.

So are the oath keepers more of a danger to America than say a FLP group of scum called ANTIFA? If a police officer has allegiance to ANTIFA does that also ruffle your feathers? BTW, is it illegal to be an oath keeper? I would never agree with their philosophy any more than I would agree with radical groups that take great pleasure in burning our flag in public or shouting " pigs in a blanket fry em like bacon" at a parade. I do know you are very picky about what vile and disgusting behavior gets your attention. Please spare me your typical patronizing bullchit response. No need to waste your time.

The SPLC are "a-holes"???
really, that's your carefully considered view?

No, I definitely would not be ok with someone who declared themselves members of Antifa, claiming that they should use violence to oppose fascist violence, to be on the police force.

I may sympathize with the Antifa point of view more than the Oath Keepers, and I could argue that Antifa is not "anti-government", but it's not ok to be violent. Outside the law and that conflicts with law enforcement job.

But yeah, the Oath Keepers is darn easy no-go.

Yes the SPLC has evolved into a FLP chitshow. The SPLC use to be about getting justice. They are nothing more than a shell of what they use to be. While your peeing in your pants about police who may be members of an organization you disagree with the real problem escapes you. The real problem is why there is not ongoing evaluations from local PD departments on how the officers patrolling streets are dealing with what can only be described as PTSD. My nephew was one of those officers. He joined the RPD in 2006. He was sworn in the last class of officers while Bob Duffy was still chief of police. He was one of those naive young new officers who was a white suburban kid who wanted to be a police officer to help people. Long story short 5 years later he was a mental basket case. He was almost shot in the head, assaulted and beaten up on numerous occasions, had a drunken old man in front of a corner bodega smash a bottle in his face. Five years later he learned all of the racist traits you opine about all the time. He became a borderline alcoholic who has a couple of suicide attempts under his belt. He lives in Las Vegas now on full disability from the RPD. His hair is down to his waist and he is a big time pot head who enjoys playing hockey with his friends. He will never be the young rookie officer that just wanted to protect and serve. He will spend the rest of his life as a hot mess that struggles every day with his contempt for the people he wanted so much to help. I ask you again to volunteer for a ride a long with the Baltimore police. If your lucky maybe you will witness a crime scene when nobody at the crime scene saw anything. Your all paranoid in the abstract about police officers who don't conform to your high expectations. You completely ignore how so many of these officers deal with the everyday mayhem on the streets and not allow it to affect their personal opinions of the people they serve and what it takes as a police officer to deal with the frustration of being hated and disrespected by the people you swore an oath to protect. You remember those humiliating videos of officers having buckets of water dumped on them while being laughed at and ridiculed by the amused crowds watching it happen. You probably missed that because you were hip deep in concern about what officers might be oath keepers. Go for a ride a long. I'm sure the Baltimore police will appreciate all of your opinions.

cradle, you've previously told us about your nephew. I'll stay out of his and your personal life.

First, I think you're out of your friggin' mind isf you think the SPLC are not credible.

Second, I couldn't be more clear that the job of a police officer is darn hard, full of risk, and requires really good mental stability given the authority they hold and the gun they carry. I have a good HS friend who has served for more than 30 years on a major city police force. Tough job. Another HS friend has been a judge in a big city, dealing with criminal violence of all sorts.

I want people attracted, recruited, trained, supported, and paid well to do those jobs.
But no anti-government racists should be handed a gun (or deciding cases) and told to deal with the public.

simple.

BTW, we don't pay police enough. Same for teachers.

[CU88]

This entitled cop got a ten hour suspension for posting this "PSA" rant.

https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/fede ... tok-video/

She has been "on the job" for just over 1 month!

[PizzaSnake]

This entitled cop got a ten hour suspension for posting this "PSA" rant.

https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/fede ... tok-video/

She has been "on the job" for just over 1 month!

‘If us officers stay behind you long enough, we can find a reason to pull you over.”‘

Odd, I only had to listen to that small sample and I can think of a reason to kick her rump.

[PizzaSnake]

Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. No issues.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... remacists/

I'm sure local authorities knew nothing, nothing, about this little paradise.

"OKLAHOMA CITY — The caller had news but warned LaVonne Harris not to get her hopes up.

Harris’s son, 33-year-old Nathan Smith, had vanished along a dirt road in Oklahoma one freezing night more than two years earlier. Detectives had long stopped checking in with her, and Harris could feel her search growing lonelier with each passing month.

The call in April, from an advocate for families of the missing, wasn’t encouraging, but it was a lead: Authorities in rural Logan County, just north of here, had discovered human remains belonging to more than one person. Also, the caller added delicately, the remains weren’t intact.

Harris, 58, sat down to steady herself. She listened, then hung up to tell her daughter.

“I said, ‘Lou, they found these bodies,’ ” Harris recalled. “ ‘They’ve been burned and cut.’ ”

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Smith is among a dozen or more people who have disappeared in recent years from the wooded, unincorporated terrain outside the Oklahoma City metro area, a rural haven for drug traffickers. Some families said they’re scared to call police or even to put up “missing person” signs because they suspect the involvement of violent white-supremacist prison gangs.


Compound detail

Entrance lined with metal walls

35

Guthrie

Compound

Edmond

44

35

Oklahoma City

40

100 FEET

5 MILES

Sources: Google Maps (satellite image), OpenStreetMap

DYLAN MORIARTY/THE WASHINGTON POST

In April, authorities acting on a tip said they found charred piles of wood and bone on a five-acre patch of Logan County, opening one of the grisliest and most sensitive criminal investigations in Oklahoma’s recent history.

Behind the 10-foot metal walls of a compound with links to the Universal Aryan Brotherhood, a white-supremacist prison gang, officers found what they believe to be a body dumping ground where multiple people ended up dismembered and burned, according to four Oklahoma officials with knowledge of the investigation. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the extraordinary security precautions around the case.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, or OSBI, which is leading the multiagency state and federal probe, confirms that remains have been found but will not say how many. An April 29 report in the Oklahoman newspaper — the first news of the discovery — quoted the state medical examiner and other sources as saying agents were investigating “whether a white supremacist prison gang is behind nine or more disappearances” after the discovery of “the comingled remains of possibly three people.” The report said remains also were found at a second site, near an oil well about 18 miles away in the tiny town of Luther.

In Oklahoma, the 1995 bombing offers lessons — and warnings — for today’s fight against extremism

Four months later, the scope of the case remains murky. A law enforcement official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said they were informed the count was up to “12 different DNA profiles.” One family of a missing person said they were told of eight; another heard about three.

The OSBI has taken significant steps to keep the investigation opaque, including advising families of the missing to stay quiet.

“We’re just trying to keep some people alive at this point,” a second official said, describing the struggle to protect potential witnesses.

That level of danger is a jarring reminder of the unseen threat of white-supremacist prison gangs, whose leaders run crime syndicates from behind bars through a network of “enforcers” on the outside, according to extremism monitors and Justice Department court filings.

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The gangs have carried out hate-fueled attacks both in and out of prison, with the bulk of their free-world violence targeting rivals and informants, authorities say. Because the gangs typically keep their business within the criminal underground, the attacks go largely undiscussed in the broader national conversation about rising violence by far-right groups.

Oklahoma is a “problem state,” with at least five significant white-supremacist prison gangs, said Mark Pitcavage, an Anti-Defamation League researcher who has monitored the groups for decades. He co-authored a 2016 study that called prison gangs the fastest-growing and deadliest sector of the U.S. white-supremacist movement, noting that they “combine the criminal intent and know-how of organized crime with the racism and hate of white supremacy, making them twice as dangerous.”


Trailers sit in the yard of the Logan County compound where, officials say, authorities found what they believe are human remains in April. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)
The Logan County investigation, authorities say, involves one of the most ruthless of the gangs: the Universal Aryan Brotherhood, also known as the UAB.

One of the main UAB “shot-callers,” authorities say, is 57-year-old Mikell “Bulldog” Smith, an inmate so violent that an Oklahoma prison report once called him “the most dangerous man in the penitentiary” and corrections officials built a special cell for him in 1989. Smith is serving life without parole for the 1985 killing of a math teacher in a robbery. Soon after arriving in prison in 1987, he stabbed a fellow inmate. Two years later, he nearly killed a prison guard by stabbing him in the heart with a blade attached to a broom handle. In 2014, Smith was convicted of choking a cellmate to death with a sheet.

Members of Smith’s extended family own various parts of the five-acre area where remains were found in Logan County. Smith’s wife, Robin, was listed as owner of the fortified compound; his brother Charles owns an adjacent property, according to sale records. Another brother, Phillip, disappeared from the county in 2020, one of the long list of cases authorities say are under review.

On Aug. 19, according to state investigators, another Smith relative, David, was arrested at the compound on charges related to a stolen vehicle and possession of a firearm by a felon.

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In the OSBI’s few public statements about the remains, there is no mention of the alleged ties to one of Oklahoma’s bloodiest prison gangs or reference to the site in Luther. The statement said only that “law enforcement from multiple agencies recovered bone fragments” in Logan County and were working to identify them and determine the cause of death.

The medical examiner’s office and law enforcement agencies involved either declined to comment on the record or never responded to queries. The OSBI declined to comment beyond its news releases.

“The investigation is very fluid and very active,” said an OSBI release dated Aug. 8. “Because of that, the volume of rumors and speculation is high. The OSBI will not comment on rumors as that can jeopardize the ongoing investigation.”

The statement said state investigators and sheriff’s offices in three counties “have been working closely with the families of the missing persons,” including collecting DNA samples to help with identification. That work will take time, the release said, because of “the physical condition of the remains recovered.”


Junk and charred garbage found during a search of a Choctaw, Okla., property after the owner received a tip that a body might be hidden on the land. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)
Buried secrets
On a scorching recent afternoon, Carol Knight looked out over her 20-acre plot in rural Choctaw, about half an hour’s drive from where the remains in Logan County were found. A successful bail bond agent, Knight bought the property in 2020 with plans to build a country dream home.

“Instead, I got a chop shop,” she said.

As Knight began clearing the land, she and her husband uncovered jaw-dropping surprises buried underground: “We dug up a car, we dug up a motorcycle. We hauled three boats off the property.” She carted off about 300 tires, apparent leftovers from cars that were “chopped” and sold for parts. Knight said she almost broke her ankle falling in a “hidey hole,” one of several camouflaged pits.

The previous residents had extensive criminal records and hung with a crowd that included known UAB associates, according to authorities and public records.

Knight said she saw the buried junk as an expensive nuisance — until she received a tip last year that a body also might be hidden on her land. Unsettled, Knight halted work and sought help from fellow bondsman Jathan Hunt, a licensed private detective who brings his specially trained German shepherds on searches for missing people.

“I said, ‘J, why don’t y’all bring your dogs out here and see if I got a dead body,’ ” she recalled.


Junk left behind by the previous residents of the Choctaw property that was searched. No confirmed human remains were found. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)

An apparent escape hatch in a building on the Choctaw property, whose previous residents had extensive criminal records, mainly for theft and drug offenses. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)
The rumors were tied to the disappearance of 43-year-old David Anthony Orr, a Hispanic man from the Oklahoma City area who struggled with a methamphetamine addiction and ran in the same drug circles as UAB associates, according to one of Orr’s family members and public information compiled by Hunt.

In January, Hunt searched Knight’s property as part of a team of about two dozen volunteers using five dogs with training on “clandestine grave detection.” When the dogs “alerted” to two areas — near a large pit and a pond — the searchers called Oklahoma County investigators. The authorities left with a bone that Hunt thought resembled a metatarsal, part of the foot, but he said he never heard back on whether it was determined to be human.

The rise of domestic extremism in America

After the search, Hunt said, he kept thinking about Orr and added the case to volunteer work he was doing with Oklahoma City Metro Search and Rescue, a nonprofit group that helps families of missing relatives.

In most cases he’d worked on, Hunt said, families were eager to hang posters or appear on local news. Not so with Orr, who was last seen on Jan. 16, 2021.

“This was the first one where I was like, ‘Man, no one is looking for this guy, not even his family or friends,’ ” Hunt said. “I thought, ‘That’s weird.’ ”


Jathan Hunt with his German shepherd Justice. The licensed private detective uses his specially trained dogs to search for bodies. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)

Hunt shows a photo of a bone found on the Choctaw property. He said authorities took the bone but have not said whether it was determined to be human. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)
Hunt made inquiries and discovered that Orr does indeed have relatives who are desperate to find him — it’s just too dangerous, he said, for them to publicly seek information on his whereabouts.

One of Orr’s relatives, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the risks, said they were advised by people they described as Orr’s associates to stop searching or else they’d “end up like him.” On the street, the relative said, Orr’s death is accepted as fact, but the family can’t acknowledge it or mourn without confirmation.

“You have to live with the anxiety, you have to live with the fear that these people are still out there,” the relative said. “You’ve got to be careful who you talk to.”

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Using the tips he was picking up, Hunt said, he found overlapping social connections among at least five missing people, including Orr, and UAB associates. Last spring, Hunt said, he received a tip that Orr’s body was burned and buried on a property in Logan County, possibly along with three others. Hunt said he tried to share the information with investigators, only to get the brush-off.

Finally, Hunt said, he reached a lead detective on the case, who told him to “sit on it” because “we’ve got something in the works.”

Two days later, authorities carried out the raid in which they found remains. The Logan County property matched the description Hunt had heard about in the search for Orr.

Hunt called Knight, whose response was: “Oh, s---.”


Metal walls line a driveway to the compound in Logan County. (Nick Logan for The Washington Post)
A risky raid
At daybreak on April 13, dozens of law enforcement officers massed outside the Logan County compound with a search warrant, prepared to face an ambush.

Given the reputation of the UAB, planners had gone over all the worst-case scenarios, law enforcement officials recalled. They had taken into account the possibility of booby traps and explosives. They wondered if cages could be opened remotely for the simultaneous release of the more than 25 pit bulls on the property.

Above all, they worried about a potential shootout as they entered through what Logan County Sheriff Damon Devereaux called the “fatal funnel,” a narrow, metal-sided driveway entrance.

“We were prepared for the worst day of our lives,” he said.

Instead, authorities easily swept onto the empty site. Devereaux said he counted 28 dogs in cages; they looked healthy and well-fed. He recalled it was the second day of the search when a text arrived from an OSBI investigator saying: “Just confirming that we have found some human remains.”

“Holy cow, this is a big deal,” the sheriff recalled thinking.

Devereaux agreed to address only parts of the investigation that are already public knowledge. He declined to give details on the remains or any possible suspects, deferring to the OSBI.


Logan County Sheriff Damon Devereaux was one of dozens of law enforcement officers who took part in the search of the Logan County compound. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)
Before he became sheriff in 2017, Devereaux, 52, had served as police chief in his hometown, Guthrie, the Logan County seat. He dealt with college parties and garden-variety crime, he said, but nothing like the violent characters he’s encountered as sheriff.

The county jail, Devereaux said, regularly holds associates of white-supremacist prison gangs, people facing hits from Mexican cartels, and a host of others charged in connection with the drug rings that operate in the backwoods of middle America.

“They’re introducing me to the Irish Mob and the UAB and it’s just like, ‘Excuse me?’ ” Devereaux said, referring to white-supremacist prison gangs in the state. “I had no idea until I became the sheriff, because it’s confined in these walls.”

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In the mostly White world of extremism research, new voices emerge

Devereaux considers himself a stickler for policing that prioritizes constitutional rights. So, he said, when he first noticed the compound “getting fortified with metal 10-foot fencing and iron gates,” he was suspicious but had no probable cause to investigate.

“We’re a county that likes to burn our trash, shoot our guns and drink our beer. And that’s kind of what we embrace in Oklahoma, the freedom to do all that,” he said. “There’s a lot of people who move out there to be left alone.”

But then, maybe six months ago, he said, his deputies started hearing rumors about a missing man whose body was hidden in Logan County. Other law enforcement officers started looking into the tips, too, Devereaux said, and soon the investigation ballooned into a mammoth effort with about half a dozen agencies involved.

“This puzzle had a lot of lost pieces,” Devereaux said. “And now all of a sudden we’re putting some pieces together and starting to see the picture.”


Behind the 10-foot walls of the compound, officers found what they believe to be a body dumping ground, according to Oklahoma officials. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)
An agonizing wait
Harris, the mother of Nathan Smith, who is no relation to Mikell Smith, said she calls the medical examiner’s office almost weekly to make sure investigators are still looking for her son among the remains.

When Harris heard the latest twist — a possible connection to a white-supremacist prison gang — her heart sank. Early in her search, she said, a family friend had helped her go through her son’s social media contacts looking for clues about his disappearance. “She says, ‘They’re Aryan Brotherhood, look! All these people — a lot of them — are doing the signal,’ ” Harris said, alluding to gang hand signs. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, what has my son got into?’ ”

As with other missing people, Nathan Smith’s intersection with suspected prison-gang associates stemmed from drugs, specifically methamphetamines, his mother said. The UAB is known to be a major player in Oklahoma meth trafficking, according to authorities and a 2018 federal indictment of 18 members on racketeering charges.

The indictment, one of the most detailed public accounts of UAB operations, accused the gang of distributing an estimated 2,500 kilos of meth annually in Oklahoma, and laid out related crimes such as “murder, kidnapping, witness intimidation, home invasions.” As part of a plea agreement, one member described how he and others kidnapped suspected informants and “used tarps, shovels, blow torches and other items in an attempt to scare and intimidate the victims.”

Story continues below advertisement

Today, the UAB remains active, still tied to gruesome homicides and big drug cases, according to court papers and news reports. In August, nine UAB-linked suspects were charged in the killing of a rival gang member who prosecutors say was lured out of his motel room, tortured and dumped in a ditch.

The missing people authorities have mentioned in connection with the Logan County case are mostly men with long histories of drug arrests and prison stints. One exception is 21-year-old newlywed Audrey Slack, who hasn’t been seen since Jan. 11.

That morning, Slack called her family from a motel outside Oklahoma City while on a road trip with her husband, Stephen Walker, who is more than twice her age and whose tattoos signal membership in another white-supremacist prison gang.

Slack said to expect the couple home by 8 p.m., but they never arrived. Their black pickup truck was found with a bullet hole and traces of blood and bleach on the interior, according to a search warrant filed Aug. 2.

Slack’s relatives, who asked that their names and other identifying details be withheld, said investigators had called out of the blue in April to ask for dental records. The family, which had already submitted DNA samples, refused unless the detective told them what was going on. That’s when the family learned that multiple human remains had been found about a 15-minute drive from where the missing couple were last seen.

Since that day, they’ve been stuck in the same excruciating limbo as the other families, waiting for identifications that could take many more months.

“I need to know,” said one of Slack’s relatives. “I need to settle my heart.”

[CU88]

Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. No issues.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... remacists/

I'm sure local authorities knew nothing, nothing, about this little paradise.

"OKLAHOMA CITY — The caller had news but warned LaVonne Harris not to get her hopes up.

Harris’s son, 33-year-old Nathan Smith, had vanished along a dirt road in Oklahoma one freezing night more than two years earlier. Detectives had long stopped checking in with her, and Harris could feel her search growing lonelier with each passing month.

The call in April, from an advocate for families of the missing, wasn’t encouraging, but it was a lead: Authorities in rural Logan County, just north of here, had discovered human remains belonging to more than one person. Also, the caller added delicately, the remains weren’t intact.

Harris, 58, sat down to steady herself. She listened, then hung up to tell her daughter.

“I said, ‘Lou, they found these bodies,’ ” Harris recalled. “ ‘They’ve been burned and cut.’ ”

Story continues below advertisement

Smith is among a dozen or more people who have disappeared in recent years from the wooded, unincorporated terrain outside the Oklahoma City metro area, a rural haven for drug traffickers. Some families said they’re scared to call police or even to put up “missing person” signs because they suspect the involvement of violent white-supremacist prison gangs.


Compound detail

Entrance lined with metal walls

35

Guthrie

Compound

Edmond

44

35

Oklahoma City

40

100 FEET

5 MILES

Sources: Google Maps (satellite image), OpenStreetMap

DYLAN MORIARTY/THE WASHINGTON POST

In April, authorities acting on a tip said they found charred piles of wood and bone on a five-acre patch of Logan County, opening one of the grisliest and most sensitive criminal investigations in Oklahoma’s recent history.

Behind the 10-foot metal walls of a compound with links to the Universal Aryan Brotherhood, a white-supremacist prison gang, officers found what they believe to be a body dumping ground where multiple people ended up dismembered and burned, according to four Oklahoma officials with knowledge of the investigation. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the extraordinary security precautions around the case.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, or OSBI, which is leading the multiagency state and federal probe, confirms that remains have been found but will not say how many. An April 29 report in the Oklahoman newspaper — the first news of the discovery — quoted the state medical examiner and other sources as saying agents were investigating “whether a white supremacist prison gang is behind nine or more disappearances” after the discovery of “the comingled remains of possibly three people.” The report said remains also were found at a second site, near an oil well about 18 miles away in the tiny town of Luther.

In Oklahoma, the 1995 bombing offers lessons — and warnings — for today’s fight against extremism

Four months later, the scope of the case remains murky. A law enforcement official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said they were informed the count was up to “12 different DNA profiles.” One family of a missing person said they were told of eight; another heard about three.

The OSBI has taken significant steps to keep the investigation opaque, including advising families of the missing to stay quiet.

“We’re just trying to keep some people alive at this point,” a second official said, describing the struggle to protect potential witnesses.

That level of danger is a jarring reminder of the unseen threat of white-supremacist prison gangs, whose leaders run crime syndicates from behind bars through a network of “enforcers” on the outside, according to extremism monitors and Justice Department court filings.

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The gangs have carried out hate-fueled attacks both in and out of prison, with the bulk of their free-world violence targeting rivals and informants, authorities say. Because the gangs typically keep their business within the criminal underground, the attacks go largely undiscussed in the broader national conversation about rising violence by far-right groups.

Oklahoma is a “problem state,” with at least five significant white-supremacist prison gangs, said Mark Pitcavage, an Anti-Defamation League researcher who has monitored the groups for decades. He co-authored a 2016 study that called prison gangs the fastest-growing and deadliest sector of the U.S. white-supremacist movement, noting that they “combine the criminal intent and know-how of organized crime with the racism and hate of white supremacy, making them twice as dangerous.”


Trailers sit in the yard of the Logan County compound where, officials say, authorities found what they believe are human remains in April. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)
The Logan County investigation, authorities say, involves one of the most ruthless of the gangs: the Universal Aryan Brotherhood, also known as the UAB.

One of the main UAB “shot-callers,” authorities say, is 57-year-old Mikell “Bulldog” Smith, an inmate so violent that an Oklahoma prison report once called him “the most dangerous man in the penitentiary” and corrections officials built a special cell for him in 1989. Smith is serving life without parole for the 1985 killing of a math teacher in a robbery. Soon after arriving in prison in 1987, he stabbed a fellow inmate. Two years later, he nearly killed a prison guard by stabbing him in the heart with a blade attached to a broom handle. In 2014, Smith was convicted of choking a cellmate to death with a sheet.

Members of Smith’s extended family own various parts of the five-acre area where remains were found in Logan County. Smith’s wife, Robin, was listed as owner of the fortified compound; his brother Charles owns an adjacent property, according to sale records. Another brother, Phillip, disappeared from the county in 2020, one of the long list of cases authorities say are under review.

On Aug. 19, according to state investigators, another Smith relative, David, was arrested at the compound on charges related to a stolen vehicle and possession of a firearm by a felon.

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In the OSBI’s few public statements about the remains, there is no mention of the alleged ties to one of Oklahoma’s bloodiest prison gangs or reference to the site in Luther. The statement said only that “law enforcement from multiple agencies recovered bone fragments” in Logan County and were working to identify them and determine the cause of death.

The medical examiner’s office and law enforcement agencies involved either declined to comment on the record or never responded to queries. The OSBI declined to comment beyond its news releases.

“The investigation is very fluid and very active,” said an OSBI release dated Aug. 8. “Because of that, the volume of rumors and speculation is high. The OSBI will not comment on rumors as that can jeopardize the ongoing investigation.”

The statement said state investigators and sheriff’s offices in three counties “have been working closely with the families of the missing persons,” including collecting DNA samples to help with identification. That work will take time, the release said, because of “the physical condition of the remains recovered.”


Junk and charred garbage found during a search of a Choctaw, Okla., property after the owner received a tip that a body might be hidden on the land. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)
Buried secrets
On a scorching recent afternoon, Carol Knight looked out over her 20-acre plot in rural Choctaw, about half an hour’s drive from where the remains in Logan County were found. A successful bail bond agent, Knight bought the property in 2020 with plans to build a country dream home.

“Instead, I got a chop shop,” she said.

As Knight began clearing the land, she and her husband uncovered jaw-dropping surprises buried underground: “We dug up a car, we dug up a motorcycle. We hauled three boats off the property.” She carted off about 300 tires, apparent leftovers from cars that were “chopped” and sold for parts. Knight said she almost broke her ankle falling in a “hidey hole,” one of several camouflaged pits.

The previous residents had extensive criminal records and hung with a crowd that included known UAB associates, according to authorities and public records.

Knight said she saw the buried junk as an expensive nuisance — until she received a tip last year that a body also might be hidden on her land. Unsettled, Knight halted work and sought help from fellow bondsman Jathan Hunt, a licensed private detective who brings his specially trained German shepherds on searches for missing people.

“I said, ‘J, why don’t y’all bring your dogs out here and see if I got a dead body,’ ” she recalled.


Junk left behind by the previous residents of the Choctaw property that was searched. No confirmed human remains were found. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)

An apparent escape hatch in a building on the Choctaw property, whose previous residents had extensive criminal records, mainly for theft and drug offenses. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)
The rumors were tied to the disappearance of 43-year-old David Anthony Orr, a Hispanic man from the Oklahoma City area who struggled with a methamphetamine addiction and ran in the same drug circles as UAB associates, according to one of Orr’s family members and public information compiled by Hunt.

In January, Hunt searched Knight’s property as part of a team of about two dozen volunteers using five dogs with training on “clandestine grave detection.” When the dogs “alerted” to two areas — near a large pit and a pond — the searchers called Oklahoma County investigators. The authorities left with a bone that Hunt thought resembled a metatarsal, part of the foot, but he said he never heard back on whether it was determined to be human.

The rise of domestic extremism in America

After the search, Hunt said, he kept thinking about Orr and added the case to volunteer work he was doing with Oklahoma City Metro Search and Rescue, a nonprofit group that helps families of missing relatives.

In most cases he’d worked on, Hunt said, families were eager to hang posters or appear on local news. Not so with Orr, who was last seen on Jan. 16, 2021.

“This was the first one where I was like, ‘Man, no one is looking for this guy, not even his family or friends,’ ” Hunt said. “I thought, ‘That’s weird.’ ”


Jathan Hunt with his German shepherd Justice. The licensed private detective uses his specially trained dogs to search for bodies. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)

Hunt shows a photo of a bone found on the Choctaw property. He said authorities took the bone but have not said whether it was determined to be human. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)
Hunt made inquiries and discovered that Orr does indeed have relatives who are desperate to find him — it’s just too dangerous, he said, for them to publicly seek information on his whereabouts.

One of Orr’s relatives, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the risks, said they were advised by people they described as Orr’s associates to stop searching or else they’d “end up like him.” On the street, the relative said, Orr’s death is accepted as fact, but the family can’t acknowledge it or mourn without confirmation.

“You have to live with the anxiety, you have to live with the fear that these people are still out there,” the relative said. “You’ve got to be careful who you talk to.”

Story continues below advertisement

Using the tips he was picking up, Hunt said, he found overlapping social connections among at least five missing people, including Orr, and UAB associates. Last spring, Hunt said, he received a tip that Orr’s body was burned and buried on a property in Logan County, possibly along with three others. Hunt said he tried to share the information with investigators, only to get the brush-off.

Finally, Hunt said, he reached a lead detective on the case, who told him to “sit on it” because “we’ve got something in the works.”

Two days later, authorities carried out the raid in which they found remains. The Logan County property matched the description Hunt had heard about in the search for Orr.

Hunt called Knight, whose response was: “Oh, s---.”


Metal walls line a driveway to the compound in Logan County. (Nick Logan for The Washington Post)
A risky raid
At daybreak on April 13, dozens of law enforcement officers massed outside the Logan County compound with a search warrant, prepared to face an ambush.

Given the reputation of the UAB, planners had gone over all the worst-case scenarios, law enforcement officials recalled. They had taken into account the possibility of booby traps and explosives. They wondered if cages could be opened remotely for the simultaneous release of the more than 25 pit bulls on the property.

Above all, they worried about a potential shootout as they entered through what Logan County Sheriff Damon Devereaux called the “fatal funnel,” a narrow, metal-sided driveway entrance.

“We were prepared for the worst day of our lives,” he said.

Instead, authorities easily swept onto the empty site. Devereaux said he counted 28 dogs in cages; they looked healthy and well-fed. He recalled it was the second day of the search when a text arrived from an OSBI investigator saying: “Just confirming that we have found some human remains.”

“Holy cow, this is a big deal,” the sheriff recalled thinking.

Devereaux agreed to address only parts of the investigation that are already public knowledge. He declined to give details on the remains or any possible suspects, deferring to the OSBI.


Logan County Sheriff Damon Devereaux was one of dozens of law enforcement officers who took part in the search of the Logan County compound. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)
Before he became sheriff in 2017, Devereaux, 52, had served as police chief in his hometown, Guthrie, the Logan County seat. He dealt with college parties and garden-variety crime, he said, but nothing like the violent characters he’s encountered as sheriff.

The county jail, Devereaux said, regularly holds associates of white-supremacist prison gangs, people facing hits from Mexican cartels, and a host of others charged in connection with the drug rings that operate in the backwoods of middle America.

“They’re introducing me to the Irish Mob and the UAB and it’s just like, ‘Excuse me?’ ” Devereaux said, referring to white-supremacist prison gangs in the state. “I had no idea until I became the sheriff, because it’s confined in these walls.”

Story continues below advertisement

In the mostly White world of extremism research, new voices emerge

Devereaux considers himself a stickler for policing that prioritizes constitutional rights. So, he said, when he first noticed the compound “getting fortified with metal 10-foot fencing and iron gates,” he was suspicious but had no probable cause to investigate.

“We’re a county that likes to burn our trash, shoot our guns and drink our beer. And that’s kind of what we embrace in Oklahoma, the freedom to do all that,” he said. “There’s a lot of people who move out there to be left alone.”

But then, maybe six months ago, he said, his deputies started hearing rumors about a missing man whose body was hidden in Logan County. Other law enforcement officers started looking into the tips, too, Devereaux said, and soon the investigation ballooned into a mammoth effort with about half a dozen agencies involved.

“This puzzle had a lot of lost pieces,” Devereaux said. “And now all of a sudden we’re putting some pieces together and starting to see the picture.”


Behind the 10-foot walls of the compound, officers found what they believe to be a body dumping ground, according to Oklahoma officials. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)
An agonizing wait
Harris, the mother of Nathan Smith, who is no relation to Mikell Smith, said she calls the medical examiner’s office almost weekly to make sure investigators are still looking for her son among the remains.

When Harris heard the latest twist — a possible connection to a white-supremacist prison gang — her heart sank. Early in her search, she said, a family friend had helped her go through her son’s social media contacts looking for clues about his disappearance. “She says, ‘They’re Aryan Brotherhood, look! All these people — a lot of them — are doing the signal,’ ” Harris said, alluding to gang hand signs. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, what has my son got into?’ ”

As with other missing people, Nathan Smith’s intersection with suspected prison-gang associates stemmed from drugs, specifically methamphetamines, his mother said. The UAB is known to be a major player in Oklahoma meth trafficking, according to authorities and a 2018 federal indictment of 18 members on racketeering charges.

The indictment, one of the most detailed public accounts of UAB operations, accused the gang of distributing an estimated 2,500 kilos of meth annually in Oklahoma, and laid out related crimes such as “murder, kidnapping, witness intimidation, home invasions.” As part of a plea agreement, one member described how he and others kidnapped suspected informants and “used tarps, shovels, blow torches and other items in an attempt to scare and intimidate the victims.”

Story continues below advertisement

Today, the UAB remains active, still tied to gruesome homicides and big drug cases, according to court papers and news reports. In August, nine UAB-linked suspects were charged in the killing of a rival gang member who prosecutors say was lured out of his motel room, tortured and dumped in a ditch.

The missing people authorities have mentioned in connection with the Logan County case are mostly men with long histories of drug arrests and prison stints. One exception is 21-year-old newlywed Audrey Slack, who hasn’t been seen since Jan. 11.

That morning, Slack called her family from a motel outside Oklahoma City while on a road trip with her husband, Stephen Walker, who is more than twice her age and whose tattoos signal membership in another white-supremacist prison gang.

Slack said to expect the couple home by 8 p.m., but they never arrived. Their black pickup truck was found with a bullet hole and traces of blood and bleach on the interior, according to a search warrant filed Aug. 2.

Slack’s relatives, who asked that their names and other identifying details be withheld, said investigators had called out of the blue in April to ask for dental records. The family, which had already submitted DNA samples, refused unless the detective told them what was going on. That’s when the family learned that multiple human remains had been found about a 15-minute drive from where the missing couple were last seen.

Since that day, they’ve been stuck in the same excruciating limbo as the other families, waiting for identifications that could take many more months.

“I need to know,” said one of Slack’s relatives. “I need to settle my heart.”

I suspect that all we will here is that this is just a bunch of white guys "having a bad day"...

DEPLORABLE

[PizzaSnake]

"The missing people authorities have mentioned in connection with the Logan County case are mostly men with long histories of drug arrests and prison stints. One exception is 21-year-old newlywed Audrey Slack, who hasn’t been seen since Jan. 11.

That morning, Slack called her family from a motel outside Oklahoma City while on a road trip with her husband, Stephen Walker, who is more than twice her age and whose tattoos signal membership in another white-supremacist prison gang."

Choices have consequences?

[CU88]

Desantis and Abbott shipping off unwilling people is an action steeped with bigotry.

JFK Library@JFKLibrary

To embarrass Northern liberals and humiliate Black people, southern White Citizens Councils started their so-called "Reverse Freedom Rides," giving Black people one-way tickets to northern cities with false promises of jobs, housing, and better lives.

https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer ... -007-p0068

DEPLORABLE

[PizzaSnake]

Wasn't sure where to put this, but since he was charged with making terroristic threats, this seemed like a good spot. Looks like he might have a little 'roid rage going.

"Beyond Meat suspended its chief operating officer after he was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of biting a man’s nose during a fight following an Arkansas football game.

Police arrested the vegan food purveyor’s COO Doug Ramsey on charges of “terroristic threatening” and third-degree battery on Saturday night. Ramsey was released on an $11,000 bond the following day, according to court records."

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/20/business ... index.html

[ardilla secreta]

Wasn't sure where to put this, but since he was charged with making terroristic threats, this seemed like a good spot. Looks like he might have a little 'roid rage going.

"Beyond Meat suspended its chief operating officer after he was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of biting a man’s nose during a fight following an Arkansas football game.

Police arrested the vegan food purveyor’s COO Doug Ramsey on charges of “terroristic threatening” and third-degree battery on Saturday night. Ramsey was released on an $11,000 bond the following day, according to court records."

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/20/business ... index.html

Turns out he likes the taste of meat after all.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Wasn't sure where to put this, but since he was charged with making terroristic threats, this seemed like a good spot. Looks like he might have a little 'roid rage going.

"Beyond Meat suspended its chief operating officer after he was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of biting a man’s nose during a fight following an Arkansas football game.

Police arrested the vegan food purveyor’s COO Doug Ramsey on charges of “terroristic threatening” and third-degree battery on Saturday night. Ramsey was released on an $11,000 bond the following day, according to court records."

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/20/business ... index.html

Turns out he likes the taste of meat after all.

He may get plenty in prison.

[Farfromgeneva]

Wasn't sure where to put this, but since he was charged with making terroristic threats, this seemed like a good spot. Looks like he might have a little 'roid rage going.

"Beyond Meat suspended its chief operating officer after he was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of biting a man’s nose during a fight following an Arkansas football game.

Police arrested the vegan food purveyor’s COO Doug Ramsey on charges of “terroristic threatening” and third-degree battery on Saturday night. Ramsey was released on an $11,000 bond the following day, according to court records."

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/20/business ... index.html

Wondered when this would pop up here. Frickin hilarious. Who knew their COO was a Carnivore.

At least he’s got assets to go after in civil court compared with having it happen from a Saigon escort!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BlWpx55Mo5s

[Farfromgeneva]

Wasn't sure where to put this, but since he was charged with making terroristic threats, this seemed like a good spot. Looks like he might have a little 'roid rage going.

"Beyond Meat suspended its chief operating officer after he was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of biting a man’s nose during a fight following an Arkansas football game.

Police arrested the vegan food purveyor’s COO Doug Ramsey on charges of “terroristic threatening” and third-degree battery on Saturday night. Ramsey was released on an $11,000 bond the following day, according to court records."

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/20/business ... index.html

Turns out he likes the taste of meat after all.

He may get plenty in prison.

There’ll be a fruit cocktail involved via Nasty Nate.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zlPQJ7qIyyQ

[jhu72]

Florida, the place to be if you are a far right extremist. Lots of birds flocking their feathers according to latest ADL report.

[MDlaxfan76]

DeSantis says that "no one questioned slavery until the American Revolution".

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/202 ... nt-vpx.cnn

In addition to Van Jones' point, this is why history is actually important to understand:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition ... ed_Kingdom

DeSantis' propaganda is exactly why "the woke act" is so pernicious.

The Declaration of Independence well propounded the ideals of the enlightenment, drawing upon many other philosophers and activists' work and views...it did not create or begin those views.

By contrast, our Constitution, the actual founding document and organization, recognized the legality of slavery, the ownership of humans by other humans, and our country did not correct this error until considerably later than most other Western nations.

There is much to celebrate in our nation's role in advancing freedom and the rights of individuals in society without falsifying history in the process.

But the GOP extremist, white nationalist (Christian) movement, which DeSantis wants to lead, demands the whitewashing of history.

[Kismet]

DeSantis says that "no one questioned slavery until the American Revolution".

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/202 ... nt-vpx.cnn

In addition to Van Jones' point, this is why history is actually important to understand:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition ... ed_Kingdom

DeSantis' propaganda is exactly why "the woke act" is so pernicious.

The Declaration of Independence well propounded the ideals of the enlightenment, drawing upon many other philosophers and activists' work and views...it did not create or begin those views.

By contrast, our Constitution, the actual founding document and organization, recognized the legality of slavery, the ownership of humans by other humans, and our country did not correct this error until considerably later than most other Western nations.

There is much to celebrate in our nation's role in advancing freedom and the rights of individuals in society without falsifying history in the process.

But the GOP extremist, white nationalist (Christian) movement, which DeSantis wants to lead, demands the whitewashing of history.

If that were really the case had there been no American Revolution, as you point out, slavery was ABOLISHED for the most part inside the British Empire in 1833. Lincoln didn't issue the Emancipation Proclamation until 1863, 30 years later. 13th Amendment which abolished slavery was not ratified until 1866 followed by the 14th Amendment in 1868 and the 15th Amendment in 1870 which granted former male slaves (now citizens per the 14th) the right to vote.

So by revolting against the crown, we essentially perpetuated slavery for 30+ years.

So DeSantis while trying not to be WOKE shows everyone that he's really a DOPE.

[MDlaxfan76]

DeSantis says that "no one questioned slavery until the American Revolution".

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/202 ... nt-vpx.cnn

In addition to Van Jones' point, this is why history is actually important to understand:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition ... ed_Kingdom

DeSantis' propaganda is exactly why "the woke act" is so pernicious.

The Declaration of Independence well propounded the ideals of the enlightenment, drawing upon many other philosophers and activists' work and views...it did not create or begin those views.

By contrast, our Constitution, the actual founding document and organization, recognized the legality of slavery, the ownership of humans by other humans, and our country did not correct this error until considerably later than most other Western nations.

There is much to celebrate in our nation's role in advancing freedom and the rights of individuals in society without falsifying history in the process.

But the GOP extremist, white nationalist (Christian) movement, which DeSantis wants to lead, demands the whitewashing of history.

If that were really the case had there been no American Revolution, as you point out, slavery was ABOLISHED for the most part inside the British Empire in 1833. Lincoln didn't issue the Emancipation Proclamation until 1863, 30 years later. 13th Amendment which abolished slavery was not ratified until 1866 followed by the 14th Amendment in 1868 and the 15th Amendment in 1870 which granted former male slaves (now citizens per the 14th) the right to vote.

So by revolting against the crown, we essentially perpetuated slavery for 30+ years.

So DeSantis while trying not to be WOKE shows everyone that he's really a DOPE.

+1
The problem is that there are a whole lot of dopes who really, really want to believe otherwise.
I give many of them a half 'pass' for actually being 'dopes' (plenty of those in our country left and right), but DeSantis is actually a top 10% 'smart' guy who has no such excuses...he knows better, and is playing to the white nationalist base he is courting.

Dangerous.

[cradleandshoot]

No surprise here, cops and military full of bigots

https://apnews.com/article/oath-keepers ... f98f3e5a26

The names of hundreds of U.S. law enforcement officers, elected officials and military members appear on the leaked membership rolls of a far-right extremist group that’s accused of playing a key role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to a report released Wednesday.

The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism pored over more than 38,000 names on leaked Oath Keepers membership lists and identified more than 370 people it believes currently work in law enforcement agencies — including as police chiefs and sheriffs — and more than 100 people who are currently members of the military.

So is their any evidence in particular against any of the people that they were involved in the protest of 1/6? You may despise these people but unless your active duty military you still have your rights granted to you under the 1st amendment? If you have the right to burn our flag in public you have the same right to belong to whatever unpopular group that you choose to. You can't have it both ways. That is what freedom of speech looks like in a free country. When whatever group conspires to commit violence to advance their cause, then the rules have changed.

I think the accusation is that the organization, which is avowedly bigoted and anti-government, include a whole lot of police and military, including quite a few in significant positions of authority. 370 from law enforcement. And that's just one organization.

And yeah, that organization communicated, from the top, about their plans for Jan 6...

Americans do have the right to be bigoted, but do we really want them in our police forces? Do we care that they're part of an organization that actively participated in the worst of the violence on Jan 6 ?

Now, if someone had joined the organization thinking its principles were quite different and then who resigned from the org after seeing the org be part of Jan 6, ok, mistake corrected...but if not?

Would you have been cool with all the sheriffs and police officers and elected officials in the KKK during Jim Crow?

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate ... th-keepers

The question is, aside from having/creating a zero tolerance policy and I’m not sure what the tolerance would be of exactly, is this a big story that +/- 1% of this group is govt officials and law enforcement? Would we expect to have more, less or around 1% of those groups to be comprised of people who are problematic or challenged?

In other words before this story if you asked me what proportion of people of these professions/jobs had associations and philosophies contrary to their jobs and the functioning of their organizations I would’ve guessed higher than 1%. Polling margin of errors is 3-5%, slippage in retail or manufacturing is higher than 1%.

I’m not saying it’s nothing or good but I don’t learn anything really new finding out that 379/38,000 is in these seats for their work. It certainly wouldn’t imply some effort to “infiltrate” certain areas of govt though you could thne make the case if it were truly rifle shot targeted to the most influential seats (key city police in like major metros of swing states or things of that nature).

Of course it’s maybe something to be monitored but not sure any action should be taken absent specific acts that justify it. Their in the seats now and presumably didn’t actively conceal their affiliation but tweaking hiring and promotion policies are probably worth considering and if these folks violate their positions theyre affiliation is certainly context for adjudication of punishment.

It's actually a much lower percentage (assuming that's all) of the organization than how it's described in Wikipedia based on prior research. that said, prior research indicated a much lower # of members...it's quite possible that they've attracted a heck of a lot of new recruits. Ferguson was a big recruiting moment for them.

Oath Keepers is an American far-right[1] anti-government militia[1][3] whose members claim to be defending the Constitution of the United States.[4] It was incorporated in 2009 by founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes, a lawyer and former paratrooper.

The group encourages its members to disobey orders which they believe would violate the U.S. Constitution. Research on their membership determined that two-thirds of the Oath Keepers are former military or law enforcement, and one tenth are active duty military or law enforcement. Most research determined the Oath Keeper membership to be approximately 5,000 members, while leaked data showed Oath Keeper rosters claiming membership of 38,000.[5][6][7][8]

Several organizations that monitor U.S. domestic terrorism and hate groups describe the Oath Keepers as a far-right extremist or radical group.[1][9] In 2015, Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) described the group as "heavily armed extremists with a conspiratorial and anti-government mindset looking for potential showdowns with the government".[10][11] According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the group's leadership has ties to antigovernment, extremist groups and espouses a number of conspiracy and legal theories associated with the sovereign citizen movement and posse comitatus movement, chiefly, that sheriffs are the highest law enforcement authorities in the United States.[12][13][14][15] Former SPLC senior fellow Mark Potok describes the group as "an anti-government group who believe in a wild set of conspiracy theories".[16] The FBI describes the Oath Keepers as a "paramilitary organization" and a "large but loosely organized collection of militia who believe that the federal government has been coopted by a shadowy conspiracy that is trying to strip American citizens of their rights."

Oath Keepers were present wearing military fatigues during the 2014 and 2015 unrest in Ferguson, Missouri[18][19][20] when members armed with semi-automatic rifles roamed streets and rooftops.[21][22]

Multiple members of the group participated in the January 6 United States Capitol attack. By September 2021, twenty members had been indicted for federal criminal offenses, with four pleading guilty.[23][24]

The organization was subpoenaed by the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack in November 2021. Eleven members of the organization, including its founder and leader Stewart Rhodes, were indicted for seditious conspiracy in January 2022.[25] By late April 2022, 2 of those 11 indicted Oath Keepers had pled guilty to seditious conspiracy,[26] and another member who had not been named in the initial indictment pled guilty to the same charges on May 4, 2022.[27][17]

Note that this doesn't mean that active law enforcement and military have high percentages of these folks, but also note that this is just one such organization. That said, they say that they actively target recruitment of law enforcement and military, though mostly former not active.

I'm only arguing that they shouldn't be allowed to be active law enforcement or military. That's a few hundred a-holes from this org, maybe a few thousand across the board...recruit and pay well those who aren't these sorts of a-holes.

So the FLP a-holes at the SPLC should decide and pass judgement on American citizens? They are entitled to their opinion but who the eff died and left them in charge of anything??? Let me know MD when you sign up for a ride along with the Baltimore police. You can express your feelings to the officers and enlighten them as to how they should be thinking. I'm sure they will appreciate your input.

So are the oath keepers more of a danger to America than say a FLP group of scum called ANTIFA? If a police officer has allegiance to ANTIFA does that also ruffle your feathers? BTW, is it illegal to be an oath keeper? I would never agree with their philosophy any more than I would agree with radical groups that take great pleasure in burning our flag in public or shouting " pigs in a blanket fry em like bacon" at a parade. I do know you are very picky about what vile and disgusting behavior gets your attention. Please spare me your typical patronizing bullchit response. No need to waste your time.

The SPLC are "a-holes"???
really, that's your carefully considered view?

No, I definitely would not be ok with someone who declared themselves members of Antifa, claiming that they should use violence to oppose fascist violence, to be on the police force.

I may sympathize with the Antifa point of view more than the Oath Keepers, and I could argue that Antifa is not "anti-government", but it's not ok to be violent. Outside the law and that conflicts with law enforcement job.

But yeah, the Oath Keepers is darn easy no-go.

Yes the SPLC has evolved into a FLP chitshow. The SPLC use to be about getting justice. They are nothing more than a shell of what they use to be. While your peeing in your pants about police who may be members of an organization you disagree with the real problem escapes you. The real problem is why there is not ongoing evaluations from local PD departments on how the officers patrolling streets are dealing with what can only be described as PTSD. My nephew was one of those officers. He joined the RPD in 2006. He was sworn in the last class of officers while Bob Duffy was still chief of police. He was one of those naive young new officers who was a white suburban kid who wanted to be a police officer to help people. Long story short 5 years later he was a mental basket case. He was almost shot in the head, assaulted and beaten up on numerous occasions, had a drunken old man in front of a corner bodega smash a bottle in his face. Five years later he learned all of the racist traits you opine about all the time. He became a borderline alcoholic who has a couple of suicide attempts under his belt. He lives in Las Vegas now on full disability from the RPD. His hair is down to his waist and he is a big time pot head who enjoys playing hockey with his friends. He will never be the young rookie officer that just wanted to protect and serve. He will spend the rest of his life as a hot mess that struggles every day with his contempt for the people he wanted so much to help. I ask you again to volunteer for a ride a long with the Baltimore police. If your lucky maybe you will witness a crime scene when nobody at the crime scene saw anything. Your all paranoid in the abstract about police officers who don't conform to your high expectations. You completely ignore how so many of these officers deal with the everyday mayhem on the streets and not allow it to affect their personal opinions of the people they serve and what it takes as a police officer to deal with the frustration of being hated and disrespected by the people you swore an oath to protect. You remember those humiliating videos of officers having buckets of water dumped on them while being laughed at and ridiculed by the amused crowds watching it happen. You probably missed that because you were hip deep in concern about what officers might be oath keepers. Go for a ride a long. I'm sure the Baltimore police will appreciate all of your opinions.

cradle, you've previously told us about your nephew. I'll stay out of his and your personal life.

First, I think you're out of your friggin' mind isf you think the SPLC are not credible.

Second, I couldn't be more clear that the job of a police officer is darn hard, full of risk, and requires really good mental stability given the authority they hold and the gun they carry. I have a good HS friend who has served for more than 30 years on a major city police force. Tough job. Another HS friend has been a judge in a big city, dealing with criminal violence of all sorts.

I want people attracted, recruited, trained, supported, and paid well to do those jobs.
But no anti-government racists should be handed a gun (or deciding cases) and told to deal with the public.

simple.

BTW, we don't pay police enough. Same for teachers.

Your opinion of me being out of my mind may be spot on. That is another discussion for another day. My opinion of the SPLC is my opinion. They may have had a useful mission at one point in time. That was long ago and far away. The SPLC has become nothing more than a pathetic mouthpiece for FLP liberal America. They became obsolete in terms of relevance a long time ago. If they still float your boat that is your opinion.

[MDlaxfan76]

Ok, so that's your "opinion".

But based on what facts?

What was the defining change that you observed, well-informed as you must be to make such a claim, that changed that organization from one with a "useful mission" to something that you apparently disdain?

You do realize that their mission was always disdained by hard right bigots?
And that mission hasn't changed?

Or is it that you think there aren't white nationalist terrorist organizations any more, no problem to combat?

That all said, like most organizations over time, they've had their share of leadership problems and organizational culture problems. They turned over their leadership management in 2019.

Is that when you think they suddenly became irrelevant?
Or was it "long ago" that they became irrelevant, no more issues with white nationalist groups?

[cradleandshoot]

Ok, so that's your "opinion".

But based on what facts?

What was the defining change that you observed, well-informed as you must be to make such a claim, that changed that organization from one with a "useful mission" to something that you apparently disdain?

You do realize that their mission was always disdained by hard right bigots?
And that mission hasn't changed?

Or is it that you think there aren't white nationalist terrorist organizations any more, no problem to combat?

That all said, like most organizations over time, they've had their share of leadership problems and organizational culture problems. They turned over their leadership management in 2019.

Is that when you think they suddenly became irrelevant?
Or was it "long ago" that they became irrelevant, no more issues with white nationalist groups?

They became irrelevant when they chose to align themselves lockstep with the most radical FLP agendas. Once again you defend the SPLC by looking at all those WS hiding behind the trees in your back yard. When the SPLC chose to become nothing more than another mouthpiece for a FLP agenda they lost any credibility they may have had. I would never expect you to see that nor to understand it. You see what you want to see, you understand what you want to understand and you pass judgement accordingly. I understand how your thought process works I just don't agree with it. FTR I could lay the same criticism on the NRA. They served a useful purpose when their mission was to protect 2nd amendment rights. Then they chose to become a political group that deviated from what they were suppose to be