{"id":23565,"date":"2022-09-16T11:07:32","date_gmt":"2022-09-16T18:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=23565"},"modified":"2022-09-16T11:07:34","modified_gmt":"2022-09-16T18:07:34","slug":"new-leak-outing-cops-as-members-of-hate-group-confirms-need-for-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2022\/09\/16\/new-leak-outing-cops-as-members-of-hate-group-confirms-need-for-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"NEW LEAK OUTING COPS AS MEMBERS OF HATE GROUP CONFIRMS NEED FOR REFORM"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

FRI, 9\/16\/2022 – BY\u00a0CARL GIBSON<\/a> (Occupy.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome of those that work forces \/ Are the same that burn crosses\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Rage Against The Machine, \u201cKilling In The Name,\u201d 1992<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this month, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published a detailed report<\/a> delving into who made up the most high-profile members listed in the Oath Keepers<\/a>\u2019 membership database. The ADL\u2019s report was made possible thanks to the September 2021 leak of the database by nonprofit journalism collective, Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), which published the names of roughly 38,000 members of the Oath Keepers. More than 300 of the group\u2019s members are current or former elected officials and law enforcement professionals ranging from patrolmen to detectives, sergeants, lieutenants, and captains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Oath Keepers explicitly target current and former members of law enforcement, as well as military veterans, for its recruiting efforts. According to January 6 Committee testimony from Jason Van Tatenhove \u2013 the group\u2019s former spokesman \u2013 the Oath Keepers are a militant white supremacist and anti-Semitic group with the ultimate goal of instigating a new civil war<\/a>. Earlier this year, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was arrested for seditious conspiracy<\/a> for his role in planning and executing the January 6 insurrection. And in April of 2021, ABC News reported that 52 military, law enforcement, and other government employees were arrested<\/a> for taking part in the insurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some of the names on the list are shocking \u2013 including Arizona state senator Wendy Rogers<\/a>, South Dakota state representative Phil Jensen<\/a>, New Hampshire state senator Bob Giuda<\/a>, and local and county-level elected officials from other states \u2013 the leak further underscores the need to fundamentally re-examine the role of law enforcement in modern society before fascism can take deeper root.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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AMERICAN POLICING IS DEEPLY ROOTED IN RACISM<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

According to Eastern Kentucky University \u2013 which has one of the most renowned<\/a> police studies programs in the United States \u2013 policing in the South began with slave patrols<\/a>. The first slave patrol was formed in the Carolinas in 1704, and the patrols eventually transitioned from upholding the racist institution of chattel slavery to upholding the racist institution of Jim Crow following the Civil War:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slave patrols had three primary functions: (1) to chase down, apprehend, and return to their owners, runaway slaves; (2) to provide a form of organized terror to deter slave revolts; and, (3) to maintain a form of discipline for slave-workers who were subject to summary justice, outside of the law, if they violated any plantation rules. Following the Civil War, these vigilante-style organizations evolved in modern Southern police departments primarily as a means of controlling freed slaves who were now laborers working in an agricultural caste system, and enforcing \u201cJim Crow\u201d segregation laws, designed to deny freed slaves equal rights and access to the political system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this context, it\u2019s easier to view the high-profile police killings of Black people in the South like Sandra Bland<\/a>, Jordan Scott<\/a>, and Botham Jean<\/a> in Texas, Alton Sterling<\/a> in Louisiana, Rayshard Brooks<\/a> in Georgia, Terence Crutcher<\/a> in Oklahoma, and Walter Scott<\/a> in South Carolina, among others, not as isolated incidents resulting from improper training, but as inevitable byproducts of a system founded to uphold deeply racist institutions. American police departments may no longer be slave patrols, but the ease in which white supremacists and neo-Nazis have infiltrated local law enforcement agencies over the years suggests policing has not departed from its racist roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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POLICE DEPARTMENTS ARE POLLUTED WITH MEMBERS OF HATE GROUPS<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, The Guardian\u2019s Sam Levin reported<\/a> that members of the California Highway Patrol (CHP) were colluding with members of the openly neo-Nazi Traditionalist Workers Party to identify and target anti-fascist activists in the Sacramento area. Court documents showed that CHP officers worked to conceal the identity of one neo-Nazi organizer, and treated an anti-fascist activist who was stabbed multiple times as a suspect, attempting to charge the stabbing victim with 11 different offenses (the man was ultimately not charged).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, Levin additionally reported on an analysis from former FBI special agent Michael German on hate groups\u2019 influence on local police departments. German\u2019s analysis found numerous police links to white supremacist groups and militias in more than a dozen states<\/a> \u2013 Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington state, and West Virginia. Other states have also had members of local police departments exposed as members of hate groups and propagating racist ideology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lafayette, Indiana\u2019s police department fired an officer in 2020 after it was discovered that he was a member of a neo-Nazi<\/a> online forum. That same year, the Manual Red Eye \u2013 the student-run newspaper at Manual High School in Louisville, Kentucky \u2013 obtained a video<\/a> produced by the Kentucky Department of Criminal Justice Training that was full of white supremacist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. This news came after the Red Eye\u2019s reporting on a leaked training by the Kentucky State Police (KSP) that favorably quoted Hitler and Robert E. Lee. KSP commissioner Rodney Brewer resigned<\/a> following the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of these revelations suggest that a 2006 bulletin<\/a> (archived PDF link) from the FBI\u2019s counterterrorism division warning of white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement agencies has gone largely overlooked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bulletin warned that neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other skinhead groups were worming their way into local and county law enforcement agencies as a means of disrupting and obstructing investigations into their associates. The FBI published the bulletin in the wake of scandals, like the Los Angeles Police Department forming a gang<\/a> to harass Black and Latino residents. The fact that numerous sheriffs, constables, and beat cops have been outed as members of the Oath Keepers is simply a continuation of a troubling pattern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

LAW ENFORCEMENT\u2019S ROLE IN THE GLOBAL FASCIST THREAT<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The link between law enforcement and fascist groups is not limited to the United States. In 2013, two high-ranking police supervisors in Greece resigned<\/a> in the wake of a probe investigating ties between law enforcement and the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party. In 2020, 29 German police officers \u2013 25 of whom were from the town of Essen \u2013 were fired after chat logs revealed the officers shared violent anti-immigrant and neo-Nazi content<\/a>. A British police officer was fired in 2021<\/a> after he was found to have had an account on a neo-Nazi forum. Because the burgeoning fascist movement is global in nature, the movement to counter it must also take an international scope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police accountability has been a major obstacle in the United States for decades, particularly since the Rodney King<\/a> incident. While activists have been making eloquent calls to abolish policing altogether<\/a>, other steps can be taken in the meantime to root out members of hate groups entrenched in local police departments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I wrote in 2020 for The Independent, abolishing police unions<\/a> is a must in order to establish meaningful systems of accountability for toxic police officers. A primary function of police unions is to safeguard the careers of officers singled out for violent and\/or abusive behavior, and help officers who were fired by their respective cities find policing jobs in other jurisdictions. Busting police unions can remove a critical layer of protection for the worst police officers and makes it far easier for them to be fired and prevented from working for other law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, cities should invest resources in having outside investigators properly vet new hires at police departments to check for any potential ties to hate groups. Part of the background check process for hiring new police officers should include a thorough search of a prospective officer\u2019s social media history and digital footprint, and cross-checking their name with public lists of members of hate groups like the kind leaked by DDoSecrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congress should also allocate funding for the Department of Justice to specifically investigate police departments in states where hate groups have infiltrated law enforcement agencies. Congress should also hold hearings in which police chiefs, mayors, and other officials can be publicly questioned on existing vetting processes for prospective new police hires, and where the problem of police departments\u2019 warmth toward hate groups can be brought to light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the violent attacks on US Capitol Police officers on January 6 demonstrated, there are far more police officers who are battling hate groups than there are officers who are members of those groups. But major steps need to be taken in order to root out the poison from law enforcement agencies nationwide, and around the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carl Gibson is an independent journalist and columnist whose work has been published in CNN, The Guardian, Barron\u2019s, Business Insider, The Independent, and NPR, among others. Follow him on Twitter @crgibs<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FRI, 9\/16\/2022 – BY\u00a0CARL GIBSON (Occupy.com) \u201cSome of those that work forces \/ Are the same that burn crosses\u201d -Rage Against The Machine, \u201cKilling In The Name,\u201d 1992 Earlier this month, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published a detailed report delving into who made up the most high-profile members listed in the Oath Keepers\u2019… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23565"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23566,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23565\/revisions\/23566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}