Police Forces Have Long Tried to Weed Out Extremists in the Ranks. Then Came the Capitol Riot.
At least 30 law enforcement officers from around the country took part in the rally on Jan. 6 that preceded the riot. Many are now being investigated.
Their presence has brought to a boil questions that have been simmering for years: How many law enforcement officers nationwide subscribe to extreme or anti-government beliefs, and how, precisely, can agencies weed them out?
[There are 850,000 ex-cops in America, men and women who have had paramilitary training and who are armed. Whatever we do about weeding out current anarcho-fascist cops, including what I favor, defunding, does not address that immense, and growing, force that have been steeped in cop culture. We have to defund and start all over in re-envisioning policing. Policing should be more like what firefighting is today where the personnel stay in their stations until called. If you give cops the job of being on patrol (the acronym stands for “constables on patrol”) they will find crime; if they have to create it they will, but they will find it.]
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President Biden’s goal of addressing domestic extremism will partly hinge on the ability to curb its spread in police departments and the military, experts noted.
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Concerns about extremism in police ranks have long existed, but after Sept. 11 chasing jihadists took priority over chasing domestic threats...
In recent years, police or other agencies in Virginia, Florida, Nebraska, Louisiana, Michigan and Texas have all fired officers belonging to the Ku Klux Klan. In Philadelphia in 2019, the Police Department announced that 13 officers would be dismissed among the 72 who were placed on administrative leave because of racist Facebook posts.
For decades, Los Angeles County has downplayed accusations that sheriff’s deputies repeatedly organized secret white-supremacist groups with their own tattoos and hand signs. But a recent study by the office of the Los Angeles County Counsel concluded that the county has paid out some $55 million to settle lawsuits accusing such groups of malign influence.
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Hundreds have joined the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, for example, which claims that sheriffs have the last word on whether any U.S. or local law is constitutional and should be enforced or not.
...Police officers enjoy the same rights as all citizens in supporting political candidates, but the problem comes when they take it a step further into anti-government activism...
[This is the key: it is a weird anarcho-fascist mutant, it’s personal to police, “What’s good for the police is good for America.” There is no loyalty to Law, they favor a police state and laws that only benefit police.]
Recently... far-right organizers, eager to recruit police or military veterans, portrayed themselves as allies to law enforcement, said Brian Levin, a former policeman and the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
It was a “false alliance,” Mr. Levin said, not least because such organizations seek to undermine the government.
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Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies who contested being fired over gang membership, for example, were sometimes reinstated.
[Now, that’s a new one to me lol! Cops who are GANG MEMBERS?! And who can’t be fired?]
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Officers know who holds far-right views, he and others noted, but tend to protect each other.
[The blue wall of silence.]
