“Escalating Confrontations That Go Beyond The Black Panthers”: Texas Gun Slingers Police The Police—With A Black Panthers Tactic
On any given night in Arlington, Texas, a group of open-carry activists turned self-appointed cop-watchers can be found walking by the side of the road, in safety-yellow reflector vests with cameras pointed at police. They carry “FILM THE POLICE” signs, and sometimes, in a habit that’s become of increasing concern to the officers being watched, they’re carrying guns of their own.
These armed activists’ mission—ostensibly to hold the police accountable by recording every interaction—has found new meaning in light of recent deaths of unarmed citizens like Mike Brown and Eric Garner. Indeed, members of the Texas group have adopted the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” cry popularized during protests of the men’s deaths.
The group is led in part by Kory Watkins, an Olive Garden bartender trainer and a bandwagon activist who also presides over Open Carry Tarrant County (OCTC). (He’s also the host of Open Carry Cop Watch, an Internet radio show that’s launching this week.) Chasing leads from police scanners, members of OCTC and a local faction known as Cop Block—another loosely organized group of anti-law enforcement libertarian-leaners—have been gathering in the approach to DUI checkpoints and speed traps to warn motorists of the police presence, responding in real time with cops to 911 calls, making impromptu stops to film strangers’ traffic violations, all while trolling the police they observe. (During the heckling, bacon references abound, and some cop-watchers even wear police hats with pig ears attached as they follow officers.) According to Watkins, who often carries his AK-47 while cop-watching, the group makes as many as 20 stops a session, depending on the night.
Cop-watching—the practice of observing and documenting police interactions to try to reduce brutality and civil-rights violations—was started by the Black Panther Party in Oakland in the 1960s. Panthers carrying shotguns or wearing pistols on their hips would hit the streets with law books and watch the police to demand accountability. The open carrying of guns was perfectly legal then, though laws were soon enacted to restrict the practice, due in large part to the Panthers’ enthusiastic exercising of their rights.
Today, cop-watching is back, mostly in response to killings of unarmed citizens by police and controversial policies like New York City’s stop-and-frisk. Many cop-watch organizations like to tout the Black Panthers’ origin story, but due to laws or common sense, no longer arm themselves. “Today, our cameras are our weapons,” New York City’s People’s Justice says on its site.
Not so much in Texas.
According to the Arlington Police Department, cop-watching has been going on in that city for about a year. Though early interactions were uneventful—Sgt. Jeffrey Houston told The Daily Beast both the filming of police and the open carry of firearms are “a constitutional right that the department supports”—recently, the cop-watches have been escalating in hostility and frequency and several members have been arrested.
“The police department in Arlington is out of control and keeps wrongfully arresting people for doing things that are well within their rights,” Watkins said in part of a statement provided to The Daily Beast. “It’s wasting taxpayer money and it’s violating the rights of the people.”
Jacob Cordova, 27, is the latest activist to be jailed for their activities. Cordova, an Air Force veteran who sports a Ron Paul “rEVOLution” tattoo on his right arm and flashes a peace sign in his Facebook photos, was on patrol last Saturday as a part of the Tarrant County Peaceful Streets Project when, according a two-minute video of the event, he was arrested. “[For] a pre-1899 black powder pistol, which isn’t against the law. I want them to,” he says as two cops approach. The arresting officer says, “You’re not allowed to have a firearm. I’ve asked you to put it up.” Though the gun is actually legal in Texas, which allows the open carry of long guns and certain antique revolvers, Cordova was taken into custody and charged with the misdemeanor of interfering with public duties.
According to police, Cordova drove up to a traffic stop, got out of his car, and began yelling at officers and pulling up his vest to show them he was armed.
“When you see somebody being aggressive, interfering with a stop, and armed with a deadly weapon, the officer can’t just ignore that,” Sgt. Houston said.
Open-carry activists are known for baiting cops into on-camera arguments about the Second Amendment and state laws. And Cordova has had his share of run-ins with authorities, including an ill-advised attempt to issue a citizen’s arrest for a police officer for double parking.
Arlington police say they’re gotten used to open-carry activists, and even the biggest firebrands among the cop-watch crowd. “It’s the combination that creates an enhanced threat to officer safety,” said Tiara Richard, a spokeswoman for the Arlington Police Department.
Cordova refused to comment on the officer’s allegations—he and others in the group are reluctant to talk with reporters about Cordova’s arrest or their cop-watching activities—but wrote in a Facebook chat with me, “What you see on the video is what you get.” The posted video, however, starts conveniently just before the officers arrest him and leaves out any possible inciting incident by Cordova.
Cordova’s arrest was the second of the night for the cop-watch gang. The first was 26-year-old Pablo Frias, who showed up to record as police responded to a 911 call for a woman had been threatened with a rifle. According to police, Frias got into a disagreement with a bystander at the scene. “Officers had to go stop an elderly lady from being assaulted,” Sgt. Houston said. Frias—who was arrested in 2013 for interfering with public duties and public intoxication—was not carrying a gun at the time.
In September, Watkins; his wife, Janie Lucero; and Joseph Tye, a leader of Texas Cop Block, were arrested on charges related to interfering with a traffic stop. Later, Lucero posted photos online of bruises to her arms, alleging she’d been manhandled by police.
The ratcheting cop-watches and arrests come at a time of anti-police sentiment and heightened concern over officers’ safety. An Arlington PD spokesman noted that in the last fortnight, two New York officers were shot dead in their car, two Los Angeles officers were shot at as they responded to a call, and an officer in Florida was shot and killed responding to a noise complaint.
“It’s a real threat,” Sgt. Houston said.
“We don’t mind them cop-watching. Just leave your guns in the car. Leave your guns at home,” Lt. Christopher Cook told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
But such a bargain seems unlikely. Certified letters from the Arlington Police Department requesting a meeting with the cop-watch and open-carry groups have been denied and ignored. Responding to Cordova’s arrest, cop-watch leader Watkins posted a video doubling down: “You disobey the oath that you took and you kidnap and harass citizens who are well within their rights and this is what you get: pissed off patriots. And it ain’t going anywhere.”
By: Brandy Zadrozny, The Daily Beast, January 2, 2015
“Gun Nuts’ Vile Muslim Test”: Why Open Carry Activists Don’t Want To Extend The Right To Everyone
So what do you think the gun proliferation activists would say to a bunch of American Muslims exercising their constitutional right to bear arms on Main Street, USA? That’s the question writer and gun owner Jon Stokes asked in this piece at Alloutdoor.com. He wrote:
I’ve been thinking recently about the way that the Satanists are having a field day with so many laws that Christians are passing under the “freedom of religion” banner: stunts like putting a statue of Satan next to the Ten Commandments, or Satanist plans to hand out literature to school kids in Orange County. What if, I wonder, certain groups were to exercise their open carry rights in the same manner.
What if there were a group of Muslim open carry advocates who called themselves “Sword of the Prophet” and whose avowed mission was to bring Sharia law to the U.S., and they took to showing up armed and in large numbers outside of churches on Sunday, the way the OC guys do at the state house. Or what if there were a group of hispanic activist OCers, maybe an offshoot of La Raza who liked to organize armed protests at police stations and court houses, and who openly advocate the “reconquista” of the Southern U.S.?
The question was sincere and he’s got good reason to wonder. As he points out, gun rights were pretty well assumed in America until a certain clarifying event took place: the Black Panther Movement. (I wrote about this earlier here.) Then Gov. Ronald Reagan and the boys in Sacramento were none too pleased at the idea of African-American revolutionaries availing themselves of their Second Amendment remedies in the California State House:
[T]he story goes that in 1967, Gov. Ronald Reagan agreed to sign a California gun control law that made it against the law to walk around in public with a loaded gun after he saw a Black Panther rally… Black Panther Bobby Seale was interviewed about it later and verified that Reagan was there that day…
It’s certainly possible that Reagan was motivated by that rally. But there was a lot of unrest in America in those days and gun control was not a right-left issue then — even the NRA was for it.
(If you’d like to see an impassioned defense of the right to bear arms, watch this video. Wayne LaPierre sounds like a 5-year-old by comparison.)
Anyway, it wasn’t that long ago that the idea of armed Black Panthers roaming the streets with revolutionary zeal was enough to scare the heck out of people who otherwise would be pumping their fists in solidarity with the anti-government revolutionaries and cause them to withdraw their support for unfettered gun rights. But that was then and this is now. The world has changed and the gun rights activism has matured into a full-fledged movement. It’s more philosophically and ideologically based than it was before, largely as a result of some very conscious moves by gun enthusiasts to make it that way. But just how far does the principle of a right to bear arms go these days?
Well, here’s one fairly typical response to Stokes’ question:
First: Open Carry advocates are trying to get back to common sense and common law. They don’t want the government to have sole control of Force. And the reason for their open carry is purely for legitimate law abiding purposes. Namely self defense.
Now contrast that with: Muslims whose GOAL is to implement Sharia Law in the US. Okay…that right there is basically a declaration of war. Or how about: La Raza: Let’s reconquer the Southwest region of the US. Again, fightin’ words.
As far as the Black Panthers? Didn’t need to be a race issue about “black people carrying guns”. The issue was that they were carrying them in a threatening manner, not in a rational, law abiding, for self defense civil manner. And once again, the route chosen was to restrict or ban the open carrying of guns rather than just tool up and fight fire with fire. If I see threatening people carrying weapons in my neighborhood I’m not going to go cry to the government to take their guns away, I’m going to pack heat myself and encourage my neighbors to also do the same. Then we’ll see if the armed thugs are serious or not.
Evidently, individuals are allowed the unfettered right to bear arms as long as other individuals who believe in an unfettered right to bear arms agree with that individual’s motives for wanting to bear arms. It all depends, you see, on whether you are bearing your arms in a “rational, law abiding” manner. It is up to each individual to determine what that behavior looks like and if they aren’t happy about it, they will evidently start bearing arms in a threatening manner to “see if the armed thugs are serious or not.”
In fairness, there were a number of comments that said “it doesn’t matter, Muslims have the same right to bear arms as anyone else.” Under their principle, this should be the obvious answer. But there were quite a few who made the point that what determines a person’s right to bear arms is intent and if your intention is to challenge the U.S. Government you shouldn’t be allowed to bear arms. Unless, of course, you are a fine upstanding gun rights activist who believes that the Second Amendment exists so that citizens can …. challenge the U.S. Government.
In other words, the Bill of Rights only applies to those whose intentions are “good.” And whether those intentions are good is to be determined by the people with guns. This is called “freedom.”
By: Heather Digby Parton, Contributing Writer, Salon, December 19, 2014
“Better Love It Or Leave It, Because We Cling To Guns”: The Hatred Is Still Out There, Waiting For The Next Crusade
The times they have a changed. I remember when the extreme right-wing nuts were social pariahs. No mainstream politician or national media organization would openly embrace or advocate for them. They were either percolating as white supremacist racists, shamed KKK holdouts, Hell’s Angels road bandits, or grouped into a category labeled “survivalists.” They were all armed and willing, had caches of enough weapons and supplies sometimes hidden in bunkers, and they were going to save America. We knew they existed, sometimes gave them some thought, but mostly ignored them as pesky bugs that one just has to monitor and avoid as best as possible, because there was a powerful sense that the rightness of the American Dream machine would prevail.
This was also a time when America’s youth were “crusaders” against government over-reach. Despite their being armed only with the first amendment, idealism, and organizing peaceful and mostly non-violent protests, a majority of Americans angrily called them unpatriotic and yelled for them to “love it or leave it!” Odd to realize now how that slogan was never aimed at the right wing nuts.
During the same period of social discontent when the Black Panthers “stood their ground” armed with the second amendment, the FBI and all shades of law enforcement agents either killed many of them in shoot-outs or imprisoned others. Americans, in the mid-west, and from coast to coast supported the government and its agents with patriotic fervor for ridding society of those illegal treasonous Hanoi Jane and black militant types. The chaotic unrest of the ’60s and ’70s faded as the social crusaders donned work suits and NBA team uniforms and assimilated back into the melting pot.
Fast forward to Cliven Bundy’s “home on the Nevada range,” where the big ugly truth stood its ground that America is still a Civil War house divided across one hundred fifty plus Aprils. What first appeared to be a resurgent state rights sagebrush rebellion on steroids took a prickly cactus turn.
There was the usual and now quite predictable circus of “Republican” characters that jumped on this event to spin the narrative, score political points, spend Koch brother monies, stoke the base, create another poster child victim of Obama’s illegal government over-reach, and gain another propaganda win.
The shocking surprise was the turnout of “first responders.” The neo-minutemen and women that flocked to the Nevada “Concord” from other states, forming a volunteer armed citizenry, that took up sniper positions, and were ready to place women as the first receivers of bullets against federal agents enforcing the law against the cattle welfare queen, Cliven Bundy. This group was more than ready and desirous of martyrdom to bring about their larger cause, the overthrow of the evil empire.
Just when did it become fashionable and acceptable, and not punishable for armed treason against the government? That is exactly what occurred there. No one was saying, “love it or leave it” to this posse, because they cling to guns, because they have become embedded into a way larger fabric of American society than their predecessors were able to. I wonder if the gush of the Republican power elite somehow legitimized and thus emboldened these folks? Could this have become the first shots of the rewriting of the Civil War?
Thankfully, the same guy that started this defused the standoff. Cliven Bundy talked. No longer an obscure desperate lone ranger, Cliven had the embrace and love from the Republican machine that empowered him to spew his Civil War era racism. The same machine that gaveth him a platform, now couldn’t find enough cactus, sagebrush, or moral platitudes to distance themselves fast enough. Oh well, no one promised unconditional love.
It is beyond me why the extreme right wing Republican power machine doesn’t do a better job vetting the Cliven Bundys. Does so much power and money breed such stupidity? I guess in their mind they won anyway. They know the hatred is still out there waiting for the next crusade, and it isn’t the sort of group that anyone other than me might politely ask of them, but here goes, please, “America, love it or leave it!
By: Alen Schmertzler, The Huffington Post Blog, May 2, 2014
“Deadbeat On The Range”: The Phony Cliven Bundy Event Has Brought Out The Worst Of The Gun-Waving Far Right
Imagine a vendor on the National Mall, selling burgers and dogs, who hasn’t paid his rent in 20 years. He refuses to recognize his landlord, the National Park Service, as a legitimate authority. Every court has ruled against him, and fines have piled up. What’s more, the effluents from his food cart are having a detrimental effect on the spring grass in the capital.
Would an armed posse come to his defense, aiming their guns at the park police? Would the lawbreaker get prime airtime on Fox News, breathless updates in the Drudge Report, a sympathetic ear from Tea Party Republicans? No, of course not.
So what’s the difference between the fictional loser and Cliven Bundy, the rancher in Nevada who owes the government about $1 million and has been grazing his cattle on public land for more than 20 years? Near as I can tell, one wears a cowboy hat. Easterners, especially clueless ones in politics and the press, have always had a soft spot for a defiant white dude in a Stetson.
This phony event has brought out the worst of the gun-waving far right, and the national politicians who are barely one degree of separation from them. Hundreds of heavily armed, camouflaged supporters of the scofflaw turned out Saturday in Nevada, training their rifles on public employees who were trying to do their job. The outsiders looked like snipers ready to shoot the police. If you changed that picture to Black Panthers surrounding a lawful eviction in the inner city, do you think right-wing media would be there cheering the outlaws?
With their assault rifles and threats, the thugs in the desert forced federal officials with the Bureau of Land Management to back down from a court-ordered confiscation of Bundy’s cattle. One of the rancher’s supporters, Richard Mack, a Tea Party leader who is in the National Rifle Association’s Hall of Fame, said he planned to use women as human shields in a violent showdown with law enforcement.
“We were actually strategizing to put all the women up front,” Mack said in a radio interview. “If they were going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot.”
That’s who Fox and friends are playing with these days — militia extremists who would sacrifice their wives to make some larger point about a runaway federal government. And what’s more, the Fox host Sean Hannity has all but encouraged a violent confrontation.
At the center of the dispute is the 68-year-old rancher Bundy, who said in a radio interview, “I don’t recognize the United States government as even existing.” A real patriot, this guy. You would think that kind of anarchist would draw a raised eyebrow from the Tea Party establishment that provides Bundy his media oxygen. After all, wasn’t the Tea Party born in a rant by Rick Santelli of CNBC about deadbeat homeowners? He complained about taxpayers’ subsidizing “losers’ mortgages” and he said we should “reward people that can carry the water instead of drinking the water.” Believe me, Bundy’s cattle are drinking an awful lot of our water, and not paying for it.
But instead, people like Ron Paul have only fanned the flames, warning of a Waco-style assault. Paul and his son, Senator Rand Paul, further showed themselves to be stunningly ignorant of the public lands legacy created by forward-thinking Republicans a century ago. “They had virtual ownership of that land because they had been using it,” Ron Paul said on Fox, referring to the Bundy clan. “You need the government out of it, and I think that’s the important point.”
No, the renegade rancher has no more right to 96,000 acres of Nevada public range than a hot dog vendor has to perpetual space on the Mall. Both places belong to the American people. Bundy runs his cattle on our land — that is, turf owned by every citizen. The agency that oversees the range, the Bureau of Land Management, allows 18,000 grazing permits on 157 million acres. Many of those permit holders get a sweet deal, subsidized in a way they could never find on private land.
What’s more, the land is supposed to be managed for stewardship and other users. Wild-horse advocates would like a piece of the same range. The poor desert tortoise, which has been in Nevada a lot longer than Bundy’s Mormon pioneer stock, is disappearing because of abusive grazing on that same 96,000 acres.
Ranching is hard work. Drought and market swings make it a tough go in many years. That’s all the more reason to praise the 18,000 or so ranchers who pay their grazing fees on time and don’t go whining to Fox or summoning a herd of armed thugs when they renege on their contract. You can understand why the Nevada Cattlemen’s Association wants no part of Bundy.
These kinds of showdowns are rare because most ranchers play by the rules, and quietly go about their business. They are heroes, in one sense, preserving a way of life that has an honorable place in American history. The good ones would never wave a gun in the face of a public servant, and likely never draw a camera from Fox.
By: Timothy Egan, Contributing Op-Ed Writer, The New York Times, April 17, 2014
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