Law Enforcement Has an Extremist Problem in Its Own Backyard

[Nevilledog]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/law-enforcement-has-an-extremist-problem-in-its-own-backyard

No paywall
https://archive.ph/YPo6K

If the FBI and the Department of Justice truly want to protect their agencies and officers from violent attacks, they must finally confront the white supremacists and violent MAGA extremists that exist within law enforcement.

Ever since the search and seizure of highly classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, the right-wing ecosystem has continued to amplify former President Donald Trump’s conspiratorial lies about the so-called “deep state.” As a result, there’s a giant target on law enforcement agencies.

On Aug. 15, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned about a surge in threats against law enforcement, specifically identifying “multiple articulated threats and calls for the targeted killing of judicial, law enforcement, and government officials associated with the Palm Beach search, including the federal judge who approved the Palm Beach search warrant.”

As we saw on Jan. 6, some MAGA supporters take Trump and other right-wing ideologues literally and seriously.

Recently, a Pennsylvania man, Adam Bies, was charged with posting multiple threats against the FBI on social media. Another Trump supporter, Ricky Shiffer, was shot and killed after attempting to breach the FBI’s Cincinnati field office with an AR-15 and a nail gun. Shiffer, a Navy veteran, was known by the FBI to have associated with far-right extremist groups. He was also present at the Jan. 6 Capitol assault along with thousands of other Trump supporters, including Thomas Webster, a former NYPD officer, who was convicted of assaulting a fellow cop at the Capitol. For his crimes, the DOJ just announced it is seeking the longest sentence yet for a Jan. 6 defendant: 17.5 years.

*snip*

[Farmer-Rick]

1. Yeah, it's like when the traffic controller's union backed Raygun

Raygun even wrote them a heartfelt letter basically saying if they voted for him, he wouldn't fire them, if they went on strike.

They went on strike and Raygun fired almost all of them.

Trump strokes and talks sweetly to law enforcement, DOJ and the military....most of the time. But when push comes to shove, he'll sell them down the river if it benefits him.

He's selling off his supporters one by one now.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. It needs to be cleaned up.

German believes the solution really isn’t that complicated. “It’s not rocket science,” he told me. “Focus on the actual misconduct taking place. The actions are the problem, the ideas are not the problem.” German says the DOJ already has plenty of authority to go after civil rights violations by law enforcement officials. They could utilize the tools at their disposal, but the problem is they choose not to. He said you don’t have to search social media to uncover racist behavior on the job, you simply have to go down to the squad room and ask, “who are the racist agents?” and you’ll get the names. You can ask the community, “who is doing the most harm?” and they’ll tell you. You can look at the civil complaints and internal complaints and find out the bad actors. “Turning a blind eye,” he believes, “is an institutional choice.”

[Chainfire]

3. Backyard, my foot; more like front office.

Could you have ever imagined an America where cops wanted to kill FBI agents because or their politics?

That is the legacy of handing power to Republicans, where lies, hate and fear are family values.