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Wonder Why The Folks In Ferguson Are Up In Arms About Their Police? Meet Sgt. Major Dan Page, St. Louis Co. P.D.

By Mark Esposito, Weekend Contributor

Watching the waves roll in here in Duck, NC, I have to admit things seem pretty peaceful and serene. It got me wondering why the folks in Ferguson, Mo. are demonstrating on a daily basis about their policing. Wonderment stopped last evening when I came across this video by 35-year veteran of the St. Louis County Police Department, Sgt. Major Dan Page.  Former Green Beret and supervising cop, Dan’s vaguely known to most  CNN viewers as the enlightened peace officer who shoved reporter Don Lemon from a Ferguson street corner as he tried reporting on the mass protest of 17-year-old Michael Brown’s police-facilitated killing. Lemon was shoved and then was herded to some “Free Speech Zone” in a remote parking lot. Now street-savvy Page is back … and with a right-wing philosophy and blood thirsty vengeance that you’d have to go to 1970s Cambodia to match — “We can kill you anyway we want!”

Speaking before a group called the Oath Keepers who bill themselves as “a non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to ‘defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” (they sure look like a group of Doomsday Preppers to me), Page waxes eloquent and profane about all manner of right-wing blood boilers from his utter revulsion at the “Sodomites” on the United States Supreme Court ( four of ’em, you know) to those “weak” women in the military who are taking elite combat positions away from more qualified men to the race-based mess in Ferguson. By his own admission, Page “don’t trust nobody and I hate everybody. I hate y’all too I hate everybody. I’m into diversity. I kill everybody.”

What’ s even more remarkable is that his audience just loves him. This self-proclaimed group of “military, police and first responders” seems mesmerized by the rant which covers topics from the NDAA of 2012 explaining it’s just like the movie, Escape Plan, with Sly Stallone (That boat’s real. I know”) to domestic violence situations (“just shoot each other and get it over with”.)

 

Sarg also  tells us the word “gay” means happy and that’s it.  A pox on those sodomites. He doesn’t like lawyers. Not crazy about women. He reminds us that the President has no control as Commander in-Chief over the Marines or the Air Force since the U.S. Constitution doesn’t say so. (See, gotcha).  He calls the Marines the world’s finest fighting force but decries it’s “feminization” (as in allowing women to serve in combat roles) at the hands of Obama and it’s “log-head” commandant. Page even mixes in a little fire and brimstone jurisprudence reminding us that you can’t have the Constitution without the Bible and he stands at the podium thumping the Good Book. Page can’t resist that favorite of all right-wing circus acts that Obama is really an illegal alien from Kenya.  All in all it’s quite an audition tape for a pundit job on Fox News.

The video did serve to answer my question about all the fuss in Ferguson, but curiously left unanswered  why the whole audience of people Missourians hire to protect all of them didn’t walk out en masse. Maybe they agree is one chilling answer. After all, Page did get a snazzy Oath Keepers patch for his trouble to the vigorous applause of the audience.

My advice to the folks in Ferguson is that if this guy is a core sampling of the prevailing attitude of the public servants in St. Louis County …  well, since we’re talking movies here, remember that classic horror flick, When a Stranger Calls?:

 Jill, Jill. We traced the call! It’s coming from inside the house! Do you hear me? It’s coming from inside the house! You need to get out! Jill?

If you’ve got the stomach, here’s the video and a play-by-play from Crooks and Liars:

1:07: Talks about all men being created equal then went on to say “That does not mean affirmative action”.
1:26: Rants about hate crime laws
3:22: Black (little?) Perverts [ed. note: I think he said “black robed perverts” but the other way ’round wouldn’t surprise me]
5:25: Talks about doing a fair share of killing
15:40: Calls supreme court justice a homosexual sodomite.
18:30 “If I die I go to heaven… I died a long time ago”
20:30: Talks about St. Louis County schools
26:40: Calls President Obama an illegal alien
27:00: We can kill you anyway we want
31:38: Goes on anti-muslim rant
37:00: Talks about being a Saint Louis County Cop
43:00: Talk about killing people again
46:41: Goes on rant over being briefed about the 9/11 attacks on Aug 1st 1999 then says 9/11 happened 30 days later also talks about no weapons of mass destruction being found in Afghanistan.
49:22: Continues rant about having secret clearance at Fort (Leavenworth?) and training with Russian spetsnaz
52:40: Says people involved in domestic violence should “just shoot each other and get it over with”.
53:15: Somebody like me is going to come in and kill you
56:20: I don’t trust nobody and I hate everybody. I hate y’all too I hate everybody. I’m into diversity. I kill everybody.
58:02: Audience member: So what happens when good men like you are retiring from the military. What kind of military do we have left then?
58:15: Sodomites and females. End of statement.
1:01:00: Rants about female green beret
1:03:00 He’s handed an oathkeeper patch

 

Epilogue:

St. Louis County Police Chief  Jon Belmar, who immediately defended the shooting of  Michael Brown by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson,   issued the following statement about Page via Twitter:

Some of you may have already seen the video of the St. Louis County Police Officer speaking off-duty at an Oath Keepers event. If you haven’t we are sure you will in the coming days as news circulates the release of the video.

Chief Jon Belmar was notified of this video’s existence today and upon a abbreviated viewing of the video was disturbed by the conversation being had. Chief Belmar does not expect this kind of rhetoric from his officers, just like they don’t expect it from him.

Chief Belmar, on behalf of the St. Louis County Police Department, would like to apologize to the community, anyone that video has or will effect, and to the other hard working officers on the detail with the officer in question because they deserve better than that. While the officer has never been involved in an officer involved shooting, the statements made about killing are unacceptable and not what we are about as a Department.

We hold our officers to a high standard of honor both on and off duty. While we as a department do not have an issue with officers expressing themselves, this was disturbing and unacceptable. The officer is a 35 year veteran of this department and has been deployed numerous times in military service. He had passed the evaluations upon returning from deployment and there was no indication of this attitude.

Chief Belmar would again like to apologize to anyone this video has offended and ask any videos of this nature be reported so we can take proper action against any officer not meeting our standards.

Being from Missouri, Belmar should have no problem with  my skepticism:  Show Me.

~Mark Esposito, Weekend Contributor

By the way and for better or worse, the views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not necessarily those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays of art are solely the author’s decision and responsibility. No infringement of intellectual property rights is intended and will be remedied upon notice from the owner. Fair use is however asserted for such inclusions of quotes, excerpts, photos, art, and the like.

 

613 thoughts on “Wonder Why The Folks In Ferguson Are Up In Arms About Their Police? Meet Sgt. Major Dan Page, St. Louis Co. P.D.”

  1. Annie,
    Why did this nation declare independence in 1776? Why not 1763 or 1775?

    “…experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

    In short, they were formed as a result of an awakening to a 20th and 21st century long train of abuses of government; one that no longer honors the oath of office while being defended by men and women sacrificing their own lives and fortunes to honor theirs.

    We exist as an anchor for those principles on which our nation was founded and as an outspoken reminder to those individuals required to take an oath of office that we will not support their dishonor to that oath, regardless of party or affiliation.

    1. anonymous – you posted the timeline and you posted what appeared to be the headline, both from today’s NYT. Are we to presuppose it is supportive of the Ferguson PD?

  4. nick, This blog always had its fair share of preppers, freepers, bithers, creepers, etc…. just more now. It did have a few black posters but they left about two or three years ago. I fail to see why a black person unless he or she were of similar mindset to Allan West would care to post here, and yes, I do have black friends that visit my home. You would probably think they were cultists.

  5. anonymous – I know that it seems insensitive to have the body in the street for four hours, but things have to be done forensically. When we have a fatal car accident on our freeway, it can be closed up to 12 hours, so four hours in a drop in the bucket. Unlike a scene in a house where you can tape it off and come back later, once you open that street, all the evidence is gone.

  7. SWM – I have no idea who Malisha is. She must have left before I started.

  10. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/22/st-louis-county-officer-tirade-dan-page/14465647/

    Excerpt:

    “Belmar said Page is a 35-year police department veteran who joined the agency in 1979. He described Page’s career as “unremarkable,” with no great accolades or noticeable marks on his record. He also said Page has spent nine of the last 12 to 15 years being deployed as a member of the Army.

    “We do not require a psych when our soldiers come back to us, but I know there is a procedure for the Army,” Belmar said.

    Belmar said the points on the tape that prompted him to take administrative action were the segments in which Page spoke about killing.

    “I joined this police department 28 years ago because it was a professional agency and it remains so today,” Belmar said. “We cannot have these kinds of comments and behavior.”

    Regarding the situation in Ferguson, Belmar said he is “optimistic” for a quiet weekend leading up to Michael Brown’s funeral on Monday. He also said his eyes have been opened as to how police and communities should relate.

    “We are pretty much relaxing our posture in as much as we can in different ways, even to include how we deploy,” Belmar said, adding that he wants his officers “leaning up on a storefront talking about Cardinal baseball.”

  11. John Oliver, You too nailed the dynamic and the schism that occurred this past January. This had become an echo chamber. With courage and diligence JT enacted changes to dismantle the echo chamber and we now have diverse views. We still need more diversity. We are white, upper middle class, for the most part. We are pretty good geographically diversity wise. But, this thread needed black folk. Not just token ones, but a diverse group. We have no Hispanics that I can tell and they would add much if we could attract some. I would have my son join in but we clash enough in person! We have gotten more women, which is great. Some liberal women left in a huff in January. A few have returned but we need more diversity in the liberal category. We all know liberal and left leaning women who don’t just spout the party line on every issue. Intellectually honest people who have individual thoughts on individual issues. Imagine that!! What makes my heart feel good are people who were driven away viciously by the echo chamber, returning and becoming valuable assets to this community.

    Change is never easy. In nature, the changing seasons can create huge and violent storms. But, that turmoil ushers in a new season, different than the last. You and G Mason are very perceptive. You see the resentment from the old community. To their credit, some of those folks formed a new blog where I hope their happy w/ the dynamic. But, this blog has moved forward, it is progressive. As mentioned previously, we can encourage more needed diversity. We have learned from past mistakes and the only way to EVER move is forward. Unless you’re the French or Iraqi Army.

  12. Annie, I think you are on to something Annie. Glad you post here, bettykath. Malisha left over the white privilege sentiments expressed here. I think we have gone a few rungs below white privilege.

  14. Paul, the assault on Wilson was reported by a friend of a friend. Eyewitnesses have reported a scuffle at the car with the assault, if there was one, of being by Wilson on Brown. Entirely possible that the swelling (no break) to Wilson’s face was caused by it hitting the car door. How does someone become a felon when there has been no charge or conviction? How does lethal force become ok when used on someone who is fleeing, as reported by eye witnesses?

    anonymous, I’m afraid you’re right. The so-called justice system there is run by white power, just like Sanford FL.

    1. bettykath – one of the eyewitnesses reported Brown ‘punching’ Wilson through the car window. The other reports it as a tussle. Regardless, what reason does Brown have to have his hands and arms inside the car?

  15. “In closing, we must warn you that you are making a grave mistake by continuing the pattern of militarization and abuse of rights that we saw during Occupy Wall Street (with curfews imposed on peaceful protesters, who were wrongly ordered to disperse and then pepper-sprayed at point-blank range); with the egregious death of Marine combat veteran Jose Guerena at the hands of a Tucson SWAT team while serving a mere search warrant; during the response to the Boston Bombing (with families being ordered out of their homes at gun-point, with many veterans telling us that the people of Iraq were treated with more respect and consideration than they saw in Watertown, Massachusetts); and with the recent horrendous use of “First Amendment Areas,” military trained snipers, and militarized, heavy-handed Federal law enforcement at Bundy Ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada that galvanized veterans from all across America to travel there to prevent that ranching family from being “Waco’d” (with the Washington Times later disclosing that the Obama Administration did, in fact, consider using military force against the Bundy family and their supporters, but thankfully decided not to). Those examples only scratch the surface of a systemic problem that has been ratcheting up over the years in nearly every community in America, as Washington Post journalist Radley Balko has exhaustively documented.

    The rapidly escalating militarization of America’s police is fundamentally incompatible with our Constitution and incompatible with a free nation, and inevitably leads to violence against We the People and gross violations of our rights, for which so many of our brothers have fought, bled, and died throughout this nation’s history.

    For us, this is not about race. This is about defending the Bill of Rights, which is a shield against government abuse that is meant to protect ALL Americans, of whatever color. Those of us who served as Marine or Army infantry learned to see only one color: green. Some of our brothers in our fire-teams and squads were dark green, while others were medium or light green, but they were all our brothers, and in combat, they all bled the same color – red – in defense of this nation and in defense of the Constitution, which each of us swore an oath to defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And the same can be said for those constitutional Sheriffs and police officers among us who still know what it means to be a peace officer, not a “law enforcer.”

    The militarization of our police is not a “black problem.” It’s an American problem, and it affects all of us. Senator Rand Paul is right. We must demilitarize our police. Governor Nixon, you stand at a critical moment in history. You must reverse course and set the example for other states to follow, to demilitarize our police and bring police methods back within the bounds of the Constitution. A failure to do so will further place millions of us American veterans who still take our oaths seriously on a fateful collision course with a burgeoning police state that is going down the same road that other nations have traveled, with tragic ends.

    Our grandfathers and fathers fought against totalitarian police states overseas. Please don’t force us to fight against one here at home. Demilitarize the police now, and let us all live in peace under the Constitution, with liberty, and justice, for all.” Missouri O.K.

  16. The writing’s on the wall with this case, it would seem. If a jury could find that the cops in Fullerton, CA were “within their rights to beat Kelly Thomas to death for the sheer hell of it” , as friend of my said last night, we surely won’t see a different outcome in this case.

    http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffreedomprepper.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F01%2Fkelly-thomas-before-and-after.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffreedomprepper.com%2F1171%2Fhow-many-will-die-before-america-stops-this-police-state%2F&h=320&w=620&tbnid=RRVskpCwj0I3dM%3A&zoom=1&docid=RfxN3eJe3dU2qM&ei=Ftr5U83rJ478yQS024HADA&tbm=isch&client=firefox-a&ved=0CDgQMygFMAU&iact=rc&uact=3&dur=471&page=1&start=0&ndsp=9

  17. “Rockwell and Carroll in Ferguson”

    by MICHELLE RENEE MATISONS

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/22/rockwell-and-carroll-in-ferguson/

    “In the early morning hours of August 21, 2014, Capt. Ron Johnson, of the Missouri Highway State Patrol, dazzled the world in a press conference to commemorate the more peaceful atmosphere in Ferguson. He began the press conference by reassuring us that calm was returning to the city, proven by the mere fact that there had been “only” six arrests and no police acquisitions of civilian owned hand guns –or Molotov cocktails–earlier. He then went on to try to tuck us all safely into our beds by telling us the bedtime story about the friendly cop helping the children. This is such an old trope, it is shocking that he’d think it would be at all appropriate as an appeasing public relations stunt in the middle of a National Guard occupation of a U.S. city.

    To paraphrase Capt. Johnson (you can watch the press conference video on Livestream.com’s “I am Michael Brown” page), three of his highway patrolmen were driving by a Ferguson basketball court and noticed it had no net. They immediately decided to do something about it, purchasing a net and basketball, and even taking time out of their precious days’ work suppressing protest to install the net. (There’s got to be a photo of this somewhere!) Before you know it, you are transported from Ferguson’s ground zero hyper-militarized surreal atmosphere to the reassuring soft-focus world of Norman Rockwell, where cops and soldiers are kids’ friends. If you’re a little white kid, they buy you slices of pie and maybe a fountain drink at the local soda shop.

    If you are a little black kid, they graciously and voluntarily escort you into the first integrated school in the South (one of Rockwell’s most iconic paintings)… By no means do they harass and profile you, stalk you, kidnap you under false charges and throw you into jail, shoot you, murder you, execute you with two bullets to the head and four to the rest of your body. No. You started all the problems, while cops and National Guard troops have been simply looking to do playground improvement projects. What do you think is in those desert state trooper tanks? It’s basketballs!

    It gets better. Amid national debate about alternatives to a militarized police state–trust me, demilitarization of police will be the new bipartisan bandwagon to parallel decarceration of prisons– Capt. Johnson figured if he was going to go ahead and try Norman Rockwell, he might as well go for broke. He offered the basketball net as an example of what “community policing” is all about. And we thought it was another bedtime story hoax to lull people into submission and accept mass arrest and wanton murders by police! We’ve seen threats to journalists to shut off cameras–at gunpoint. We’ve seen threats to protesters to “keep walking or else”–also at gunpoint. Johnson really set the record straight. Ferguson’s new (eventually demilitarized?) community policing program will be about basketball, and they might throw some apple pie in too, if everyone cooperates.

    On a side note, just as my previous CounterPunch piece affirms new phraseology for our times, this one does as well. Most would say that Johnson’s press conference was “Orwellian”, but it goes further than that. It’s “Carrollian”– as in Lewis Carroll’s “The Jabberwocky.” It’s pure gibberish.

    “Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

    The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

    Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

    The frumious Bandersnatch!””

  18. Good news. I was able to read all 436 posts in this thread before the video ended in 6 minutes!

  19. indio007, I’m posting an excerpt from your link. Good find.

    If you are white and believe there is no racism, you might change your mind after reading about lawyer raptors circling the suburbs of St Louis, preying almost exclusively on poor and black people. Ferguson is included in this paper.

    ArchCity Defenders, Inc.
    http://archcitydefenders.tumblr.com/post/94733662328/archcity-defenders-municipal-courts-whitepaper-pdf

    Excerpt

    The Village of Bel-Ridge is a relatively small municipality located in northern St. Louis County. Bel-Ridge has just over 1000 households and about 2800 residents, the vast majority of whom (83.1%) are African-American. In addition, almost half (42.3%) of the residents are below the poverty level; median annual household income is only $21,910 and 37% of households receive SNAP benefits/food stamps.

    In spite of the relatively small and poor nature of the municipality, Bel-Ridge manages to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in municipal court fines. In fact, in Bel-Ridge’s 2014 budget, it estimates that it will collect $450,000 in fine revenue — or, an average of about $450 per Bel-Ridge household — making municipal court fines the largest single source of revenue in the budget. Moreover, in FY2013, Bel-Ridge’s municipal court disposed of 4900 cases and issued 1723 warrants. This means that in the last year alone, Bel Ridge’s court system handled almost five cases and issued almost two warrants per Bel-Ridge household.

    Of course, such a municipal court operation does not come without costs to the municipality. In its 2014 budget, Bel-Ridge estimates that it will spend $101,200 on operating the municipal court, including nearly $100,000 in salaries and benefits for a part-time judge ($18,600), prosecuting attorney ($25,000), and court clerks ($38,350). By way of comparison, assistant public defenders in Missouri start out making $38,544 annually, the average circuit attorney in St. Louis City makes $52,347 annually, and the average city court judge in St. Louis City makes $78,591.50 annually. The judge and attorney in Bel-Ridge, however, work only three evenings—or about twelve hours—per month, and both also operate independent private legal practices. To put it another way, then, the Bel-Ridge prosecuting attorney position is a part-time side-job that requires about 7.5% of the work of a full-time job, but that makes about 65% as much as an assistant public defender, about 48% as much as an average circuit attorney, and about 32% as much as an average city court judge.

    In Bel-Ridge, as in many other municipalities, the prosecuting attorney and judge are chosen not by constituents or through a merit system but instead are hand-picked by the Village Trustees. This system, of course, provides terribly misaligned incentives for both positions. These two positions are extraordinarily valuable to the men who hold them—providing enough additional annual income to send children to private school or to public college or to pad retirement accounts, fund vacations, or pay the mortgage, all for twelve hours of work each month—and there is undoubtedly the subtle suggestion that their job—as employees of the Village of Bel-Ridge—is to ensure that Bel-Ridge receives enough fine revenue to cover their budget.

    Unfortunately, this job is, of course, at extreme odds with ideals such as fairness and justice that ought to characterize the criminal courts.

    In addition, the municipality does engage in a policy of detaining individuals who are unable to pay imposed fines. This choice adds a whole new layer of costs for the municipality, including $45,000 (according to the 2014 budget) just to jail these individuals. Moreover, because Bel-Ridge does not have its own detention facility, it must take one of its three on-duty police officers (who make $16.47 per hour) away from patrolling to transport these people.

  20. Paul C. Schulte, ” bettykath – I am going with Wilson shot Brown for assaulting a police officer and trying to escape.”

    So it had nothing to do with the cop being in harms way since his alleged assailant was running away and was outside the 21 foot kill range. It was just the cop meting out vigilante justice.

    1. bettykath – he had already (according to reports) assaulted Wilson, so he was a felon who was fleeing. In Arizona deadly force is only allowed if it is a felony they are fleeing from. And, if the reports are correct and Brown assaulted Wilson, then he was pursuing the person who had already assaulted him. I am not sure where you are getting this 21 foot thing and the coroner said the shots came from within 20 feet.

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