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.
Shhhh, it’s a leftist conspiracy.
Paul C,”SWM – the Democratic Party seems to have a ‘white problem.’ They have lost the majority of white males and are now losing white females. ” True enough… especially in the south. Not happening with younger white people though…… I think that is why the republican strategy has changed to one of curtailing the voting rights of students and minorities.
SWM – as a group students and minorities vote in low numbers. Just ask Ferguson about the vote totals.
SM; “Yes, too many white people according to the recent pew poll are defending the action of the white policeman.”
Really? Too many white people? It must be the color of their skin. Talk about racist chatter.
Jack – a poll after the OJ Simpson trial showed the majority of blacks thought OJ was innocent, the majority of whites thought he was guilty. Here we have the majority of blacks thinking Brown was innocent? Is it a facet of racism on the part of blacks?
John, WordPress COVETS your comments, that’s why it won’t release them.
John,
I hope you can see that the “censor” bot isn’t biased. It’s catching all of us today. WordPress is funny like that. Welcome to the intertubes…
IMO I think the TV show COPS glorifies strong arm policing and has conditioned the US population to aggressive police tactics. Notice this show NEVER, EVER shows COPS busting a major CEO. Just poor, or colored or disenfranchised people. You know, the ‘undesirables’ of the community.
John,
For the last time. There is no censorship on the part of weekend commenters. Your repeated comments are false and insulting.
No John. I am not buying what you are selling. The police are supposed to be the calm and dispassionate ones. They are hired to protect us. That means even the black or brown ones. Police officers are not armed for the purpose of shooting unarmed citizens 6 times. Was it proper for the police in a Wal Mart. to shoot a customer holding a product that the store was selling? Under your logic if the person is big he is already armed and dangerous?? Does that work when the big person is white??
rafflaw – fight one case at a time. The Walmart case is a different issue with a different set of circumstances. Stick to Ferguson.
Max-1 – that is why people who are arming themselves. You have to protect yourself from the police, sadly.
How magnanimous. It appears, if only temporarily, I have been released from the censorship cell and solitary confinement.
A little power goes a long way or power goes to a little… The Napoleon complex. Whatever!
Oh praise the authorities! We bow down.
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Walmart-gun-preacher-220×300.jpg
Paul C. Schulte
Max-1 – serve and protect is not part of the law. There are court decisions saying the police have no specific duty to either serve or protect you.
= = =
Then I reiterate: (redundant Q.)
Who protects the people FROM the police?
raff
Thanks and thanks… I shall now take off one layer of foil from my hat.
“Shooting an unarmed person to death is not considered abuse?”
This statement is disingenuous at best at indicative of the pursuit of ideological advantage rather that facts and the inadequacy of its author his untenable positions.
The event in question began with a struggle for the gun between the armed police officer and the unarmed person
There existed but one gun between the two parties to that struggle.
That day, at that moment there was the universe and two men, only one of which was going to walk away.
The party who won the struggle for the gun would be the armed person and the party who lost possession of the gun would be the unarmed person.
In this case the “unarmed” person was already armed with a 6’4″ 300lb. body.
Military personnel are trained to kill with their hands and otherwise physical manipulation. It helps enormously to be big.
It is completely disingenuous and preposterous to claim there was an unarmed person.
Something tells me that police officers are armed precisely for situations like this.
http://www.salon.com/2014/08/21/missouris_tortured_history_of_racism_why_the_inferno_in_ferguson_is_no_surprise_partner/ “The past week’s unfolding tragedy in Ferguson, Missouri, with its militarized and overwhelmingly white police force confronting angry and hopeless African-Americans, is not a story unique to that place or this moment. Many cities and towns in this country confront the same problems of poverty, alienation and inequality as metropolitan St. Louis — or even worse.
But beneath the familiar narrative, there is a deeper history that reflects the unfinished agenda of race relations — and the persistence of poisonous prejudice that has never been fully cleansed from the American mainstream.
For decades, Missouri has spawned or attracted many of the nation’s most virulent racists, including neo-Nazis and the remnants of the once-powerful Ku Klux Klan. Associated with violent criminality and crackpot religious extremism, these fringe groups could never wield much influence in the post-civil rights era. Beyond those marginalized outfits, however, exists another white supremacist group whose leaders have long enjoyed the patronage of right-wing Republican politicians.
The Council of Conservative Citizens, headquartered in St. Louis, is a living legacy of Southern “white resistance” to desegregation, with historical roots in the so-called citizens councils that sprang up during the 1950s as a “respectable” adjunct to the Klan. Its website currently proclaims that the CCC is “the only serious nationwide activist group that sticks up for white rights!” What that means, more specifically, is promoting hatred of blacks, Jews, gays and lesbians, and Latino immigrants while extolling the virtues of the “Southern way of life,” the Confederacy and even slavery.
The group’s website goes on to brag that the CCC is the only group promoting “white rights” whose meetings regularly feature “numerous elected officials, important authors, talk-show hosts, active pastors, and other important people” as speakers.”
Max-1 – serve and protect is not part of the law. There are court decisions saying the police have no specific duty to either serve or protect you.
Annie – Arizona is an open carry state. You can carry anyplace they do not prohibit it. You can always walk down the street carrying. Drives the police a little nuts, but that is their problem. Color makes no difference.
sam, Paul C.
The ‘system’ is supposed to be, ‘serve and protect’.
It shouldn’t be that out of balance to where we fear for our safety FROM the police. Yet, here we are.
Max-1,
I was wondering if someone was going to link to the Walmart shooting. Good timing.
I released a comment from Max and Paul from the spam filter.