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.
Paulette, I wonder why some folks are so full…of themselves.
Jack
You’ll have to go to the ACLU web site. Layer up that foil…
https://www.aclu.org/aclu-response-ferguson
Squeeky
Disenfranchisement…
Right-Wing Media Continue To Decry Ferguson Residents Registering To Vote
http://mediamatters.org/research/2014/08/21/right-wing-media-continue-to-decry-ferguson-res/200509
Max, You lost me. What “TWO blank police reports” are you referring to? A link or links would help a lot.
Jack commented: “While most people I know seemed to take the side of Brown in the beginning, most of them changed when more information came to light. -That’s what intelligent people do.”
Or people who still don’t have all the facts. Or people with some sort of inherent bias.
Jack
Yep, those TWO blank police reports sure are convincing…
@swm
“curtailing the voting rights of students and minorities.”???
What, by asking for ID???Yeah, what a bunch a hooey. That is the Democratic Party talking point. But the party is sooo ambiguous about things. If North Carolina cuts back early voting from 12 days to eight (or whatever) that is just Jim Crow Republicans. Yet, if New York and other northern Democratic states have no early or absentee voting whatsoever. . .crickets.
http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/absentee-and-early-voting.aspx
FWIW, stuff like this is why NickS and me harp on the cultist stuff. Please review the map at the link and then tell me that I don’t have a good point.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Comments by Jack after he was asked about his possible bias:
Earlier:
a) “I do have a client who is a former St. Louis County police officer.” -Jack in an earlier comment
Later, a reply in conflict with the first:
b) I have one friend on the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.” -Jack (linked below)
http://jonathanturley.org/2014/08/20/missouri-governor-calls-for-vigorous-prosecution-before-the-completion-of-the-investigation-into-ferguson-shooting/#comment-1268438
Well, now we know that the number is at least two, though each time he admitted to only one contact. If I were a betting sort, I’d say that number is even higher.
Paul C.
John Wilkes Booth was an actor… Just sayin’.
Max-1 – yes he was and a damn good one. Are the people you are working with that good?
Let’s not call Page “subhuman.” It is a tactic employed by the Nazi propagandists to create an “other” image of the Jewish population, which made it less appalling to the rest of the German population when the roundups began. Similarly-let’s stop with the sweeping generalizations about other groups. This used to be a more collegial discussion group. Having said that, I find Page’s comments to be abhorrent. His level of anger and hatred has no business walking around with a badge and a gun. The psychological evaluation will no doubt turn up hundreds of red flags. The question is: how was this missed when he applied for the job?
ilk? whoa!
rafflaw, “Police officers are not armed for the purpose of shooting unarmed citizens 6 times.”
How many times should Officer Wilson have shot Brown if Brown had already assaulted Officer Wilson, and was then bumrushing the Officer?
Be careful how you answer, rafflaw (should you have the courage to answer the question). I’m about to make you look really stupid.
Paul to rafflaw – “fight one case at a time. The Walmart case is a different issue with a different set of circumstances. Stick to Ferguson.”
That’s not the way this blog works. Not the way the world works either. You don’t get to dictate here.
anon – you clearly missed the memo. Check your spam folder.
SM, That poll does nothing more than reflect that most whites correctly understand that the police officer is innocent until proven guilty. As such, they are going to side with the police officer until credible evidence comes out to demonstrate the officer’s guilt.
I understand that you and others of you ilk suffer from White Privilege Guilt Complex. Brown was 18 years old…close enough, let’s refer to him as a child. Brown was unarmed, therefore the 6’4″ 300 lb person could not have ever been a threat sufficient to warrant the use of lethal force, unless he himself was carrying a weapon capable of exerting lethal force.
While most people I know seemed to take the side of Brown in the beginning, most of them changed when more information came to light. -That’s what intelligent people do.
SMM,
I know that you want to make this horrifying situation into a condemnation of Republicans and a praise moment for Obama but this analysis just isn’t correct. How do you address the following from Glen Ford?: “President Obama, to whom idiots appeal to scale back police militarization, is as hawkish as any of his predecessors in about keeping America safe from Black inner city insurgency. The lead sentence in an item in today’s New York Times, blandly titled “Data on Transfer of Military Gear to Police Depatments,” tells the tale, succinctly:
“Since President Obama took office, the Pentagon has transferred to police departments tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.”
Clearly, the U.S. is at war with Black America.
“Where would the process of demilitarization begin?
All the nation’s police departments are following the same drill, with the same tools and weapons, under the same mandate: keep the Blacks in check; terrorize them as a matter of policy; provoke them, when it is politically convenient; and keep them imprisoned at rates never experienced over time by any group that was not formally enslaved.
This is not “mission creep,” but the logical fulfillment of the mandate handed down by the collective political leadership of the United States in response to the Black Freedom Movement of the Sixties – a movement whose most militant sector was “militarily defeated,” as Black Is Back Coalition chairman Omali Yeshitela points out, by the U.S. gendarmerie’s counterinsurgency campaign of assassination, disruption and mass arrests.”
If this was only a Republican problem and Democrats were not also racists and Obama tried to bring about justice instead of going along with injustice, wouldn’t things be different? We have before us injustice. Propaganda is used to link it to party so that people will turn on each other. I won’t turn on other people because they belong to a different party than I do.
Judgment should be based on actions, not membership in any group. If we try doing this: 1. we are being honest and 2. we can unite w/ those of like mind and heart.
Max-1 – you are less likely to be killed by the person carrying concealed than the one who busts in armed to the teeth. You will want those concealed carry in the audience at that time.
Your safety also depends on where in the hall you are working. Box office? Maybe a problem. Backstage? Plenty of time to hide unless they come in through the loading doors. Usher? Duck behind the seats. Actor? You are on your own.
Paul C. Schulte
rafflaw – fight one case at a time. The Walmart case is a different issue with a different set of circumstances. Stick to Ferguson.
= = =
Correct.
Shopping while black is far different than walking down the street while black.
Paul C. Schulte
Max-1 – that is why people who are arming themselves. You have to protect yourself from the police, sadly.
= = =
Who protects me from the armed people afraid for their lives?
I’ve told management of the theater/performance hall I work for that should I see anyone with a gun (Wa. State is a concealed/carry State) I will walk out immediately for my own safety as my personal safety shouldn’t be dependent upon a stranger’s sanity while carrying.
jack, Read the Pew Poll.
PCS, there is no American-American problem that can’t be overcome with affirmative action, control of business, redistribution of wealth, social services that serve up the free stuff, etc.
There is even an applicable crime category referred to as “hate crime.” If a person of color (God forbid the reference of colored person) kills another person of color, it is a “love crime.” But if an American-American kills a person of color, it is a “hate crime.” The victim is just as dead in either case, but the American-American must be addressed in super-punitive fashion.
The winners, after millennia of human existence, must lose, unless they’re on a sports field. There, the winners play and persist.
The inmates have taken over the asylum.