I'm fairly sure this has already been posted (upfront) but I'll check again..
Gov Nixon demanded they all stand down, the night of the slash and burn protests, after getting his orders from WH admin.. He again demanded the Oath Keepers stand down and had the Ferguson police give those orders.. The Oath Keepers have taken a back seat but they are still there.. The remaining businesses WANT them there..
Here is what Stewart Rhodes has to say about that..
update:
And here is what I have to say about this:
So, the Empire Strikes back!
They are trying to shut us down, but we are fighting back. I have been fully briefed by the team on the ground and I will do my best to lay it out for you.
One commenter on the Post-Dispatch article asked:
“It’s okay to protest but not okay to protect against protesters?”
I responded with: Well now, that appears to be the NEW position of the St. Louis County PD Chief Jon Belmar. Even though this strip mall has had multiple, direct arson threats, the Chief is dead set on removing us from the roofs and leaving those buildings totally undefended and exposed to arson.
Funny how, right after we get some positive, accurate, and fair press coverage, Chief Belmar sends his loyal Lt. to tell us that we are now in violation of the state statute regulating Private Security Officers. Funny, just the other day, on Thanksgiving, they told our team they were fine, and good to go, and that there was no problem with them being there, and that they DID NOT violate that statute because our guys are unpaid volunteers, and now they do a 180 and say the statute does apply to us, and we cannot be there without a security license.
update:
Bottom line is he did not replace our team with his own men. He wants us out (or to be more accurate, the Obama Admin wants us out and he is their tool of oppression they intend to use to do it). And he doesn’t care if the buildings are all burned to the ground.
We're not leaving.
update:
Love conquers hate, and the true source of all courage is love – love of the man to the left and the right of you, and love of your fellow Americans that causes you to set aside your concern for yourself, to fight through your fear, and step up, into harms way, for a friend.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
And that is what they know is our greatest strength and their greatest weakness. All they have is fear, but love conquers all, and they know it. Step through your fear and think of all who came before us, and walk in love – love of your country, love of your family, love of your brothers in arms, and love of liberty.
I’ll see you on Florissant Rd.
Stewart
update:
Oath Keepers volunteers continue to guard Ferguson businesses and we have retained two patriotic St. Louis, Missouri lawyers from the firm of Hearne & Bendick to represent us in our defiance of, and legal challenge to, the St. Louis Police Chief’s unlawful order asserting that we cannot guard Ferguson residents and businesses against arsonists without a “security officer” permit.
Fine, we'll join the protesters but we're not leaving.
COMMENT BY STEWART RHODES, FOUNDER OF OATH KEEPERS:
http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/11/29/mysterious-oath-keepers-guard-rooftops-in-downtown-ferguson/
Despite the still ongoing negligent lack of protection by the Governor and his men for the businesses in Ferguson, our volunteer security team of Oath Keepers members have been able to prevent arsonists from burning these buildings down, saving several small businesses owned by hard-working Ferguson residents, such as Natalie Dubose of Natalie’s Cakes and More, and also saving the occupied apartments on the upper floors, and very likely saving the lives of the residents.
nataliedubose1
This we will defend: Natalie Dubose, a hard working single-mother of two who got her start selling cakes at a local Flea Market, opened the small bake shop of her dreams just this past summer. She has a right to life, liberty, and property – a right to live her dream and feed her children by doing so – and we are proud to defend her rights, along with the rights of the other good people on her block.
You should know that arsonists directly threatened to burn these buildings down, in callous, evil disregard for the lives of the people who live there and the people who’s dreams and livelihood are tied up in their businesses there (in addition to Natalie’s bakery, there is a family owned Chinese Restaurant, a family owned beauty supply store, and a dentist office, among others).
On Tuesday afternoon, as our Oath Keepers volunteers were boarding up the window-fronts, some thugs walked up and said “we’ll just tear those down to get in” to which one of our men said “we won’t let you get that close to the buildings.” The thugs responded with “then we’ll just throw Molotov Cocktails on the roofs tonight and burn these Fu*%@#g buildings down.” But that didn’t happen, because our military and police veterans were on the rooftops that night, wetting them down, and standing guard with a fire-extinguisher in one hand, and a rifle or shotgun in the other.
ok fire extinguisher
Even the Fire extinguishers in Ferguson have Guy Fawkes masks on. Gotta have a sense of humor, even during riots and while facing down arsonists.
Our security team did spot coordinated arsonist teams moving along the street, assembling Molotov Cocktails as they went. And some did initially try to approach the buildings we guarded, but when our men shined their bright tactical flashlights on the wanna-be arsonists, and, in loud voices from above, told them “your current chosen profession is not a healthy one to pursue here,” the arsonists suddenly remembered they had somewhere else to be.
US-FERGUSON-FACES-UNREST-AND-DESTRUCTION-AS-THANKSGIVING-HOLIDAY
The closest our security team came to actually having to use force was on Thanksgiving night when Nebraska Marine veteran Nick Nesbitt spotted several men accosting a lone female, who began to yell in distress as one of the men grabbed her. Nick put his bright light on them and told the man to take his hands off the woman “NOW!” and the man let go of her, grabbed her cell-phone, and ran down the street. Our team let the police know what happened and where the strong-armed robbery suspect had gone, and the police found and arrested him.
Why did we do this? First, because we felt honor bound to defend those who needed defending, and who were being abandoned as sacrificial lambs to the agenda of oath breaking politicians. It was just the right thing to do. As local Oath Keepers CPT team leader Sam Andrews stated, “it is about the strong defending the weak.” As we suspected would happen, Governor Nixon dropped the ball – again – failing to protect the people of Ferguson. As a scathing St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial put it:
Gov. Jay Nixon, who spent the past two weeks rattling his saber and declaring a state of emergency before there was one, made sure the National Guard was protecting the hell out of the courthouse in Clayton, but left Ferguson to burn.
Second, we did this because we felt compelled to lead by example to show the American people a constitutional answer to civil unrest and violence. We wanted to show them that they have the power – already in their own hands – the right, and the duty to secure themselves and their communities. Over and over scheming politicians and their flunkies in both major parties are presenting the American people with a false choice between lawless chaos, violence, looting, and arson on the one hand, and a hyper-militarized, rights-violating police state on the other.
Perversely, the more government bureaucrats and politicians refuse to actually protect the people and their property, the more they insist that they need even more power, and they insist that the people need to give up even more rights.
The more severe the crisis, the more the chaos will be used to justify a ratcheting up of police state power, and it will not end until all of our children have the boot of a totalitarian police state on the back of their necks (and remember, when there is a boot on your neck, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a left boot or a right boot or whether there is a white foot or a black foot inside it. Police states oppress all).
As we pointed out in our open letter to Governor Nixon, and also in our letter to the people of Ferguson, there are ways to stop looting and arson that are also respectful of the rights of peaceful protesters, and in obedience to our Constitution. We don’t have to sacrifice liberty to get security, not if We the People do as the Founders intended and stand together in defense of our own communities. In our Open Letter to the People of Ferguson, we specifically addressed the veterans of Ferguson:
We call on the veterans in your community, in particular, to step up and lead the way to defend the lives and property of their neighbors, and we call on them to form neighborhood watches and patrols to put a stop to acts of violence. You have the power to police your own neighborhoods, and keep them safe for all. Black veterans have a proud and noble example to follow, in the Deacons for Defense and Justice, who were World War II and Korean War veterans who stood up to the violence of the Klan, except this time, you must defend against violence by anyone, whether outsiders or locals, of any race, against anyone, of any race. If you take care of your own neighborhoods, it removes the sense of emergency that is used to justify a heavy police presence. And that can also have a lasting effect even after the protests are over. Be your own “police.”
Veterans of Ferguson, you swore the same oath to defend the Constitution that we did when we served. Like us, you are also still bound by that oath, and that same duty.
When it came to it, we realized we needed to show them how it’s done, by leading by our own example, and by doing so, we are now showing the entire country how it’s done. And we are not alone! Some brave young black men of Ferguson are also stepping up to show what is possible by serving as armed volunteer guards over a local gas station and store owned by a white family. We wish them all the best, and we will support their effort in any way we can. We consider them to truly be brothers in arms.
Black-Ferguson-Residents-Protect-White-Owned-Store
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