Phoenix police department helped Obama gun-toters, host says
Published: August 19, 2009
Updated 6 months ago
In a stunning revelation, an online radio host who interviewed an assault-weapon wielding protester outside President Barack Obama’s healthcare event in Arizona said on Tuesday that the Phoenix police department abetted the effort to interview the protester and knew that he planned to carry a gun outside the event.
Speaking on CNN, radio host Ernest Hancock discussed the fact that he’d met with police just days before.
“We worked with the Phoenix police department,” Hancock said, according to a transcript. “They came down to our studio on Friday. We’ve gone through this with them for 15 years.
“They have a squad - used to be called the confrontation prevention squad, now called community service,” Hancock added. “We told them that we’re going to come down, I’m going to do the radio show live, we’re going to be broadcasting it, and I’m going to have a firearm. I had a 9 millimeter on myself…
“It was Thursday that I called and talked to Al Ramirez, the representative from the Phoenix police department, and we were discussing - we’ve been around this rhetoric that was building up around William Kostric, who did this in New Hampshire,” he continued. “We knew this from 15 years ago when Janet Napolitano was a U.S. Assistant Attorney and prosecuted the Viper Militia out of Arizona, and how that was generated into something it wasn’t. We talked to Al and we were like, look, we know where this is going and we want to make sure, we come down, we’re peaceful, and we demonstrate the right of the people to carry their firearms. And the police protected our right.
“They wanted to help - they assigned him [a police officer] to me,” Hancock concluded. “He was never more than 4-5 feet away from me. We had law enforcement around us to protect our rights to protect this firearm.”
A clip of the interview, captured by Talking Points Memo, follows.
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Re: “We had law enforcement around us to protect our rights to protect this firearm”
Huh?!? That’s what the 2nd Amendment is for - the right to protect a firearm? I think someone needs to go back and read the primary source document.
Oh, and what a waste of tax dollars . . .
Sounds like the Phoenix police department is in need of a good fumigating to clear out the adle-brained thugs with badges; in fact, the whole damned country could use a good purging of the loons and extremists with badges that are infecting law enforcement.
That means the whole police force. Fucking pigs
I remember during the Bush years people were arrested for having a T-shirt on that said no blood for oil and the guy was blocks away. But it’s okay to brandish fire arms right outside a building where the President is speaking.
What a fucking nightmare
NO, “brandishing” a firearm is if you point the business end of the gun at a person or a target. If it’s slung over shoulder, or holstered, it is NOT being directed as a threat, just your nerves.
Besides, I love how they’re reporting a long time libertarian activist as a “right winger.” Hey, if shoe fits the stereotype, eh?
He has been THE biggest anti-war protester in AZ. Even more so than Foundation funded Code Pink. Ask Cindy Sheehan whom they’ve always supported.
None of you ever do any homework, yet you know everything.
As the good Democrat from Missouri said on Hardball,
“The 2nd Amendment is just as important as the 1st”
And some of us are willing to fight to the death to preserve it are you?
As the good progressive from California said, “suck a fat one, natty.” You know even less than Sameoldrefrain, which is a new low in accomplishment.
What a self-aggrandizing turd you are. Do your own fucking homework, knuckledragger.
Of course the local “Burgermeisters” are lock stock with the brown shirts and the “propaganda” pie hole-sirens. Ain’t that america?
Before we get into a tizzy about this being rightwing conspiracy, we need to find out more details.
In the course of many anti-Reagan demonstrations at nuclear facilities, we often coordinated with local police to make sure there were no overreactions. I can only hope that these demonstrators had the sense to announce their intentions to the police, first.
This is in no way meant to defend the threatening and menacing intent of these demonstrators. Arizona has very lax gun laws.
Yet, I wonder where these same people were for the past 8 years. Did they call it tyranical when people with anti-Bush shirts were arrested at similar events? I suspect they were in favor of those arrests.
So the road to hell is paved with unintended consequences.
Arizona police shame. When bush was president at least two people were arrested having a gun near a president..Another had a unloaded gun and was arrested because they said he was threatening the president. Squeaky Fromm spent 34 years in prison pointing a unloaded gun at reagan. They are threatening the president..Shame on arizona..
The right to bear arms, we are told, is necessary to insure 1) personal protection and 2) defense against a “rogue” government.
If that firearm, itself, can’t protect its owner’s right to bear it, but requires government assistance, then the firearm can hardly protect the bearer’s person AND, in a premier example of right-wing “logic,” is entirely dependent on the very government against which the gun is the alleged, ultimate protection.
Where in the 2d Amendment does it state the right to have a firearm is for personal protection? I have read the 2d Amendment and it states the right to a firearm is for a well-established militia. How are you translating that to mean “personal protection”?
The 2nd amendment is so the rest of us don’t have to join the Jews in chanting, “never again…never again…”
I don’t see what the big deal is. An reporter contacted the police to advise them that he was packing heat. The police were already aware of the demonstrators packing heat. (because they too, contacted police)
You’d have to have balls of steel to arrive unannounced with a hand gun let alone a semi auto.
One would ask, what’s the point of the Second Amendment if you’re not ready to just carry your weapon in public? It’s your right, right?
No, the fact of the matter is these guys knew it was a stupid idea to simply show up at an Obama event with weapons, so of course they told the cops they’d be doing so. And the cops rightfully assigned an officer to monitor them to make sure they didn’t do anything else dumb (besides bringing loaded rifles and guns to a political rally).
“Because I can.” [...]
Ridiculous argument, I wish these people would at least man up enough to say “Because I’m pissed off and want to show everyone how pissed off I am.” At least then they’d be telling the truth.
Or better yet: just tell the truth — “I’m angry because a black man is President and I voted for Grandpa Abe McCain and SquirrelyGirl Palin.”
hologram5
“Yeah, starting with YOU!”
You’re not too smart, are you? You must be one of these thugs with badges yourself.
If it’s not broke don’t fix it. Oswald was allowed a gun in his attempt to kill President Kennedy and the FBI/CIA knew all about it. At 12:30pm Nov. 22, 1963 live on National TV from Dallas Texas, Oswald shot his gun, but to make sure the President was dead the FBI/CIA/KKK/GOP made sure the plan worked by having our President shot from the direct area of the grassy nole. Now FBI Director Robert Muller is using his plan to see that the gunman has a defense this time. President Obama needs a lot more protection from his enemies in the US, GOP, FBI and CIA then from Foreign enemies. Like President Kennedy who never knew how hated he was by the Republican Party and their partner the KKK groups. Maybe if he knew Republicans/KKK would out right Assassinate a President, he would have had better protection for himself and his family.
Guns good. Speech bad.
http://coloradoindependent.com/9276/denver-police-beat-the-crowds-t-shirt-no-laughing-matter-protesters-charge
“You’d have to have balls of steel to arrive unannounced with a hand gun let alone a semi auto.”
No…no…most of these types can only equate “balls of steel” with rate of fire and magazine capacity, because in their minds a man is only as big as his gun and all problems can be solved with a bullet. That “cold, dead hand” thing sounds kinda good.
Legal?
Apprently so.
Smart?
Decidedly not.
I have often wondered what the founding fathers would think about the “need” for assault weapons in the hands of civilians.
Well-regulated militia to me, in this day and age, leads me to think of the NATIONAL GUARD.
Not a bunch of racist, xenophobic idiots trying to act like they are mucho macho men.
You think Senators Kyle and McCain knew about this too? Maybe not McCain, but I wouldn’t put it past Kyle….how much you want to bet…? I was in Dallas shortly after President Kennedy was assissinated….there were rumors that the Dallas Police were in on the “conspiracy”..true or not, I don’t know..but I do know some one had placed fifty dollar bounty on the “heads” of the Dallas police…..fifty buck was the price of a cops life, pretty damn cheap…don’t think it was ever acted upon..but it certainly let the cops know they weren’t respected and that their lives were not worth much
I’ve always suspected, too, that members of the Dallas Texas police department helped make it possible back in November 1963 for visiting President Kennedy to be gunned down, as well as helping make it possible for Lee Harvey Oswald to be assassinated and silenced shortly after Kennedy’s assassination.
The Dallas Texas police department back then had a bunch of racist cops, who were none to happy about civil rights. The Red State Phoenix Arizona police department probably has people upset over Barack Obama being our nation’s president.
And so where former President Bush’s security detail banned citizens carrying guns anywhere near him, we are now seeing citizens carrying guns being allowed near where President Obama is. Why?
I’ve always suspected, too, that members of the Dallas Texas police department helped make it possible back in November 1963 for visiting President Kennedy to be gunned down, as well as helping make it possible for Lee Harvey Oswald to be assassinated and silenced shortly after Kennedy’s assassination.
The Dallas Texas police department back then had a bunch of racist cops, who were none to happy about civil rights. The Red State Phoenix Arizona police department probably has people upset over Barack Obama being our nation’s president.
And so where former President Bush’s security detail banned citizens carrying guns anywhere near him, we are now seeing citizens carrying guns being allowed near where President Obama is. Why???
BTW, I’m all for gun ownership, but there is a responsible time and a responsible place for having a gun on you, but carrying a gun to a political event where our president is present is hardly one of these responsible times or places. Duh!!!!
Ron Reagan, son of Ray-gun, was on MSNBC last night. He argued with a gun rights activist who didn’t necessarily like it that idiots turned up armed at a POTUS event, but couldn’t let go of the idea that POTUS/Dems want to take away his right to pack heat.
Ron pulled the trump card when he told the guy that he (Ron) had more experience with matters involving people on the loose with guns near a POTUS.
PIN DROP moment.
Tweety Matthews listed every president who has been either assassinated or shot at.
Still, this guy could not “get it” that packing heat — loaded heat — at a POTUS event sends a message — if you’re carrying a loaded gun, chances are you either think you’ll have reason to use it or hope you will.
This country is going through a protracted psychotic break. Every generation or so these lizards come out from under their rocks. We have to call the Snake Whisperer to drive them back under.
Jesus Christ, the world’s gone mad.
These pin heads are not going to be satisfied packing heat…its just a matter of time before the brandishing starts and then the oops.
Spot on wizard2000 and Starcats, spot on. I was thinking that exact same thing, cops letting or helping them to be in a place close to the President. It reminds me when Obama was running for president last year and during the fight with Hilary, there was controversy because the secret service wasn’t checking people when they came to a few of his events. The head of the detail was asked about that and he made a comment that said everything about where there loyalties may lye. He said that everybody looked friendly, that was his excuse, everybody looks friendly. This is the classic case of the security and the police and the right politicians stirring up and helping the crazies along so that eventually somebody will use the gun. Our society has finally pulled back the sheets of barely controlled civility and is showing what was their all along. Hatred, bigotry, intolerance, ignorance and just downright nastiness. In a sense it makes me think that we have always been a thirdworld nation, but put a facade of first world in order to look “respectable” to the rest of the world. Many of our people including the govt. where pigs that had a nice suit on. They didn’t believe in what they wore out in society, they knew they had to wear it in order to look intelligent and respectful. Inside they where as tribal as a tribe in africa or any other place on the planet. They didn’t like anything that was different from them, they wanted their view to be the supreme view etc. etc..
It’s truly scary seeing what is happening to our country, and many of the people that are doing it can’t even use simple logic because for the ignorant, they have been dumbed down and filled with so much religion and manifest destiny (both whites, and minorities) that they can’t look at something from the other side and say “yea this isn’t right”. The elite are using logic but it’s flawed logic. They believe that when everything goes to crap, they will be on top with the other bigger elites, and that is false. What our politicians and many of the “elite” in this country are is what you call useful idiots (just like the protesters, protesting against their own self interest). The name says it all, the idiots are useful until there not. And that is whats going to happen to this country, we just won’t be a country anymore but a place with 4 to 6 seperate countries that are fighting with each other for “supremecy”.
If somebody in 1776 had asked the Founding Fathers, “Would you like cheap, accurate machine guns in the hands of politically ignorant, paranoid rubes?”
I’m pretty sure they would have said, “No.”
The Founding Fathers were smart, but they weren’t clairvoyant. The rules for musket ownership should not be the same as for modern weapons.
LOL! …true. They might have changed it to ‘the right to bear pointy sticks’ instead.
Raw: To leave a comment, I have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the article (okay, fine, I was reading it anyway), click on leave comment. Then I have scroll all the way to the bottom again to log in. Then I have to scroll all the way to the bottom AGAIN to leave my comment.
That is fairly obnoxious. Sure, there are worse things going on in my life and in the world, but would it really be that hard to fix?
It troubles me to say this, but I think it’s time for us to acknowledge that what the Right is doing is not just about politics, but rather about holding our philosophies and ideals in such utter contempt that they will do anything to stifle us. They practice intimidation if not outright violence, and the really scary part is how the law is applied differently to them than it is to us. Many of them are crazy, yet they get away with so much. (No, I don’t think most Republicans are crazies… but I do think most crazies are Republican.)
I think we are at war, and it’s not the one we hear about in the news every day. It certainly seems as if that’s how the Right looks at it.
I am not advocating violence of any sort. I’m a Liberal, ferchrissakes, and that’s not what we do. :/
But we should not be surprised when it comes to us.
As many people have already pointed out, the Bushies had people arrested and/or thrown out for wearing the wrong pin, the wrong t-shirt, having the wrong bumpersticker, carrying a protest sign, shouting during Bush’s “speech,” and more. There was even a regulation that apparently no longer applies that said no protests within a mile of an event where Cheney or Bush were present. People were arrested for that.
Since the Bushies destroyed the first amendment, maybe the gun nuts don’t want the same thing to happen to the second amendment.
They’re now saying it was worked out in advance with the PheonixPD.
That the PhoenixPD would allow this doesn’t surprise me …this being the state that didn’t want to celebrate MLKjr Day.
But what did a 2nd Ammendmant protest have to do with healthcare other than if some people got shot then some of them wouldn’t have been able to afford their hospital stay?
What they did was plant the seed in people’s mind that it’s okay to bring guns to an event where President Obama is speaking. Given the numerous reports on the rise of far right hysteria and growth of racist militia’s… how is encouraging armed demonstrations consistant with maintaining order and security at a presidential event? Seriously,… the PPD are a bunch of complete morons.
I’ve said before… having ready access to weapons is a dangerous thing.
Especially when you have alot of very hot headed and mentally unbalanced people concentrated in one place.
True. How racist does a state have to be to not want another federal holiday? Racist enough not to want a paid day from work? That’s pretty goddamned racist.
Or as we Californians call it “Arizonan.”
Why do you all insist on falling into the same old habits of labeling and putting yourselves into neat little ideological boxes.
Most of these people are not “right wingers”, they are libertarians who opposed Bush’s policies as much as they oppose Obama’s. Ask yourselves what the current administration has actually done..
-The CIA gulag/secret prison operation is still going on
-The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue
-Obama has the same policy towards Iran that Bush did, Hilary herself mentioned the possibility of force if Iran acquires nuclear arms.
-Bailout of the rich and powerful banksters who created the last bubble in the first place.
-Signing statements used by Obama to nullify the will of congress
-Executive privilege
-Wiretapping of Americans
Those who carried weapons at the march may have been imprudent, but then again were not those who protested bush with signs showing him as a nazi, or a monkey, or throwing objects at police also not imprudent.
Did the left not protest events through a degree of intimidation, disruption and outbursts?
At a real protest you are showing that you will hold leaders to account should things not change. Anyone who protests on the street in any meaningful way is demonstrating their desire to fight back against oppression. Sometimes that makes people uncomfortable, THATS THE POINT.
Remember what Bush called all those anti-war protesters, traitors, unamerican, dangerous radical leftists.
Now you are using the same terms for those protesting Obama. Different party, same tactics.
The truth is that the libertarians and the left have more in common than those in power would have us think. They are both opposed to large concentrations of power, one in the form of government, the other in terms of corporations. THEY ARE BOTH RIGHT!
What a totally fucked up country!
I would say the cops had guns outside of the Obama rally, right? Are not they people too? So if one group of people can be armed (the cops,,Who are just people too) why not others or every one. Just because you are a cop, or a SS agent or other government official does not mean you are better than anyone else.
It’s really funny about people who hate guns. When they need protection who do they call???? People with guns.
You confuse “job” with “dangerous obssession,” genius. The police aren’t perfect by any means. Check any other thread on TRS, and you’ll see me calling them “punks with badges and guns.” But as progressive and left as I am, even I can see the need for a peace force that protects the citizenry. Some asshole with an AR-15 at a presidential townhall is not protecting 2nd Amendment rights — they are merely there to intimidate debate and encourage armed insurrection and possibly assassination. Is it really that difficult to understand the difference.
Apparently so.
No doubt you’re posting right now while stroking your gun and the rush of blood from your brain to your dick has deprived you of the god-given intelligence most responsible Americans exhibit. Truly, you guntarded motherfuckers are obssessed only with flaunting your prosthetic dicks publicly. To you, the Constitution exists for only one purpose. What simpletons you people are.
Man,,, jlewd You are one funny person. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time. I never,, I mean never realized that their were people out there,, outside of a loony bin who actually thought as you do and would ACTUALLY put to word what you just wrote. Keep it up man. I love ya for giving me a laugh.