Armed to teeth with semi-automatic assault rifles and handguns, members of the Oath Keepers militia, formed of former and current law enforcement and military officers, have blended into the crowd of Ferguson protesters, saying \u201cWe\u2019re on your side.\u201d<\/p>\n
At least four members of the ‘Oath Keepers’ arrived in Ferguson on early Tuesday and began patrolling the West Florissant Avenue, walking through the crowds of protesters gathered there for a \u2018day of civil disobedience\u2019 following the anniversary of the killing of 18-year-old African-American Michael Brown, shot dead by white Police Officer Darren Wilson.<\/p>\n
Armed to teeth with semi-automatic assault rifles and handguns, members of the Oath Keepers militia, formed of former and current law enforcement and military officers, have blended into the crowd of Ferguson protesters, <\/p>\n
At least four members of the ‘Oath Keepers’ arrived in Ferguson on early Tuesday and began patrolling the West Florissant Avenue, walking through the crowds of protesters gathered there for a \u2018day of civil disobedience\u2019 following the anniversary of the killing of 18-year-old African-American Michael Brown, shot dead by white Police Officer Darren Wilson.<\/p>\n
The appearance of heavily-armed white men stirred unease on the part of the civil rights activists from the Black Lives Matter movement, heavily represented at Ferguson protests.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are there men with guns and the police are doing nothing?\u201d prominent activist Kayla Reed demanded on Twitter.<\/p>\n
The American nonprofit organization Oath Keepers consists mainly of former and serving US military and law enforcement personnel, as well as members of other paramilitary services, who declare their aim as protecting the US Constitution even at the cost of disobedience to official orders, in case these orders violate fundamental American law.<\/p>\n
Expressing his disapproval at the government’s handling of the situation in Ferguson, Oath Keepers volunteer Sam Andrews told RT: “Why the National Guard was not here supporting the St. Louis County Police and supporting the highway patrol and protecting these businesses, to me, is either such a grotesque incompetence or downright criminal negligence.”<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are family people. And you know what? Nothing is going to change unless we stop electing politician lawyers to officers,\u201d Andrews said, as quoted by Ruptly. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou elect Donald Trump, you put Donald Trump in office, he\u2019ll change it all, he\u2019ll get rid of these clowns he\u2019ll get rid of these people that violate our rights and we\u2019ll have somebody that actually cares about Americans again,\u201d Andrews said, expressing his support for the Republican presidential candidate.<\/p>\n
A year ago, during the first round of protests, they also patrolled Ferguson. The Oath Keepers were also present in November 2014, when more protests erupted in the St. Louis, Missouri, neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrivate business people that cannot afford security have asked the volunteers to help protect their businesses. The people in Ferguson have learnt a sad and difficult lesson, that there are not enough police and National Guards to protect all the homes and all the businesses,\u201d a man in military fatigues told Sky News.<\/p>\n
But Andrews said it’s not just about defending businesses.<\/p>\n
“We have people living in apartments above these businesses…so arson is a lethal threat,” he told RT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Armed to teeth with semi-automatic assault rifles and handguns, members of the Oath Keepers militia, formed of former and current law enforcement and military officers, have blended into the crowd of Ferguson protesters, saying \u201cWe\u2019re on your side.\u201d At least four members of the ‘Oath Keepers’ arrived in Ferguson on early Tuesday and began patrolling … Continue reading “Heavily armed whites arrive in Ferguson”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":20003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12205,887,9695,1159,1638],"class_list":["post-20002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-armed-whites","tag-black-riots","tag-ferguson","tag-militia","tag-us"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/oathkeepers.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20004,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20002\/revisions\/20004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}