"Criminals With Badges": Denver's Militarized Police

 

"I been forced to write my own laws, and you violated one in there. I just have to find you guilty of contempt of cop."

Bumper Morgan, Joseph Wambaugh's eponymous Blue Knight, justifying his brutal assault on a young man who had casually insulted him.  


Jared Lunn, a 21-year-old volunteer firefighter from Brighton, Colorado, visited Denver's LoDo district to celebrate a friend's birthday. The evening was quite pleasant until Jared, who was carrying a pizza and minding his own business, was suddenly punched in the face and knocked flat by someone he had never met.

Shortly after the assailant scurried away the police arrived, and Jared's night took a pronounced turn for the worse. 

Perhaps Jared was unaware of the axiom that it is never a good idea to ask the police for help.
Perhaps the fact that he is involved in a "public safety" role led Jared to assume that the police would treat him with courtesy and professionalism. In any case, Jared told Officer Eric Sellers that he had just been assaulted and that he wanted to press charges. Sellers told the victim to go home, and he wasn't impressed when Jared appealed to him as a fellow "public servant."

"Way to `protect and serve,'" muttered Jared in disgust as he walked away. 


A violent assault on a mere Mundane is a trivial matter -- but this was a clear-cut case of "contempt of cop," and it could not go unpunished.

Sellers seized Jared and threw him to the ground. While screaming a steady stream of profanities at the terrified young man, Sellers beat him and applied a vicious choke hold. After Jared's body went limp, Sellers wrenched his hands behind his back and handcuffed him with such violence that the victim wouldn't have full use of his hands for a week. 

This felonious assault took place in the presence of two other police officers who, in keeping with the oath-bound discipline of their brotherhood, refused to intervene. 

"This guy [Sellers] does this all the time," one of the bully's comrades told Chris Fuchs, an eyewitness to the November 23, 2008 assault, after Jared was released. "We don't know how he gets away with it." The obvious reply would be: "He gets away with it because of the guilty collaboration of `good cops' like you."  
  

"Street justice" in Denver's LoDo district.

Two months later, Sellers became annoyed with a young man named John Crespin,whose behavior struck the officer as "nosy." Sellers pulled up into the driveway of John's home and ordered the young man out of the car. 

As John complied, his shoulder brushed lightly against Sellers's arm. Infuriated that a Mundane had defiled his sanctified personage through incidental contact, Sellers inflicted a dose of summary "street justice" as an act of ritual purification.


Just as he did to Jared Lunn, Sellers put John in a chokehold while spitting obscenities in his face. After handcuffing the victim, Sellers used his police baton to lift the young man a couple of feet from the ground, then dropped him face-first into the driveway.  The representative of the Denver city government's punitive priesthood dragged the bloodied man off the pavement, draped him over the hood of his police car, and administered the laying on of hands.


"He started punching me in the sides while I was already handcuffed," Crespin later told the local NBC affiliate. "I told him to quit, quit, and he wouldn't quit. He did it one more time and he grabbed my face and said, `Who the f*** do you think you are?'"

After being beaten into a lumpy mess, John Crespin -- despite the absence of a criminal history -- was charged with "felony menacing." Terrified and worried about being separated from his newborn child, Crespin accepted a plea bargain agreement that resulted in probation. 


Sellers was later found to have used "inappropriate force" against Jared Lunn. The same review found that the officer had compounded that offense through the "commission of a deceptive act" -- that is, lying to internal affairs investigators. According to the Denver PD's existing disciplinary guidelines, this is cause for "presumptive termination." Yet Sellers continues to draw a paycheck as a member of the police force afflicting Denver. 

In fact, Sellers -- who, according to his colleagues, commits criminal assaults against innocent people "all the time" -- complained in a court filing that the disciplinary action against him was "excessive," because it specified that another episode of that kind would result in immediate termination. 

Denver's Citizen Oversight Board insists, correctly, that Sellers should have been fired already (and prosecuted as well). The Denver Police Protective Association -- that is, local armed tax-feeder union -- has Sellers's back, of course. 

This isn't surprising, given that in September 2008 -- just weeks before Sellers assaulted Jared Lunn -- the Denver police union distributed t-shirts to its members depicting a baton-wielding riot cop rising ominously about the city's skyline.

"We get up early, to BEAT the crowds," gloated the inscription. Each member of the Denver PD received one of the commemorative t-shirts, which were created in anticipation of the 2008 Democratic National Convention. 


Sellers apparently perceived that ill-advised pun as a directive and took it to what passes for his heart. Interestingly, Sellers owes his continued employment to a figure who played a critical role in the militarized security preparations for the 2008 convention: Ron Perea, who until recently was Manager of Safety for the City of Denver.

Perea was the Secret Service Special Agent in Charge during the 2008 Democratic National Convention. His previous experience included a stint as head of the Denver Field Office for the Secret Service, a position on the executive board of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in Los Angeles, and five years on the Albuquerque Police Department. 

It's difficult to imagine someone whose career offers a better core sample of contemporary law enforcement at all levels. So it's quite significant that Perea, as Safety Manager, defined his job in terms of protecting the career prospects of abusive police, rather than protecting the public. As Safety Manager, Perea had the final say regarding complaints of excessive force. His decisions reflected an obvious desire to placate the demands of the police union, rather than holding abusive cops accountable for their offenses.

Perea resigned his post on August 31, barely three months into his $152,000-a-year job, because of rising public disgust over his handling of several recent episodes of criminal violence by the Denver PD.  In addition to the leniency he had displayed toward Sellers, Perea refused to discipline Officer Devin Sparks, who severely beat Michael DeHerrera on a LoDo street corner in April 2009. 

DeHerrera's friend, Shawn Johnson, had been ejected from a local club after an altercation with a bouncer. When the police arrived, they "arrested" Johnson so violently that DeHerrera made a frantic phone call to his father, Pueblo County Sheriff's Deputy Anthony DeHerrera.

"They're beating up Shawn -- what do I do?" a panicked Herrera asked his father. This apparently is what provoked Sparks to blind-side Herrera, slamming him to the sidewalk and repeatedly beating him with a leather-shrouded metal club called a "sap." 

This much is captured by one of the Panopticon-style High Activity Location Observation (HALO) cameras scattered throughout that section of Denver. However, just as Sparks lays into Hererra, the camera -- which was operated by a Denver PD officer in real time -- suddenly pans up and away from the scene. 

Detective John White, a spokesman for the Denver PD, insists that this wasn't an Orwellian "rectification" in real time, but rather a result of a camera following a pre-set program. Whether or not this is true, there is compelling evidence that Sparks and his partner, Corporal Randy Murr, took immediate action to cover up the crime. That evidence, interestingly, comes from an unimpeachable law enforcement source -- Deputy Anthony DeHerrera, who overheard the officers via his son's still-active cell phone.


"The last thing we [the elder DeHerrera and his wife] heard was, `We've got to get rid of the phone, they're recording us.'" The phone went dead -- leaving Michael's parents to wonder if the same was true of their son.

After being beaten unconscious, DeHerrera was charged with "resisting" and "interfering" with the officers, but those charges were eventually dismissed. 

***



***

The official report filed by Sparks claimed that as Corporal Murr was detaining Shawn Johnson, DeHerrera "was about 1 ft. away and began yelling and screaming at the officers. I advised him numerous times to get back and he refused. I then attempted to detain the defendant at which time he tensed up, made a fist and bladed his body. He then spun to his left attempting to strike me in the face with a closed right fist. I then took him to the ground where he attempted to strike me again...."

In his analysis of the video and other evidence, Richard Rosenthal, Denver's Independent Police Monitor,concluded that the beating was an unwarranted act of violence and that the report filed by Sparks and Murr was "pure fiction."

"In fact, the video shows that the complainant [DeHerrera] did not make any aggressive moves toward [Sparks]," wrote Rosenthal in his review of the case. "Although the complainant was not complying with [Sparks's] orders to get on the ground, the complainant did not make any attempt to strike [Sparks], either before being taken to the ground or upon being taken to the ground." In fact, as Rosenthal observes, the reports filed by Sparks and Murr were completely untainted by the truth.

Perea, claiming that unspecified "witness testimony" substantiated the claim that DeHerrera had threatened the officers, insisted that the "totality" of circumstances justified the beating. 
Despite finding Sparks and Murr guilty of falsifying official reports, Perea claimed that they were guilty of "inconsistencies" and "misperceptions," rather than "`willful, intentional, or knowing deception,'" and thus weren't subject to summary termination. 

Rather than cashiering the perjurious police officers, Perea merely suspended them three days and "fined" one of them the equivalent of three days' pay. In a footnote to his summary, Rosenthal notes that one of the officers (most likely Sparks) "received more serious discipline because that officer had a prior disciplinary history." 

In other words, he was a recidivist and proven perjurer. Nonetheless, Perea perversely insisted that he was still qualified to prowl the streets of Denver armed with various implements of violence and clothed in the supposed authority to inflict lethal violence on anyone who refused to comply with his whims. 

Shortly before Perea's resignation, video footage surfaced of another police beat-down as summary punishment for "interference and resistance," this one involving a hapless pedestrian named Mark Ashford. 

A Denver cop strikes a pose after he and a boyfriend beat up pedestrian Mark Ashford.

  


















While walking his dogs in downtown Denver last March 16, Ashford saw an officer pull over a motorist for supposedly running a stop sign. 

Acting out of a commendable civic concern, Ashford tapped on the windshield and told the driver he'd be willing to testify that the motorist had actually come to a full stop. This provoked the officer to demand that Ashford provide ID -- a spurious, vindictive, and unwarranted order.


Ashford complied, and then quite sensibly began to record the incident with his cellphone camera. This prompted the heroic officer to call for backup. The two tax-fattened bullies -- later identified as Officers John Diaz and Jeff Cook -- then shoved the slightly built pedestrian up against a bridge railing, repeatedly punching him and trying to steal the camera. 

After beating Ashford into submission, the officers left him handcuffed in a crumpled heap. After being booked on spurious charges -- which were immediately dropped -- Ashford was hospitalized with a concussion and a cut over his right eye.




Seeking to placate growing public concern regarding criminal assaults by Denver police, Chief Gerald Whitman told the local NBC affiliate that "the police department is under control" and that it actually receives fewer use-of-force complaints than departments in most other major cities. 


Jared Lunn, who eventually settled his lawsuit against the department, offers a different view.

"Denver police, to me, are basically criminals with badges," he told the Denver Post.  "I have no respect for them [and] I somewhat fear them...."


Oddly enough, both Whitman and Lunn are correct: The militarized criminal syndicate called the Denver Police Department is not measurably worse than its counterparts in most major U.S. cities. 

Video Extra: My New Anthem ...

... courtesy of the incomparable goofball guitar virtuoso Paul Gilbert:

Once again: Thank You

My deepest and most heartfelt thanks to all of you who have been so generous to me and my family over the past two weeks. As time permits I will express my gratitude to each of you personally, but I want to take this opportunity to let you know how much we appreciate your help. God bless you!

Be sure to tune in each Saturday evening from 8:00-11:00 Mountain Time for Pro Libertate Radio on the Liberty News Radio Network.











Dum spiro, pugno!

"Showtime Syndrome" Strikes Las Vegas

Bryan Yant during his 2002 coroner's inquest.

"He made me do my job," insisted Bryan Yant when asked to explain why he gunned down 21-year-old Las Vegas resident Trevon Cole last June in what was clearly an act of criminal homicide.

Yant, who is employed by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police as an undercover counter-narcotics detective, claimed that Cole -- who was accused of selling 1.8 ounces of marijuana -- "made an aggressive act toward me," which was "enough to make me fear for my life."

Cole's finance, Sequoia Pearce, offers a much different story. She maintains that Cole was cooperative, putting up his hands and saying "All right -- all right" in the instant before Yant fatally shot him. At the time, Pearce -- who was nine months pregnant with the couple's child -- was kneeling on the floor with a gun to her head.

Of the six-member narcotics squad involved in the late evening raid on the tiny one-bedroom apartment, Yant was the only one who claimed that Cole made a "furtive movement." Interestingly, he was also the only one carrying an assault rifle.

Unlike his comrades, who were armed with with department-issued handguns, the former Marine decided to bring along his personal AR-15. This isn't to say that the co-assailants earn points for restraint, given that the entire raid was an exercise in overkill. Trevon Cole's needless death was an outcome nearly as predictable as the result of the perfunctory coroner's inquest, which ruled that the murder was a "justifiable" exercise of lethal force.

On three separate occasions in the weeks leading up to the June 11 raid, police "arranged to meet with Trevon in the parking lot of his apartment complex" to conduct drug buys, attorney Andre Lagomarsino told Pro Libertate. "Trevon was never armed or dangerous, and he wasn't exactly a high-rolling dealer either, given the fact that he didn't even have a car." 

In the hours leading up to the raid, "the police had the apartment under surveillance, and they knew that there was a pregnant woman in that room," continues Lagomarsino. "They had already established that this guy wasn't a threat. They had probable cause to arrest Trevon; why didn't they simply arrange to meet him in the parking lot and cuff him, and then execute a search?"

Nevada law doesn't criminalize individual possession of up to an ounce of marijuana. Each of the "controlled buys" the police set up with Cole involved amounts he could legally possess. The cops tried, without success, to bait Cole into selling larger amounts.

Although the police -- with the help of a camera crew from Langley Productions, which produces the execrable COPS "reality TV" series -- had captured Trevon Cole selling marijuana on video, the affidavit Yant filed to obtain an arrest warrant was fatally flawed. (Remember the COPS connection; we'll return to it anon.)

Trevon and Sequoia in happier times.

Yant misidentified the Las Vegas resident as another individual -- a Houston resident with a lengthy criminal record. The two men -- who had different birthdays and middle names -- looked nothing like each other. Trevon, a former college football player, was roughly 100 pounds heavier and three inches taller than the individual described in the affidavit. 

It's impossible to dismiss Yant's misrepresentation as an innocent mistake. He had all the necessary information from Cole's California driver's license. Rather than correctly describing the subject as a young man with no prior criminal record, Yant depicted him as a dangerous repeat offender. This, in turn, prompted a judge to approve Yant's request for an armed, night-time raid on Cole's apartment. Res ipsa loquitir.

 When the cops invaded Cole's apartment, the lights were out and a television offered the only illumination. In defiance of protocol, Yant -- acting without backup -- kicked in the bathroom door. He found Cole squatting in front of the toilet, apparently trying to dispose of a minuscule amount of marijuana. 

 

According to the story Yant told the inquest, Cole "turned towards me, rotated his body," and assumed a shooter's stance. The detective was supposedly able to see all of this despite the fact that it was dark and the barrel-mounted flashlight on his rifle wasn't working.

That account can't be reconciled with the findings of Dr. Lisa Gavin, a medical examiner with the Clark County Coroner's Office, who said that the physical evidence shows Cole was facing away from Yant when he was fatally shot. The bullet that killed Cole followed a downward trajectory through his cheek into his neck. 

During the inquest, Assistant District Attorney Chris Owens suggested that this was "consistent" with an accidental discharge of Yant's rifle as he kicked in the door. However, Pearce insists that Cole had sufficient time to raise his hands and signal his compliance before Yant gunned him down. Her account actually confirms Yant's testimony that the gunshot was a deliberate act, not an accidental discharge. 

When coupled with forensic evidence indicating that Cole was shot from behind, this looks suspiciously like an execution-style murder -- or at the very least, something that should be prosecuted as an act of criminal homicide. Thanks to a system designed to validate questionable use of lethal force by police, Yant may conceivably lose his job, but he won't be put on trial.

Lagomarsino, who is preparing a lawsuit against the Las Vegas Metro Police on behalf of  Cole's family and former fiance, describes the County Coroner Inquest procedure as "a kangaroo court and a dog and pony show." That is also the view of Don Chairez, a former Nevada District Court Judge who is a current candidate to be Clark County District Attorney. Chairez, who describes the typical inquest as "a search for justification of an officer's actions."

Inquest critic: DA candidate Chairez.

The inquest procedure was introduced in 1969. Since 1976, more than two hundred lethal force incidents have been examined by a seven-member jury. Only one of them was ruled "negligent" -- and that decision was overturned on appeal. This isn't a surprising result, given that the inquest procedure is designed to be collaborative, rather than adversarial: The D.A.'s office literally orchestrates the questioning with the police department prior to the hearing. 

Lagomarsino observes that no cross-examination of police officers is permitted. "We were allowed to submit written questions, one at a time, to the prosecutor, but we couldn't cross-examine Yant" or even ask follow-up questions, he told Pro Libertate. The prosecutors don't bother to present a summation for the jury, and established procedures also permit judges to offer what Lagomarsino called "very vague" instructions to the jury. 

 Additionally, jury nullification would avail little in this setting, since the inquest -- unlike a grand jury -- cannot return an indictment. At the end of the inquest into the Trevon Cole shooting, comments Don Chairez, it appeared that the judge "was almost asking for a directed verdict."

This wasn't the first time a coroner's inquest has rescued Bryan Yant. In 2002, Yant,  at the time a 25-year-old street officer, shot robbery suspect Richard Travis Brown following a foot pursuit. Yant claimed that he had returned fire after Brown shot at him during the chase. Eventually Brown "buckled and fell face-first on the ground," Yant told the inquest. Sprawled on the ground with a "wild-eyed look," Brown supposedly pointed his gun at the officer, who unloaded the volley that killed him.

Brown was being pursued as a suspect in a violent crime. But he shouldn't have been summarily executed -- which is what apparently happened to him, given that the gun he supposedly pointed at Yant was found 35 feet from the spot where the officer shot him to death. This oddity didn't prevent the inquest from quickly validating Yant's actions as "justifiable."

Yant's "error" in describing an entirely different person in his arrest affidavit for Trevon Cole was hardly his first "mistake" of that kind. According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, Yant "is under investigation for apparently lying about drugs he didn't seize and actions he didn't take during a 2009 police raid that never happened."

More than a year before compiling an arrest affidavit that contained "gross misstatements about Cole's criminal history," Yant and fellow Officer David Goris falsely reported that "they sat in a car [and observed] ... while a confidential informant bought drugs from a man they identified as William Sigler," reports the Review Journal. "That alleged buy was used to justify a nighttime search of Sigler's home 12 days later. Police arrested Sigler and his girlfriend and seized prescription drugs, marijuana and cocaine from the home."

However, the charges were thrown out last week when it was established that "the informant did not buy drugs from Sigler." At the time the "controlled buy" purportedly took place, Sigler was in the Bahamas.

During the January 2009 raid on Sigler's residence, "Yant tore up and left three documents ... [describing] a different raid of Sigler's home, one that never took place," continues the paper. A "declaration of arrest" form claimed that police had detained suspects and collected evidence at Sigler's home in a December 2009 raid. "Evidence" supposedly collected in that fictitious raid supposedly tested positive for cocaine. All of this was was unalloyed perjury.

Ready for my close-up: Sheriff Gillespie.

At present, Yant remains on paid vacation. Clark County Sheriff Douglas Gillespie insists that the coroner's inquest conducted by his office was the epitome of institutional transparency. Gillespie acknowledges that there is room for improvement in the procedure for serving narcotics warrants -- which is why this task will now be assigned to the Las Vegas SWAT team. 

Bear in mind that militarizing the execution of arrest warrants is presented here as a "reform" triggered by an incident involving the needless use of lethal force. It's not obvious how this policy change would reduce the likelihood of unnecessary civilian deaths. It is obvious, however, that SWAT teams are much more telegenic than run-of-the-mill counter-narcotics units -- and there's reason to believe that Sheriff Gillespie, like Detroit's recently ousted police chief Warren Evans, is playing to the "reality TV" audience. 

In May, the Las Vegas Tribune described a "mandatory meeting" called by Lieutenant Clinton Nichols that involved "more than thirty detectives" from the Metro Police Department. The detectives "were introduced to four civilian visitors, [who] were the production staff of the `COPS' reality show. All thirty-three detectives with the robbery division were ordered, by the supervisory staff ... to cooperate, participate and assist all four of those television producers while in Las Vegas...."

Detective Gordon Martines, a 36-year veteran police officer, was among those present at that gathering. Martines asked Langley Productions representative Susan Carney "who ordered the production." According to Martines and at least one other officer who witnessed the conversation, Carney replied: "The Sheriff ordered this; we are here to help him with his campaign for re-election."

That statement was greeted with expressions of stunned disbelief from the officers. Carney broke the awkward silence by asking if she had said something wrong.

Gordon Martines

"Maybe we should introduce you to Sheriff candidate Martines," one of the other officers tersely explained.

On May 7, continued the Tribune, Martines filed a complaint with Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller alleging that Gillespie had violated election laws by using the television production company as a taxpayer-subsidized propaganda vehicle.

By any rational standard, it's an act of corruption for a Sheriff or police chief to enlist the officers under his command as armed bit players in an election-year "reality" show -- and it's likely that Gillespie's torqued priorities contributed to Trevon Cole's eminently avoidable violent death.


The meeting described by Martines occurred before the COPS film crew recorded the "controlled buys" outside Trevon Cole's apartment complex -- stings in which the police tried, unsuccessfully, to lure Cole into selling them cocaine and firearms. According to several accounts, the COPS film crew was supposed to be "embedded" with Yant's home invasion squad during the June 11 raid, but wasn't available. That would explain why the serial killer and impenitent perjurer who led that raid selected a big-ass gun that would look good on TV, rather than being content with his department-issued sidearm.

In a rational world, nobody would be punished (let alone killed) for selling or consuming marijuana. Trevon "most likely would have gotten probation, given his lack of a criminal background," according to Lagomarsino -- if his arrest had been carried out by peace officers, rather than paramilitary poseurs.

Gunned down: Erik Scott.

On September 22, the same inquest system that has repeatedly exonerated Bryan Yant will meet to ratify the actions of the Metro police officers who gunned down Erik Scott a month after the killing of Trevon Cole.

The 39-year-old West Point graduate was shot seven times by three officers in the parking lot of a Costco store. Metro Captain Patrick Neville said the police had responded to complaints that Scott was armed and behaving erratically.

Scott, who had a concealed weapons permit, was carrying two weapons at the time he was killed. Neville claims that "a dozen witnesses" saw Scott pull a gun. That account is disputed by many other eyewitnesses who were present at the crowded retail store on a busy Saturday afternoon. Significantly, the relevant security camera video has been withheld, and the police have suggested that the most crucial video evidence may be lost to a mysterious -- albeit oddly predictable -- "glitch. "

"Showtime Syndrome" probably didn't play a significant role in the killing of Erik Scott, which was most likely a product of police over-reaction to the presence of an armed citizen. His father, William Scott, is an aviation journalist of national stature with "extensive contacts in military and intelligence circles."

Thanks to William Scott's influence, there is an anorexically slender possibility that the coroner's inquest will be a legitimate investigation. If this does happen, more that a few Las Vegas residents will be prompted to ask why the same wasn't true in the case of Trevon Cole. That's when things could get really interesting....

Thank You

Once again I'm overwhelmed and profoundly grateful to those who have donated so generously over the past several days. This means more to me than I can adequately express. God bless each and all of you.

Please join me each Saturday evening from 8:00-11:00 (Mountain Time) for Pro Libertate Radio on the Liberty News Radio Network.











Dum spiro, pugno!

Is the Muslim My Neighbor?

"Pure Religion, and undefiled," as practiced by an infidel: The Good Samaritan.

 

As violence raged through Gaza, Esther Najjar feared that her family -- which included two young girls -- would be the next target of the mob that had just firebombed the local Catholic church.

Riled up through the expert ministrations of professional agitators, the mob of Palestinian Muslims assaulted several Christian houses of worship in protest of papal remarks taken as an affront to those who revere Mohammed. Esther, like many other members of Gaza's embattled Christian minority, was all but helpless. If not for the intervention of their neighbors, she and her daughters may well have been massacred. 

"I was afraid," Esther later told a wire service reporter. "First they attacked the church, and then there was that protest against the pope.... Some of the protesters tried to come down this street, and we were terrified they'd attack the houses. But our Muslim neighbors stopped the protesters." (Emphasis added.)


Those who acted to defend the rights of Esther and her children didn't see them as adherents of an "infidel" religion -- one they might regard as the fighting faith of their political enemies. Instead, they saw those Christian Palestinians as neighbors threatened by criminal violence.  

Incomprehensible as it may seem to those whose bearings on reality are defined by Fox News and GOP-aligned talk radio, the government of the Palestinian Authority -- which, thanks to the Bush administration's intervention, was controlled by Hamas, a terrorist organization created from the CIA-backed Muslim Brotherhood with the help of Israeli intelligence -- didn't exploit the controversy to call for a pogrom against the Christian minority. 

In fact, Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian Prime Minister at the time, did exactly the opposite, admonishing his fellow citizens to rally in defense of the besieged minority: "All Palestinian citizens must prevent all harm to all Christian churches on Palestinian land. Our Christian brothers are citizens of Palestine. They are Palestinians." 

An unlikely Samaritan: Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

This incident could be mistaken for an updating of the parable in which Jesus of Nazareth used a Samaritan -- a member of a despised, heretical religion -- to embody the virtue of loving one's neighbor. 

But there is nothing hypothetical about the neighborly virtue displayed by the Muslims who protected Esther Najjar's family in Gaza four years ago, or about Haniyeh's commendable call for righteous interposition on behalf of Palestinian Christians.  

Haniyeh's actions were all the more remarkable, given that (not to put too fine a point on the matter) there is little in Hamas's ideology or established tactics that can be reconciled with the Sermon on the Mount.


Americans who profess to follow the One who taught the parable of the Good Samaritan should soberly consider this question: Can we display toward our Muslim neighbors the same kind of Christian love that was extended -- at least on that one occasion -- by Haniyeh, a senior political leader of Hamas? 



On the available evidence it would appear that a large portion of America's Christian population, in dealing with our nation's tiny and largely powerless Muslim minority, falls short of what we could call the Haniyeh Standard -- that is, recognizing them as fellow Americans and preventing harm to their houses of worship. In fact, many Christians consider it their neighborly duty to rescue American Muslims from religious error by relieving them of their burdensome individual rights.


Thus it is that Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, perhaps the most influential Religious Right organization, demands that the government forbid the construction of any new mosques anywhere in the United States. Although he's studiously coy about the matter, Fischer clearly would prefer to see the demolition of every existing mosque as well, since he considers them to be "improvised explosive devices" rather than actual houses of worship.


"If a mosque was [sic] willing to publicly renounce the Koran and its 109 verses that call for the death of infidels, renounce Allah and his messenger Mohammed, publicly condemn Osama bin Laden [and] Hamas ... maybe then they could be allowed to build their buildings," sniffs Fischer.  "But then they wouldn't be Muslims at that point, would they?" 

Fischer apparently believes that the only right Muslims possess is the right to refudiate their rights (as St. Sarah might put it). 


What Fischer insinuates, Peter J. Johnson states with admirable candor. Johnson, a legal analyst for Fox News, is the living incarnation of Ellsworth Toohey, a columnist from Ayn Rand's definitive novel The Fountainhead who serves as the fictional embodiment of collectivism.  

Collectivism incarnate: Fox News legal analyst Johnson.

 Standing in front of the site of the proposed Cordoba House in Lower Manhattan, his voice lacquered with cloying, condescending sanctimony, Johnson used his August 20 Fox & Friends commentary to urge Muslims to prove that they are "good neighbors" by commiting metaphorical self-immolation. 

"We are proud that we are one of the few countries in the world which allows the free exercise of religion," mewled Johnson. Of course, this was merely a prelude to the inevitable qualifying conjunction -- "but" -- that nullifies everything coming before it: "... but when we resort to legalisms instead of common sense, or compassion, when we invoke our First Amendment as a sword, not a shield, it means we have lost sight of and broken faith with our national identity and strength."

In a fashion that would have caused a knowing smile to crease Toohey's overfed face, Johnson thus defined an unqualified assertion of individual liberty as a form of aggression against the collective. He then asserted that sacrifice of one's individual rights is "the essential principle of our nation's endurance": "When it comes to our national interest, we are neither Christians, nor Jews, nor Muslims; we are Americans first, who make sacrifices for each other."


There is nothing essentially "American" about that formulation; in fact, it could very easily be transposed into the idiom of Soviet propaganda during Stalin's "Great Patriotic War": "When it comes to our national interest, we are neither Christians, nor Jews, nor Muslims; we are Soviet citizens first, who make sacrifices for each other."


What distinguishes the American ideal from any variety of nationalist collectivism is the sanctity of individual rights, not the supposed virtue of self-sacrifice in the service of the putative common good. Johnson, however, is firmly committed to the Soviet perspective.


"Why has the notion of `we' been replaced by `me'?" whines Johnson, who -- borrowing a riff from Big Brother's "Two Minute Hate" --  goes on to offer a tortured insinuation that the Park51 community center would have some connection to "our implacable enemy,  the nation of Iran." (Note that he indicts the "nation," not the government ruling that country.) 


The only way that those seeking to build the Park51 facility can behave as "neighbors becoming good neighbors," according to Johnson, is to surrender their rights. 

"Any American can assert a right," Johnson concludes. "Great Americans give up their rights to help those they share nothing else with but a love of this country."


Like Rand's literary creation Ellsworth Toohey, Johnson appears to have made a deliberate choice to evangelize on behalf of collectivism in terms calculated to appeal to the basest impulses of the mob. After all, if "sacrifice" is a virtue, why doesn't Johnson urge critics of the Cordoba House to offer their hurt feelings as a sacrifice in the defense of individual rights?The logical answer is that Johnson is paid to promote statist militarism, not individual liberty -- and do so in a nearly pitch-perfect imitation of Toohey. 


"Look back at history," commented Toohey in The Fountainhead. "Look at any great system of ethics. Didn't they all preach the sacrifice of personal joy? Under all the complications of verbiage, haven't they all had a single leitmotif -- sacrifice, renunciation, self-denial? Haven't you been able to catch their theme song -- give up, give up, give up? Every system of ethics that preached sacrifice grew into a world power and ruled millions of men." 

In the parable taught by Jesus, the Good Samaritan exposed himself to risk by ministering to the victim of mob violence; he likewise used his own funds to obtain lodging and treatment for his wounded neighbor. This was compassionate charity. It was not the collectivist counterfeit called "altruism." The Samaritan's generosity didn't involve a renunciation of his own individual rights and fundamental worth; rather, they were carried out in harmony with the Great Commandment to love one's neighbor "as himself."


Ayn Rand may have had a similar distinction in mind when she warned: "Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others.  These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible.  The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice -- which means: self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction --- which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as the standard of the good."

Some might insist that Rand would be offended by the suggestion that her individualist ethics can be reconciled with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. I suspect that Rand would take much greater offense over the fact that her supposed "intellectual heir," Leonard Peikoff, is up to his wattled neck in subjectivist heresy regarding the "Ground Zero Mosque." In his comments about the contrived controversy, Peikoff has asserted the primacy of hurt feelings over the principle of property rights -- to the point of suggesting that in the event the facility is actually built it should be destroyed in an act of state terrorism.

Rand's description of altruism as metaphorical self-immolation is uniquely appropriate to this discussion.

Peter J. Johnson Jr. Esq. didn't urge Imam Rauf and the others behind the Cordoba Initiative to strap on dynamite vests and blow themselves to a bloody mist, in the fashion of "martyrs" deployed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. However, his formula for self-sacrificing "patriotism" -- "great Americans give up their rights" -- is close kindred to the exhortations used by schismatic Muslim clerics to recruit suicide bombers. 

Whatever else can be said about the teachings and practice of Islam, this much should be understood: The evil practice of murder-suicide bombing has been condemned by traditionalist Islamic clerics as an apostate innovation of recent vintage that is incompatible with Koranic teachings condemning suicide and assaults on innocent non-combatants.  This reflects the fact that terrorists and those who support them account for a tiny percentage of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims.


By way of contrast, most conservative American Christians support unending military aggression against the Muslim world, including the use of tactics (such as bombing civilian population centers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the imposition of murderous blockades against Iraq and Gaza) that can only be described as state-sponsored terrorism against the innocent. 


Muslim extremists are the ones who countenance criminal violence against the innocent -- whether they're "infidel" Christians and Jews, or Muslims perceived to be apostates. The marginalized "extremists" among American Christians are those of us who see American Muslims as our neighbors, and oppose criminal aggression against the rights of Muslims living abroad. 


(Note: The final paragraph was slightly expanded from the original version. Also, the fifth paragraph has been expanded with additional details regarding the origins of the Hamas terrorist organization. )





                                                              A personal note


It has been roughly one year since my near-death experience and, coincidentally, the end of my most recent long-term freelance writing gig. Since that time, this blog has been my family's only consistent source of income. Thank you so much for your kindness and generosity.


There is a very good chance that in this coming week I will be starting a new part-time editorial position that will provide a consistent, if modest, income. This is a timely and most welcome development. 

In recent weeks I've been working at various part-time jobs as they have become available, and not merely as a writer or editor: I recently spent a Saturday morning collecting, and disposing of, canine digestive residue -- something I was eager to do, because there was a paycheck involved. 


Even in better times it is a challenge to provide for a family of eight, even when the sole breadwinner has a steady job. Even in better economic circumstances my employment options would be limited on account of Korrin's difficulties: My wonderful wife is a diagnosed schizophrenic who often simply cannot function as a mother. This helps explain the occasional irregularity of my output here at Pro Libertate.

Assuming that everything falls into place, my new job will relieve some of the pressure -- but we've reached a point in our household finances where the bucket is bringing up sand from the bottom of the well. 

Korrin is receiving assistance for her medical needs (a decision that was taken from me the first time she was hospitalized in 2006), but I have refused to make a hypocrite of myself by accepting food stamps or other forms of government "welfare." 

Where I can offer charity, I eagerly do so; when it is offered to my family, I thankfully accept it. But as far as I have any say in the matter, I will not knowingly receive stolen property.  My family and I will be profoundly grateful for any help any of you can offer us to get through the coming month. Thanks again, and God bless you always.

Be sure to tune in for Pro Libertate Radio each Saturday night from 8:00-11:00 Mountain Time on the Liberty News Radio Network.









Dum spiro, pugno!