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Police2Peace ®

Police2Peace ®

Uplifting and Healing Police and Communities

Police2Peace Blog

A Proud Boy Capitol Rioter’s Story

February 4, 2021 by Editorial team

Rioters at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

– By Anne Speckhard, PhD, Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE)

“Last thing you think is that you are joining a racist organization when the leader is Puerto Rican and Black,” 39-year-old white Joshua Pruitt says. Josh, one of the Proud Boys who rioted inside the Capitol on January 6th was inducted into the Proud Boys in Fall of 2020 and began his slippery slide into what many are now terming as insurrectionism and domestic terrorism, a slide that was both frighteningly quick, as well as based on vulnerabilities created way back in his childhood.

“I was a Trump supporter,” Josh explains of how he fell into extremism, “nothing extreme. I was not in the far right at first, in 2016.” But three months ago, he recalls, when the initial MAGA march was happening in D.C., a friend called saying he had an expensive bottle of whiskey and invited Josh to come to the march and share the bottle. “I was a bartender in D.C. for 15 years, he had $130 a shot whiskey, so sure I’ll come for that! Have a shot, have a beer. We walked Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol.” 

That’s when the trouble began. “Me and him, we get down there. I’m a little amped up as it is. I see Antifa. I walk up to a fence. I want to hear what they are saying. Basically they were blocked by cops, but one of the guys started coming at me to rile me up, with a bull horn yelling at me. He said that he was going to fu%$ me in the ass and taunted me, ‘Come over the fence.’”

When asked how he knew it was Antifa, Josh answers, “They had police protection, all black and masks on. You can tell. They were not Trump supporters on the other side and going at us.” Indeed, this is reciprocal radicalization, a process that has been going on all over this country over the last year in particular, as Antifa and other groups on the far left clash with far right and white supremacists and more recently with the Proud Boys, each riling the other up a few notches until both sides are spoiling for a fight and talking about, or actually, arming themselves.

Josh didn’t need a weapon. He’s a trained fighter. “I was an MMA [Mixed Martial Arts] fighter, a body builder. I got riled up,” he recalls. Josh’s way of letting off steam in these situations is to drink with his friends. “I go to a bar. Two beers, shot a Jameson. I was leaving to go home, then ten Antifa [suddenly show up] ready to jump me. They followed me [to the bar.] Me being the knucklehead, [I think] 10 of you, one of me. I’ll get five of you before they hit me. Then some guys came behind me. I later learned they were Proud Boys. They kept me from getting jumped. I want to hang out and didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to get jumped.” So in classic gang mentality, Josh fell in with his protectors despite not knowing much about them. 

“I didn’t even know who Proud Boys were,” Josh explains. “I hung out with them that day. There were some scuffles with Antifa, three fights. They all swung at me first. I am a trained fighter. One swung a knife at me. Another one stabbed right in front of me. None of us to my knowledge had weapons. No one was able to hit me. I had a knife swung at me. I moved his arm and knocked him out after.” I ask Josh if this is the night a Proud Boy was involved in a stabbing that ended in death.

“This was the first one, three stabbings, the third one was the killing. No one got hurt that night,” Josh answers. “Apparently the person I was right, besides. I pulled someone off him, it was Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys. By the end of the night he asked me to join the Proud Boys,” Josh explains. Josh was inducted that night by Enrique and the video of it immediately went viral on social media. “17 million views of me being inducted into the Proud Boys, right outside the JW Marriot.”

The repercussions for Josh were immediate. “I got blasted the next morning on social media. [I’m] bald, white and big, with a beard, so I fit the narrative [of a racist]. So I know why they attacked me. I was in the majority of videos, partly because I was with Enrique. I got doxxed, couldn’t get a job. I was partially on a schedule at one bar. They took me off the schedule. They said other workers had to be put on.”

“My first thought process is, I’m not racist,” Josh explains. “That’s just a joke. Anyone who knows me from growing up, knows that’s not true. The majority that know me don’t believe it. I’ve even had people who don’t know me, after we have conversations change their mind. It’s not the truth.” Indeed, spending most of his life in diverse Washington, D.C., Josh has had friends and romantic relationships of many races and ethnicities. 

When I ask Josh how he felt about being accused of being racist and being called out on social media, he answers, “I wasn’t mad. More scared than mad, worried about people noticing me.

My best friend [told me], ‘There’s no bad media. Infamous is still famous. No one is going to touch you. No one is going to do anything.’” It didn’t turn out true, but Josh still had that to learn. At that point, he didn’t have a clue on how to respond to the accusations.

“At that point I laid low,” he explains. “Then I went to the next rally. I had met the Proud Boys,” he explains, “but I didn’t stay in contact, had no one’s numbers.” But the Proud Boys remembered Josh. “I apparently made a name for myself,” he states. “They said I held my own, stayed in the front line. What I am known for is sleeveless, not hard to miss me.” 

 “Same thing happened,” Josh recounts of the November MAGA rally. “We got into it a few times, not as harsh as the first one. After that night I heard I had a price on my head, from Antifa and BLM.”

“After that I knew a lot more people, exchanged contacts,” Josh explains. “Conservative groups reached out to me. And I saw disgusting stuff on the internet about me. People taunting me. One of the main things that really made me mad, two days after original video came out, some girl I never dated saying I used to beat my ex-girlfriends. I went off at her and said, ‘Take it down.’ It was not true at all. If you can give a name or someone come forward, but I know it’s not the case. It’s never happened in my life. Screwing my character. She took it down after two hours. She knew she just made it up.”

“‘You look like someone who hits your girlfriend.’ What does that mean?” Josh rants. “That’s not a thing! My kid’s Mom is politically different, but she said, ‘I never feared you putting your hands on me.’”

Josh tried not to let the Internet assault and being doxxed get to him, but even though he’s an MMA fighter, he’s got a sensitive side. He also has a strong streak for justice and supports the police. “I have been a bartender for 15 years,” Josh says. “I know a lot of cops.” Hearing that Antifa and others were using “spray bottles of piss at the cops, I was infuriated.” He offered to stand up for the cops, telling his police friends, “I can do what you are not allowed to do,” but they didn’t take him up on it. “I wanted to protect the cops.”

He ended up on the other side of things, however. “Then it goes on to the January 6th where we go into the Capitol,” Josh explains. “I had no clue that anyone was going to go in that building.” Before talking to Josh, I read the social psychology literature on mob mentality. Some authors argue that individuals lose their sense of self in crowds, deindividuate, and take on group think in which they temporarily suspend their judgement and take on the norms of the group. Likewise, there is good evidence that individuals in mobs, particularly those who hide their identities under balaclavas or masks, tend to be more violent than they would be on their own. Yet, other researchers argue that mobs tend to bring together like-minded individuals who often share a grievance and that there is a continuum of views existing among the mob, with some instigating for violence, where others may not be interested in violence at all. As I listen to Josh, and particularly after hearing his childhood history, I see a person for whom belonging, a sense of significance and dignity are really important. It seems that once falling in with those who do endorse violence, he is the type to be swept up in a mob mentality.

“We started at the other end where Trump was speaking,” Josh explains. “[It was a] cluster fu%&. I didn’t hear a single word that he [President Trump] said. You couldn’t get that close. So then we walked down to the capitol. 15 of us at the time. We get pretty close to the capitol. Then we see the fu%$ happening. It was getting really weird. The last thing you think is anyone would go into the capitol, [but I] see them rushing up. I waited a few minutes. I walked up and I walked through the front door, an open door, [with the] cops waving us in. I think it’s okay, if they are waving us in. Now [in hindsight,] it seems like a set-up. Why not let everyone in and charge everyone?”

Inside the Capitol, Josh was completely shocked by what he was seeing. “How do you say back the blue, and then attack the blue?” he asks, incredulous about those who were attacking the Capitol police. “There is video of me. I’m trying to pull people back. I hit one person in that building—someone swinging at a cop. I don’t believe in that, stealing shit, and taking pictures of people’s office, fu%^ disgusting, I saw that and it pissed me off.”

“I had two cops ask, ‘Can you help us? You are obviously the voice of reason,’  because I was backing people up and saying, ‘We need to leave.’ I could see there was no purpose and it was disgusting.”

Josh’s cognitive dissonance was overwhelming him, but he didn’t know what to do. “I was mad at Antifa for shooting piss at the cops to being in this building,” he explains still trying to make sense of it. “I grabbed people to back them off. I thought it was wrong. There was a picture of me throwing a sign in aggravation. We had just gotten gassed. You’re mad. You hit a wall instead of hitting someone else. I threw a sign.”

Josh knew he needed to get out, but he didn’t know how to exit the building. “I have to get the fu%$ out of here,” he recalls thinking. “I don’t want any part of this. Walk around looking for a damn exit. I was gone by 3:30. I was in for 30-40 minutes. At the end of it I was trying to get people to leave. Finally I thought I need to get out myself, the fu%$ out.”

Josh was arrested that same night. “I got arrested for [breaking] curfew, trying to walk into the hotel I was staying in.” This was after he had agreed to escort a young woman to her hotel. Josh was surprised at how he was treated by police he respected. He doesn’t remember them reading him his rights. “They pulled me into an interrogation room and showed me pictures of me in the Capitol and said I’ll be charged with felony rioting. I see the goddamn picture. It’s literally me. I’m not going to deny it,” Josh recounts. “I was very cooperative with the cops. I told the story. I didn’t say, ‘fu%$ you’.”

At the time I interviewed him, Josh was not yet charged and was hoping it would all go away.

“I didn’t come from another state to do it, [so I] couldn’t be charged for felony rioting. [Maybe I’m] on the lower end of charges, for entering the capitol building. Might be beatable because I got waved in by cops. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. I thought it was fu$# disgusting and I started trying to help. Can you find the video of the cop asking me to help them, backing the people up and thanking me?”

Still without charges, Josh quickly found that he was being tried in the court of public opinion, once again. “On Sunday I got approached at a bar. People tried to attack me. They make me out to be a monster. I went to watch football. A girl comes screaming up to me, ‘I know who you are! You are a piece of shit! You should fu%$ die! You need to leave!’ I wasn’t bothering anyone. I was just watching football and having a beer. I don’t need any more problems. I got attacked, so I paid my bill and left.”

“I’ll get my character assassinated now. I’ve gotten death threats,” Josh says. I notice he’s got a Thor hammer necklace and wonder if that is a symbol from white supremacists. “I got into Norse mythology from my ex-girlfriend,” Josh explains. “She’s from Poland. She has spears and hatchets and swords on the wall. It has nothing to do with that and I didn’t know it was a thing,” Josh explains. “The Thor hammer is racist. I didn’t have a fu%$ clue. It wasn’t when it was originated. The majority of my friends still talk to me and the majority are Black, anyone who looks at my social media wouldn’t see me with a bunch of skin heads.”

Josh is now charged with eight separate charges. “I don’t have money for a lawyer,” he tells me.

He’s scared and rumors are flying. “I’ve been hearing some other crazy stuff. I hope I wouldn’t get charged with this—murder for the cop who died. I don’t think that would hold up with me. I don’t think I was in the building at that time. I’m back the blue. That person who hit the cop with the fire extinguisher should go to prison, not cool.”

Suddenly Josh launches into a far-right trope, “I heard Antifa was there dressed up as Trump supporters. The guy with the horns on his head, is Antifa and he was the first one in the building. He goes to everything. I saw him earlier in the day talking on a bull horn. We walked by him laughing, as he was acting a fool.” I decide not to engage him on this and just ignore it.

When I ask Josh if he still considers himself a Proud Boy, he answers thoughtfully, “I would say yes. It’s a good question. I don’t really know these guys. Am I affiliated? Yes. What they stand for is not what they are being told they stand for,” Josh explains. Many academics would have to agree on that, as has been hard to decipher exactly what the Proud Boys really stand for. Founded in late 2016 by Gavin McInnes, the co-founder of Vice Media, who has been adamant in arguing that the Proud Boys are not an “alt-right” white nationalist group. However, the Southern Poverty Law Center has documented their anti-immigrant rhetoric, misogyny and violent activities and the FBI designated them as an extremist group with white nationalist ties as early as November 2018.  

“I haven’t heard one guy say one racist thing when I am hanging out with them,” Josh states. “What they stand for, it’s not definitely not that [white supremacism]. They are on the right, not even far. Definitely Trump supporters. A lot are ex-military and just don’t want our country taken over, don’t believe in a stolen election which is what we think. If there had been no concerns over voter fraud, I could give two fuc%$ who the president is. As a bartender it made no difference in my life,” Josh says, making me laugh. “If legit Biden won I’d have beers at the inauguration. But it seems like there was a bit of fraud. [We were] unhappy with it. No one gives a fu%$ if Trump is President again. I’m not even going to vote again. For what? They just pick who they want anyway. The amount of votes is going to be so much less. It will be a landslide, because 50 million people won’t vote. Me and my sister are not voting again. No point, just a waste of time,” Josh rants as I think this is how we can lose our democracy, when voters no longer believe in it. The “big lie” about the election fraud has had far reaching consequences and it’s going to be people like Josh who pay with prison time, not President Trump, who incited them to violence.

When I ask where Josh gets his information, he admits to watching far right videos. “I probably watch way too much shit from certain people,” Josh states. “Ben Shapiro, Officer Tatum, Conservative Twins. I watch too much,” he admits. From what I can see, Josh seems easily influenced, still has a childlike mind and has a deep need to belong to what he thinks is right. “[I was] too involved than I should have. Seems there was fraud, don’t know if it was enough to steal the election, but fraud yes. I don’t think it was 20 million votes. Georgia, idea of Pennsylvania, he’s winning by 7 million and then only 500 in the morning. Doesn’t make sense to me. That’s me thinking I’m being logical.”

Josh’s radicalization into violent extremism has no religious roots as it does for some. He explains, “My parents took me to Catholic church when I was young. I’m not into it. I believe there is a higher power, but on Sundays I watch football or go to the gym.”

When I go back to how Josh joined the Proud Boys, he lays out his code of loyalty and honor and explains about being jumped by 10 guys who he believes were Antifa when the Proud Boys came to his rescue. “I didn’t even know who these guys were. I was going to handle it on my own. They came out of nowhere and protected me, helped me from not getting jumped. Fu%$ it, I’ll hang out with them. At least I won’t get jumped the rest of the day. I’ll hang out and drink. I know how to fight. They saved my ass earlier. I’m going to have their backs. That was my thought process. I don’t regret.”

I ask him if he went to the Capitol with them and he answers, “I showed up with the Proud Boys, but I got lost from them.” Then he goes back to his confusion of what he’s now embroiled into as a result, ruminating over his innocence in entering with the other rioters. “There’s video of people getting waved in by cops, in the front fu%$ door. I hope they have all the video in the world of me. It will save my ass,” Josh states. “I went in there as a God damn Patriot, not as a rioter, not to fight cops, to take pix on people’s desk, steal podiums. Put 300 people together, 30 will be dumbasses,” he says.

Josh is worried about the charges and worried that he won’t be able to get anything but a court appointed lawyer. “Murder charge on everyone is a fu%$ joke,” he states while complaining about how he’s getting attacked now from all sides. “I’m getting messages, ‘Oh you are going to prison. You are going to get fuc%$ in the ass.’ People can be really nasty just for having another opinion of them. Look, if you find a video of me knocking a cop, you are right. [But] that I was inside, it’s not so goddamn black and white, [there’s a] shit load of grey in my area. Videos of me actually helping. They are not going say that. They want to nail me on the one charge. I was cooperative with arresting cops. Most [rioters] said ‘Fu%$ off.’ They thanked me.”

I interviewed Josh the day before the inauguration. He has orders not to leave D.C. but this is extremely agitating for him, making me wonder if when it comes to these kinds of cases if mental health interventions could be useful alongside legal repercussions. “I don’t want to be here anymore. Right now I’m not allowed to leave D.C. If wasn’t told to stay here, I don’t want anything to do with DC tomorrow. I’m not leaving my house tomorrow, literally. I don’t want any part of it. I don’t want to be accused of being involved in it.” The Proud Boys have also told him not to go out tomorrow. “I live nearby. I could technically walk down there,” Josh explains. “Tomorrow is the apocalypse,” he says, obviously worried about what will happen.

I ask him how he’s coping with the distress and confusion. “Sleeping and I’m drinking more than I should. Taking my mind off of shit, trying to stay busy, doing relatively nothing. I’m emotionally fu%$ right now, not happy, but I learned don’t stress over shit that hasn’t happened, don’t know, and try to be as positive as I can. I don’t know the outcome of this, have to prepare for the worst.”

“Crazy fu%$ shit going on,” Josh says when I ask him about the bad actors who were in the Capitol alongside him. “Grabbing the police gear. The way I saw people acting, you got into the building, okay you proved your point, why trying to get further in the building? Your protest stops right there. Why try to push past the cops? Where are you trying to go? You are going to hurt congressmen and women? Why that’s just a bad idea. There were definitely some people in there with ill intent, which is sickening. All this shit that you sit back and preach about violence, and you come with this thought process? Come on guys, grow the fu%$ up. Don’t be a hypocrite.”

Those were Josh’s thoughts inside the Capitol when he saw things happening that violated his values, but I ask him to turn back to what he was thinking as he joined them. “We are protesting, proving a point,” Josh explains, “Going in and then leave. We had control, and cared about a real election not being cheated.”

Some obviously had prepared for crimes, coming with a gallows, and saying they wanted to execute Congressmen and Josh agrees there were very nefarious actors among those inside the Capitol, but denies being of their mindset, “There were people trying to get to the Congressmen. I’m not going to hurt a Congressman. That was not even in the back of my mind. Fu%$ this is what they are trying to do? Some of this is an act of stupidity. I had no ill intentions. Maybe people thought they’d take the ballots. I had no ill intentions. Probably a lot of them had ill intentions.”

At this point, the social media, cancel culture, real-life threats and the charges hanging over his head are wearing Josh down. “I am scared for my God damn life,” he says. “I want to leave so bad. I’m scared. There is nothing like everyone hating you. People who don’t even know you, people who don’t know you, hate you. That’s the worst.”

Josh is drinking to cope, explaining, “It’s my go to,” although he’d rather be working out. “I’m a body builder, but I’m scared to go to the gym. I don’t want to leave the house. I’m getting noticed everywhere I walk to. I’m scared to go to the grocery store. I can’t catch a fu%$ charge now. If someone talks shit and swings at me, I’ll be the bad guy, because I’m all over the news. If someone hits me in the face and I hit him back, guess who is going to jail? It’s me.”

“I believe I’m not a bad person,” Josh says as he condemns racists. “I think they are fu%$ idiots. That’s not a thing. It shouldn’t be a thing. We are all the same people, all the same blood. It’s just stupid. I don’t believe in that shit at all. People who are racist are honestly just full of fu%$ shit. It makes no sense. What defines people is their personality not their god damn skin color, nothing to do with their race. There is nothing racist about me. I don’t even have a lot of white friends. I just don’t. I grew up in a very ethnic area, not majority white.”

When I ask Josh if he agrees to our making a video from his interview for our Escape Hate counter narrative project he agrees immediately and offers advice to others about avoiding what he fell into. “My advice: You need to think about what you’re doing before you do it. That spur of the moment thing is not a thing. That’s when you make bad decisions. That’s even if you don’t mean to make bad decisions. Your intent to be good, then it can turn into something completely different. No one knows what you are actually thinking, what is seen from the outside is for them the truth.”

“Definitely another piece of advice,” Josh continues. “For kids or anybody, don’t become a part of anything you don’t know the whole background or story on. You might think they are part of something better. They might have a reputation of being something worse. I’m talking about gangs, anything in general. All of that stuff is bad. I’m more of a one-man army kind of person, that the only person who is going to look out for you, is you. You have to look out for yourself first. The idea that anyone is really going to have your back at the end of the day is a joke, not if it compromises them.”

Despite being a body builder and MMA fighter, Josh is naïve and childlike in many ways. As he tells me about his childhood it all makes sense. “Childhood wasn’t great. I had a big family that didn’t talk to me. I was the black sheep of the family. My mother died of heroin overdose. [Her family] blacklisted me because I reminded them of my mother. Dad was not very connected. My Dad has AIDs from heroin needles. I learned that at 8. Younger sister gave up for adoption at age 2. They did her a favor and gave her up. Older sister also given up. They kept me. I only knew her as a cousin. Six years ago I found out she was my sister. I only knew my mom till six. In early years my dad passed me back and forth to him and my aunt on my mom’s side, back and forth for a few years. I moved out of the house when I was 16.”

While Josh didn’t finish high school, he got his GED and found good jobs. “I’m not dumb,” he explains. “I went to college for digital media and animation,” he explains and then worked his way up in sales at various places becoming top in the stores where he worked.

Josh is a drinker, but says he doesn’t overdo it because he’s into body building. “I didn’t get into drugs,” he says. “It scares me. I saw my mother die from it. Someone could offer me a million dollars to do heroin. I’d say no, moral aspect.” Then he admits. “I saw the overdose.”

In many ways Josh is a big kid in a man’s body still figuring life and relationships out. He’s alone and needs support in his life and the Proud Boys came to fill that need at the same time that a massive national crisis was occurring in which our own President refused to concede his election loss and was telling the country and the Proud Boys, in particular, that they needed to be strong and fight for democracy. In fact, the President pushed men like Josh to attack our very institutions and probably ruin their lives in doing so.

While Josh couldn’t hear what President Trump actually said as they gathered outside the White House he did get the message and heeded it. Now he says, “Trump told us to go. I listened to our President.”

I stayed in touch with Josh as we prepare his counter narrative video asking for photos and his opinion and making sure he’s still comfortable with it. He gives me his Instagram page and I studied it with our video editor but there aren’t even any pictures of him in a MAGA hat or at any protests. It’s all about body building, girlfriends and gear that he sells for body building fans. After he was charged, Josh told me both his Instagram and Facebook have been taken down, despite there not being any radical content on his Instagram page from what I could see. The takedown cripples his ability to sell gear and to communicate normally and makes Josh furious that a big tech company can censor him for what appears like no reason. I encouraged him to appeal it.

Meanwhile, I ask Josh if we should refer to him as a former Proud Boy, but he says no, he is with them and points out that Antifa has attacked an ICE building in Portland, but no one is doing much about it. He feels that Black Lives Matter and Antifa can get away with things for which he’s going to be crucified. I watch the effects of cancel culture and de-platforming push him further in with an extremist group and solidify beliefs that aren’t good for him. Again, I wonder isn’t there a better way to prevent and intervene in cases like this?

Reference for this article: Speckhard, Anne (February 2, 2021). A Proud Boy Capitol Rioter’s Story. ICSVE Research Reports.

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D., is Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE) and serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine. She has interviewed over 700 terrorists, their family members and supporters in various parts of the world including in Western Europe, the Balkans, Central Asia, the Former Soviet Union and the Middle East. In the past five years years, she has in-depth psychologically interviewed over 250 ISIS defectors, returnees and prisoners  as well as 16 al Shabaab cadres (and also interviewed their family members as well as ideologues) studying their trajectories into and out of terrorism, their experiences inside ISIS (and al Shabaab), as well as developing the Breaking the ISIS Brand Counter Narrative Project materials from these interviews which includes over 200 short counter narrative videos of terrorists denouncing their groups as un-Islamic, corrupt and brutal which have been used in over 150 Facebook and Instagram campaigns globally.

Filed Under: Community Policing, Uncategorized

Earth to Portland: Dispatch from the Nation’s Problem Child

December 2, 2020 by Lisa Broderick

Portland’s White Stag sign in September 2016. Photo by Steve Morgan.

We live in Portland, Oregon. As almost anyone in our town will tell you,  the question we are getting the most from those who do not live here these days is, “Are you okay?” 

That is what it is like to be the national Problem Child.  The next set of questions are some version of: “What’s wrong out there?” “Is your neighborhood trashed?” “Are there really Proud Boy patrols around town, heavily armed?” “Did you really almost elect an Antifa mayor?”

One of us is a long-time practitioner of nonviolent civil resistance and scholar in the field of conflict transformation.

One of us is a medical professional innovating new ways to help protect and heal brave activists from the trauma they have experienced both on the streets and in life.

We are sending two messages. 

The first is to the country at large: We will be all right. Though Portlanders are devastated about boarded-up downtown businesses and trashed public places, we also resent President Trump’s unwelcome destructive interference and bald-faced lies about our beautiful city. Most Portlanders do support Black Lives Matter.  Very few media have been reporting the complexity of our streets and what has happened to co-opt the protest narrative. We also vehemently disagree that most Portlanders support the local version of the Proud Boys. All of the street brawlers, the worst of which included Trump’s unmarked federal agents and the abominable behavior of some Portland police—have very low levels of support here.

The second message is to activists in Portland and elsewhere: Stop the violence. Push the reset button on our vigorous yet chaotic and violent protest movement.  We can all agree in our support of our First Amendment rights to peaceful assembly and further, that we all come to the streets with passion for change.  

But the community at large is hurting and so will any others who suffer these outbreaks of toxic masculinity.  

We are scarcely thinking about George Floyd, Kendra James, Breonna Taylor, James Jahar Perez, and all the other unarmed African Americans murdered by police when the nightly protest focus has become chant, graffiti and property damage.  The narrative is getting lost. The murdered ones deserve the message and the moral high ground as well as tactics that work to bring more numbers to the fight. 

Yes, Trump’s troops attacked peaceful protesters. Yes, the Portland Police have betrayed the public trust in their bursts of unprofessional conduct.

But responding in-kind with thrown soup cans, bear spray or Molotov cocktails only serves to slam shut any sympathy locals and others feel for activists—including the consistently peaceful people who never even engage in property destruction, let alone using violence to defend themselves against police violence.

Whether the violent self-defense is done by undercover agents meant to discredit a movement or done by authentic enraged activists, the effect is the same: loss of support. Politicians, police, and opinion leaders see this erosion of sympathy and become far less inclined to address the problem that activists claim to be demonstrating to solve.

The “point” becomes debating whether or not to wreck stuff and whether or not to act in violent “self-defense.”  (It’s worth noting that all violent parties purport to make that claim, like a preschool group of children all saying that “He started it!”). Whether the initial point was protesting police killing unarmed Black people or Trump attempting to steal an election, breaks in nonviolent discipline causes public opinion to shift toward the party that maintains the discipline. And just to compound the unfairness, if all parties are violent, the public will become increasingly grateful for the thin blue line “protecting” them from the chaos.

We understand deeply and painfully how profoundly unfair that is, as real harm has been done in Portland.  We bear witness to that.  But if things were fair, no one would need to protest in the first place. When movements win, they do so with strategy, not inchoate rage.

Do we suggest apathy? Absolutely not. Resistance to injustice or to threats to democracy should be robust. 

Here is what we advocate: 

  • Commit publicly, repeatedly, and authentically to nonviolence for the duration of this campaign. More people will sympathize, support, and participate in a nonviolent campaign; thus it is also more likely to succeed in effecting change. 
  • Develop unarmed, nonviolent peace teams who can help participants in such events maintain nonviolent discipline under all circumstances. 
  • For the foreseeable future, we recommend only scheduling direct action events during daytime hours. Mischief is mostly done under cover of darkness and even peaceful demonstrations at night are nearly invisible.
  • We call on our faith communities and labor unions to stand with nonviolent activists and help movements self-police against loss of nonviolent discipline. 

We need everyone united in the need for nonviolent change to defend historically marginalized peoples and to make our democracy more robust. In doing so we join the proud legacy of successful defending democracy campaigns from the Philippines (1986) to Chile (1988) to Serbia (2000) to Ukraine (2005) to the Gambia (2016) and counting. They all stopped election theft while maintaining nonviolent discipline. Many other struggles for racial justice, labor rights, and the rights of all historically marginalized peoples won using strict nonviolent discipline. Relatively few won by using violence.

It’s time for us to show the world that Portland is a town of peace warriors.  Let’s practice activism that everyone can participate in, including our children.  This world is theirs to inherit–let’s make our streets safe for them again.  

We ask this with profound humility and respect for each and every Portlander and all genuine justice activists everywhere.

Dr. Tom H. Hastings is Coördinator of Conflict Resolution BA/BS degree programs and certificates at Portland State University, PeaceVoice Director, and on occasion an expert witness for the defense of nonviolent civil resisters in court. 

Saskia Hostetler Lippy, MD, is a psychiatrist in practice in downtown Portland and has been volunteering to provide psychological first aid to those involved in the Portland protest movement. She is also a field monitor for the TRUST network. 

Filed Under: Community Policing, Uncategorized

Solving the Crisis of Policing

August 30, 2020 by Lisa Broderick

There is a crisis of policing in this country.   It’s not just the elephant in the living room—today it is the living room.  It’s in every American living room:  media stories, citizen iPhones, body cams.  In the wake of the death of George Floyd and so many countless others before him, the crisis of policing in this country has reached epidemic proportions.  And it’s not so much police tactics—although many would point to that and with good reason.  Other countries employ in practices much like the US for their police; just recall the images of Chinese officers tamping down protesters in Hong Kong over the last 12 months. The difference is that those countries have somehow solved the riddle of deadly police force far better than the US.  For example, according to the FBI, about 1,000 police officer-involved deaths of citizens occur every year, while in other developed countries the police may not be involved in even one police-involved death of a citizen in a year. 

Why is this we ask ourselves? Explanations range from the fact that Americans are largely armed, that our roots are in rugged individualism , the popularization of the spirit of adventure policing careers, the deployment of technology in the 1990s in the place of community policing and being on the street.  But those issues are not what this article is about.  Given where we are at this moment in time, how can we solve the crisis of policing?

I believe that the current crisis of policing in this country requires a quantum leap in our thinking—something that is so aspirational, that it is so radical that it will actually change police culture.   That disruptive idea is the notion of going back to our roots as PEACE OFFICERS.  It’s profound when you finally see it. 

If we go back to the fundamentals, what is the real name for cops?  They’re “peace officers”.   That’s what the law usually calls them.    PEACE OFFICER is the one unifying notion that all cops are tied together by.  So how do we actualize this as a nation?   One way is using the ethos of PEACE OFFICER for our police and sheriff’s deputies:  To prevent conflict; If there is conflict, help resolve it; diffuse situations; and aid the defenseless.   Police officers are in our communities to intervene and defend the defenseless.   That didn’t happen for George Floyd and that’s inexcusable.  And I feel, preventable.

Now that we’re no longer turning away from the problem we need to develop a solution for why police-involved deaths of citizens keep happening and develop a national strategy to address it.   I believe that a cultural shift in the policing paradigm from recruiting and hiring for the adventure of policing, to returning to our roots found in our penal codes that call cops PEACE OFFICERS is a good start.  It makes the responsibility of police enforcement the facilitation of peace in the community. Further, what is needed is for departments to have organizational alignment around peace officer, which includes messaging, training, and reward systems because we have to have consistency in actions with the symbolism of peace officer.   If the only tools we give cops are nightsticks and guns, then we shouldn’t be surprised that they are going to use force and end up killing people.  We have to give them other tools:  resilience training, de-escalation training, community outreach programs, and technology.   We can re-shape policing in this country into transparent, rightful and non-fatal using the notion of PEACE OFFICER. 

Filed Under: Community Policing, Uncategorized

Ashland Police Chief O’Meara talks use of force

June 20, 2020 by Lisa Broderick

by Joe Zavala of The Ashland Tidings 

https://mailtribune.com/news/top-stories/ashland-police-chief-omeara-talks-use-of-force

Ashland Police Chief Tighe O’Meara has already expressed his feelings regarding the death of George Floyd. And if O’Meara’s stance wasn’t made clear enough by the sign he briefly held during the first of two protests in Ashland Sunday — it read “Stop Lynching Black People” — his elaboration between the protests removed all doubt.

Ashland Police Chief O’Meara talks use of force. Police2Peace - Protecting The Peace In Our Communities.

But what about the other officer in the now infamous video, the one standing with his back turned as officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes? The answer to that, O’Meara says, can be found in the criminal justice code of ethics and APD’s own code of ethics, with which every officer is expected to comply.

The code includes a section titled “Duty to Intercede,” which states, “Any officer present and observing another officer using force that is clearly beyond that which is objectively reasonable under the circumstances shall, when in a position to do so, intercede to prevent the use of such excessive force. Such officers should also promptly report these observations to a supervisor.”

O’Meara said the duty to intercede goes to the heart of what it means to work in law enforcement.

“It’s just such a fundamental part of being a police officer that not only won’t I do anything unjust, I will not tolerate anybody else in my department being unjust, and I’ll report and intercede.”

It’s a subject that comes up in interviews with prospective APD officers, who are asked what they would do if they saw a fellow officer physically abusing a prisoner. Their answers, O’Meara said, as well as the decisiveness with which they are given, are crucial.

“And if that person’s answer is not immediately, ‘I would intercede, I would make sure the prisoner is safe, and I would report that person to a supervisor,’ then that person is not going to be an Ashland police officer.” Floyd died after Chauvin used his knee to pin Floyd’s neck against the pavement. Chauvin was later charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter and was one of four officers fired over the May 25 encounter

Filed Under: Ashland

Frederick is an Example for the Nation

June 15, 2020 by Lisa Broderick

A lone protester rises above a sea of fellow mask-clad protesters who knelt during a moment of silence, part of the March for Justice event in June, one of many social justice protests that swept the country in 2020. News-Post photographer Graham Cullen.

Congratulations to the march organizers, the Frederick Community, and the Frederick Police Department (FPD) for their outstanding managing of events last week.

As people across the country rightly expressed their outrage over the killing of George Floyd at the hands of the police, unfortunately at some of these events a small minority of participants engaged in crime and disorder. For chiefs and departments tasked with managing protests and related unrest, this is one of the more challenging aspects of urban policing. Almost no choice made by the police in those instances is fully embraced by the community or ends up being one hundred percent right; the police are criticized for being either too lenient or too overbearing in their response.

In Frederick the results were different. Community organizers and the FPD did an excellent job. To my knowledge there were no injuries and there were no arrests. This is a credit to both the community and the police, and the bond of trust built in our city. Why these events were so peaceful is a valuable question upon which we should reflect.

Good policing is predicated on respect, trust, legitimacy, accessibility, accountability, empathy, transparency, communication, and collaboration. It centers on a foundation of dignity, respect, and “seeing” the people we serve. It includes hiring the right people, providing them outstanding training and leadership, and adherence to best practices. And that is just the baseline.

It requires relentless engagement with the community — literally becoming part of the community of those we swore an oath to serve. It is based on making continued deposits of goodwill, so that when a withdrawal is needed, the community faith and trust in the police are strong. These are not trite or empty words. The police literally derive their power from the people. We must never betray that trust or authority, and recognize that our existence is to serve the public.

In 1829, Sir Robert Peel, accepted by many as the father of policing, established nine principles of policing. They remain as relevant today as they were then. Given the multi-disciplinary responsibilities now asked of the police (more about that later) and the astounding increase in weaponry among the police and citizens, it is arguable that these principles are more profound and relevant than ever. Key points from these principles follow.

“The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police existence, actions, behavior and the ability of the police to secure and maintain public respect.”

“…the police are the public and the public are the police…”

“The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.”

Sir Robert Peel

Peel’s Principals intersect with current best practices, including the 2015 Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st century policing, which provides a blueprint for reform. Likewise, the National Police Foundation, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, the Police Executive Research Forum, the Commission on Accreditation in Law Enforcement, and the International Association for Chiefs of Police all provide roadmaps to excellence.

But Peel’s principles also inform today’s relevant discussions about “defunding” the police, which does not mean doing away with the police, but does mean imagining and realizing what many police leaders have been asking for decades-what does society want/expect from the police? Are police, “a sworn officer with a gun and a badge,” best suited to address issues in society such as drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness, hunger, joblessness, homelessness, truancy, etc., or are experts trained in appropriate disciplines better suited to focus on these challenges?

And we must acknowledge that reforming the police is not enough — we must reform the system which criminalizes homelessness, addiction, and mental illness. Defunding the police approaches the logical concept of appropriate allocation or reallocation of funding so that the best services may be provided by those that have expertise to more effectively address these social needs. We must have the imagination and the will to see and do things differently. While we won’t do away with the police, what we must eradicate is the basis for the general fact that historically, those who have needed us the most have trusted us the least.

Peel’s Principals intersect with current best practices, including the 2015 Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st century policing, which provides a blueprint for reform. Likewise, the National Police Foundation, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, the Police Executive Research Forum, the Commission on Accreditation in Law Enforcement, and the International Association for Chiefs of Police all provide roadmaps to excellence.

But Peel’s principles also inform today’s relevant discussions about “defunding” the police, which does not mean doing away with the police, but does mean imagining and realizing what many police leaders have been asking for decades-what does society want/expect from the police? Are police, “a sworn officer with a gun and a badge,” best suited to address issues in society such as drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness, hunger, joblessness, homelessness, truancy, etc., or are experts trained in appropriate disciplines better suited to focus on these challenges?

And we must acknowledge that reforming the police is not enough — we must reform the system which criminalizes homelessness, addiction, and mental illness. Defunding the police approaches the logical concept of appropriate allocation or reallocation of funding so that the best services may be provided by those that have expertise to more effectively address these social needs. We must have the imagination and the will to see and do things differently. While we won’t do away with the police, what we must eradicate is the basis for the general fact that historically, those who have needed us the most have trusted us the least.

Kim Dine is a 41-year veteran of law enforcement, having served with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington DC., the Frederick Police Department, and the United States Capitol Police. Dine was Chief of the Frederick Police Department for 10 years.

Filed Under: Community Policing, Uncategorized

Peace Officers Respond to the Covid-19 Pandemic

May 8, 2020 by Lisa Broderick

Responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department PEACE OFFICERS initiated a first-ever change for law enforcement.

Changing the Way Officers See Themselves, and How the Public Sees Them

Recently, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department initiated a first-ever change for law enforcement:  they included the words PEACE OFFICER on all of their deputies’ shirts and vests.  The 800-plus-deputy department will be the first law enforcement agency in the nation to do so.  This unique move on the part of RCSD is being undertaken to convey messages of peace, security, reassurance during the current COVID-19 crisis.  Said Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott about the change, “As we navigate through these uncertain times, the act of further identifying our deputies as PEACE OFFICERS is but another means by which we can demonstrate to the public and the communities we serve that our deputies are and will be a reassuring presence regardless of the situation,” said Lott. “A peaceful community is a far safer community.”  The PEACE OFFICER vest-branding initiative is a first for the nation, but not for RCSD.

In 2018, the department took part in a still-ongoing academic study (aimed at determining the impact or words and public perception) by marking all RCSD vehicles with the words PEACE OFFICER. Other law enforcement agencies have since followed suit.   The results have been impressive for the work we have been doing here at Police2Peace.  Positive perceptions of safety and community engagement increased. Officers’ views of their roles in the communities changed. And a materially significant number of citizens who saw the decals versus those who did not report that ‘people can change.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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