By Steve Pomper
If you’ve ever wondered about whether it’s true or a “conspiracy theory” that there is sophisticated support, including financing, training, and logistics behind this violent, Marxist, fascist, and anarchist conflagration of insurrectionists, don’t. They’re doing just fine.
Over the years I’ve heard intel reports about radical training camps and seminars held to prepare people for various types of direct action. In the best sense, direct action can mean conducting boycotts or strikes. But in the worst sense, direct action can mean engaging in rioting, looting, and other violent acts.
There are many facets behind the undeserved support this decentralized but strategically targeted radical political movement receives. Recently, a friend of mine sent me a link with a report that reads like any police after-action report I’ve ever read following a major incident. Its anonymous author(s) wrote and posted at CrimethInc.com an “Account and Analysis” titled: “The Siege of the Third Precinct in Minneapolis.”
While it’s impossible to validate the document as coming from actual participants in the destruction of a police precinct in Minneapolis, it seems to ring true. In any event, I think the reader can assess its validity for him or herself.
This account and analysis reads like part-pseudo-manifesto and part-police debriefing. Make no mistake, the insurrectionists see the burning of the Third Precinct as a win they intend to repeat:
“There were no disagreements; we all saw the same things that helped us win. Thousands of people shared the experience of these battles. We hope that they will carry the memory of how to fight.”
And this gem: “Our purpose here is to preserve the strategy that proved victorious against the Minneapolis Third Precinct.
To give you an idea of the scope of their strategic preparedness and organization, the report is itemized into telling headings, including:
Medical Support: They deploy trained street medics.
Scanner Monitors: Monitor police communications.
Telegram App Channel Operators: for enhanced and more rapid communications.
I found this next heading of particular note because I have written about what should be obvious: The violent insurrectionists hide among the non-violent protesters as a specific tactic. Many apologists for the radicals deny this. Well, read for yourself:
Peaceful Protesters
The non-violent tactics of peaceful protesters served two familiar aims and one unusual one:
- They created a spectacle of legitimacy, which was intensified as police violence escalated.
- They created a front line that blocked police attempts to advance when they deployed outside of the Precinct.
- In addition, in an unexpected turn of affairs, the peaceful protestors shielded those who employed projectiles.
Whenever the police threatened tear gas or rubber bullets, non-violent protesters lined up at the front with their hands up in the air, chanting “Hands up, don’t shoot!” Sometimes they kneeled, but typically only during relative lulls in the action. When the cops deployed outside the Precincts, their police lines frequently found themselves facing a line of “non-violent” protestors.
One issue with the semantics here: any “peaceful” protesters who tacitly or directly shield those throwing projectiles at police are not peaceful protesters. And for the mainstream media networks an additional caution: they are not “mostly peaceful protesters,” either.
These folks also deploy what they call Ballistic Squads. These are the insurrectionists assigned to throw bottles, rocks, Molotov cocktails, and shoot fireworks at police officers. The report indicates some operate alone from hiding but cited the advantages of launching from within a crowd. They mention three aims of the ballistic squads:
To draw police away from the peaceful demonstrators.
To deplete police crowd control munitions.
To make it more costly for the cops by threatening their physical safety.
The report also notes the cop’s use of green tipped rubber bullets, which mark with green paint those they hit, so police can identify and arrest them later. The report contends this motivated those with such marks “to fight like hell to defy the police.”
The report debates the positives and negatives of using laser pointers, but they lauded their capacity to compromise an officer’s eyesight, to disable police drones, and to “chase away police helicopters.”
They also deploy “barricaders” who use available materials, shopping carts, dumpsters, and police barricades to block streets and provide concealment or cover. They also noted using barricades to provide cover for those using laser pointers. They also employ car stereo sound systems and revving their engines to create a “sonic environment” to distract police and incite the crowd.
I remember something similar happening during the chaos of Seattle’s 1999 WTO riots. Rocks and bottles flying all around, throwing Molotov cocktails to set dumpsters on fire, and suddenly there was something odd. I hear in the near distance the unforgettable guitar licks of the Star-Spangled Banner by Jimi Hendrix belted out over a loudspeaker—from somewhere. Never did learn for sure if it was us or them, but it was surreal.
There is a difference between peaceful political opponents who wish for change through the ballot box and the violent insurgent political enemies who exploit them. The report discussed above explains the danger they are to police officers and also to the peaceful protesters for whom they obviously don’t care if they get hurt.
This report only lists a portion of the tactics the insurgent groups are increasingly willing to employ and deploy against law enforcement. Recently, a group of hundreds of insurgents lured police officers in Tampa, Florida specifically to ambush the cops. Two officers were hit in the head and were treated and released from the hospital.
Law Enforcement must keep in mind the old maxim: We may not realize we are at war with them, but they definitely know they are at war with us.
After the ambush, Tampa Police Chief Brian Duggan “called on residents to ‘step up and support their cops.’”
Chief Duggan added, “The police, we always have everyone’s back,” he said. “Nobody has ours right now.”