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POWERFUL! From Earl Ofari Hutchinson: This Time President Obama
Literally in Gun Toters Sights
A Facebook photo (posted by Sergeant Pat Shearer of
the Peoria, Ariz. police dept.) shows a group of youths in the desert with a
bullet-riddled Obama T-shirt.
*The bullet riddled tee shirt of President Obama
posted brazenly on Facebook by seven semi-automatic gun toting men among them a
Peoria, Arizona police sergeant was much more than the by now standard non-stop
litany of racist cartoons, depictions, web postings, and kooky loose talk
threats against President Obama.
The gun toting men and the police sergeant were taking
target practice on the president’s likeness at an undisclosed desert locale.
This is Arizona. The state where many legislators think it’s ok to pack guns in
the legislature, and for citizens to openly pack them in public. This is the
state where former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was nearly killed in
an assassination attempt, and where there’s a wide body of respectable opinion
starting with a finger in the face of the president governor, Jan Brewer, that
openly loathes the president’s policies and in many cases him personally. The
gun toting men made a virtual public call for the gunning down of the president
comes on Facebook.
It comes against the backdrop of Secret Service
reports that the rate of threats against the President Obama has increased 400
per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush. He receives
dozens of assassination threats continuously, and that number has been steady
before and during the campaign and increased after he took office. Federal law
is very clear on Threatening the President of the United States. It is a class D
felony under United States Code Title 18, Section 871. It consists of knowingly
and willfully mailing or otherwise making “any threat to take the life of, to
kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United
States.”
The Secret Service has taken the threats against the
president seriously and has diligently investigated every one of them. In a few
cases, prosecutors have brought charges. But here is the problem, in fact
several problems. How seriously do other public officials take them, especially
in places like Peoria, Arizona? Peoria, Arizona officials did not suspend the
police sergeant pending review and investigation, let alone fire him, or call
for a prosecution of him or his gun toting pals. Their weak, duck and dodge
response was at worst that he may have violated the police department’s employee
conduct rules on the use of social media. There was no immediate response from
Peoria, Arizona Mayor Bob Barrett or Peoria, city council persons to calls for
them to take action against the officer and men involved.
Handout photo of Sergeant Pat Shearer of the Peoria,
Arizona, police department
The Secret Service also has had other worries, namely
about staffing. At one point, in 2010 there was a report that in a budget
request the Secret Service was understaffed and under-resourced. The Service
denied it and insisted it had the resources and personnel to meet any security
issue involving the president. But the president’s hands on meet the people
routine during his non-stop road travels throughout the country is a constant
challenge to any protective and enforcement agency.
The intense concern over Obama’s safety has been
intense since he announced he would seek the presidency in February 2007. He had
the dubious distinction of being the earliest presidential contender to be
assigned Secret Service protection on the campaign trail. This didn’t ease the
jitters over his safety. Several congressional members even then demanded that
Secret Service officials provide all the resources and personnel they could to
ensure Obama’s and the other presidential candidates’ security. They heard the
whispers and nervous questions from his constituents about Obama’s
safety.
During the presidential campaign in 2008, the flood of
crank, crackpot, and screwball threats that promised murder and mayhem toward
Obama continued to pour in. This prompted the Secret Service to tighten security
and take even more elaborate measures to ensure his safety. This was especially
important given the deep doubt and even paranoid suspicion that some blacks have
that shadowy government agencies were complicit in the assassination of Martin
Luther King, Jr, and the fervent belief of millions of other Americans that the
CIA or other government agencies were deeply complicit in the killing, if not
outright murder of JFK.
There is nothing shadowy or conspiratorial about what
police sergeant Pat Shearer and his gun packing friends in Peoria, Arizona did.
It was brazen and very open. The clueless Shearer for his part saw nothing
inappropriate, let alone, dangerous, about what he did. He chalked it up to much
ado about nothing or as he put it he didn’t think that shooting up a t-shirt
with President Obama’s face on it “was that big a deal.” It was more than a big
deal. The target in their in gun sights, not a regular bull eye, a likeness of
Howdy Dowdy, or a Cactus plant. It was President Obama. Federal prosecutors
should see it as the “big deal” that it is and bring
charges.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political
analyst.
He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio
Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and
Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the
weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour heard weekly on the nationally network
broadcast Hutchinson Newsmaker Network.
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