MO Gov. Jay Nixon: I Handcuffed Police, and Reneged on My Promise to Send in the National Guard, So That Unprotected Firemen Had to Stand Down, Because Racist, Black Rioters Have a Constitutional Right to Loot and Burn Buildings to the Ground, and That was My Method of Keeping People Safe

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

Under the regime of diversity, there is no learning curve. Men had known for thousands of years that the only sure way to stop looters, is to kill them. If you don’t kill them, they won’t stop until there’s nothing more to loot.

But this is worse. They’re not just looting, but burning a city to the ground. Nixon wasn’t at all motivated by decency. The opposite was the case.

He was motivated by fear: The fear of the media portraying white policemen doing their job.

He was motivated by loyalty: The rioters were all Democrats.

And he was motivated by evil: He believes in the politics of black and Hispanic rapine, murder, and totalitarian power.

He also lied about there being no loss of life. At least one man, DeAndre Joshua, was murdered, and set on fire.

Jay Nixon is bragging about his cowardice. His invocation of Kent State is obscene.

I included what I thought were the best reader comments.

 

David Armbruster
Is there a way in Missouri to impeach and remove from office the Governor?

It happened in California while I was there.
 

David Armbruster

This was a complete FAIL by state and federal government. If our tax dollars can't keep us safe from a few hundred lawless thugs in the face of an essentially government timed event, what CAN they protect us from?!

North Florissant rd sounded like a F'ing war zone the night of the Grand Jury return -- literally.
 

Mychael Wozniak

"Over the course of four months, the men and women of the highway patrol often worked night and day, away from their families to protect citizens' right to speak and to keep people safe," Nixon said.

Thanks, Jay. I didn't know that rioting, looting and arson were constitutionally protected forms of free expression and a way to keep people safe. It all makes so much sense now.
 

Scott Marvins

The protests were peaceful, the police instigated the violence by looking "military".
The looters were all out of town individuals.
People have been subjected to evil tickets and fines, that is why the [riots] erupted. See point 2?
The police are racists and profile AA males.
Did I miss any excuses?
 

Ken Loseman

Nicon took orders from the White House to keep out the NG and allow burning and looting. He sacrificed part of his own state to satisfy Obama and Holder's requests.
 


David Armbruster

I strongly suspect that is exactly what happened. The state National Guards were, in effect, federalized decades ago. One of many issues you never read or hear about in the media -- mainstream or not.
 
Firefighters tell Missouri lawmakers that they couldn't fight Ferguson fires unprotected
By Virginia Young
15 minutes ago [Thursday, February 12, 2015, 12:05 a.m.]
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
16 Comments

JEFFERSON CITY • Two fire district officials from St. Louis County said Wednesday that they had been promised that the Missouri National Guard would protect firefighters called to Ferguson if protests turned violent last fall.

But they learned otherwise when fire district leaders arrived at the emergency operations center on Nov. 24 to prepare for a long-awaited grand jury announcement.

“That’s when we were told they weren’t able to get the Guard,” said Greg Brown, chief of the Eureka Fire District.

As a result, firefighters abandoned their hoses and left buildings burning when gunfire and looting erupted that night in the aftermath of the grand jury’s decision that former police Officer Darren Wilson would not face criminal charges in the Aug. 9 shooting death of unarmed teen Michael Brown.

“To me, that was the most heartbreaking thing of all of it,” said Matt LaVanchy, assistant chief of the Pattonville Fire District. “We wanted to help that community.”

The fire officials told their stories Wednesday night to a joint legislative committee that is investigating the way Gov. Jay Nixon’s administration handled the protests in Ferguson.

Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia and chairman of the Joint Committee on Government Accountability, said abandoning a plan to protect firefighters was “just unbelievable. I know any firefighter having to put down a hose and leave like that must be extraordinarily difficult.”

The committee also heard Ferguson Mayor James Knowles describe his unsuccessful efforts to get the National Guard to help control the chaos that night. He said he tried to contact two members of the governor’s staff, Jason Zamkus and Peter Lyskowski, but couldn’t reach them.

Knowles said he reached Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., Attorney General Chris Koster and State Treasurer Clint Zweifel but “none of them were able to make contact” with the governor’s office that night.

Earlier Wednesday, Nixon held a news conference in his Capitol office and strongly defended his handling of the Ferguson situation as he announced a change in command at the Missouri Highway Patrol.

Nixon announced that Col. Ron Replogle will retire May 1 after 31 years with the patrol, the last five as its superintendent. Replogle said he wanted to spend more time with his family. Nixon said he will nominate Maj.
Bret Johnson, commander of the patrol’s Bureau of Field Operations, as the next colonel. The appointment requires Senate approval.

In Ferguson, “over the course of four months, the men and women of the highway patrol often worked night and day, away from their families to protect citizens’ right to speak and to keep people safe,” Nixon said.

“It was hard, thankless work under the most difficult conditions, which they performed with the courage and selfless resolve that we have come to expect. As a result, not a single person was killed in the unrest in Ferguson,” he said.

Nixon had declared a state of emergency in advance of the grand jury’s decision. He said then that “violence will not be tolerated” and that St. Louis County police would be in charge in Ferguson, with the National Guard deployed to assist.

But after the announcement on Nov. 24 that Wilson faced no charges, shots rang out and businesses burned on West Florissant Avenue and South Florissant Road. Nixon later said that officers sacrificed property in order to save lives.

He repeated that position on Wednesday, defending the decision not to deploy National Guard troops along the Ferguson-area business corridors in advance of the looting and arson. Instead, he chose to allow St. Louis County Police officers, trained under the Peace Officer Standards and Training program, to handle the initial wave of rioting.

“The theory here and the practice was that people who had been on the front edge of this, literally getting yelled at, getting things thrown at them, getting called a lot of names, that those POST-certified officers were the people to be in front,” Nixon said.

“None of us are happy that there were shots fired,” Nixon told reporters. “None of us are happy that there were buildings burned down. This wasn’t a joyful time for anybody.

“But I think when this is looked at, the discipline that was shown there, we are talking about what tactically should’ve been done and what buildings were damaged. It’s a lot better than the discussion after Kent State.”

In May 1970, the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State University demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine.

Schaefer said the joint legislative committee had requested various documents from the governor’s office and would hold additional hearings.

The panel is made up of seven senators and seven House members. It was established in 2004 to study “inefficiencies, fraud and misconduct in state government.”

During Wednesday’s hearing, some legislators quizzed Knowles about whether he thought Nixon withheld the Guard’s help on Nov. 24 because officer Wilson and Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson did not resign. (Wilson later resigned, after the grand jury decision.)

Knowles said “a pretty long list” of people had sought the chief’s resignation. But he said the governor’s office did not make such a request “to me directly or indirectly.”

Knowles said he learned several weeks before the grand jury decision that the guard “would not be present in the city of Ferguson. I was told that was a decision made by the governor.” Knowles said he was told the guard would be available “if things got out of hand.”

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar gave him that news, Knowles said.
“He could not give me a reason why.”