Senate candidate used active duty troops in security detail

Senate candidate used active duty troops in security detail

www.rawstory.com

Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller caught national attention Monday when his security detail handcuffed an editor they said was a problem.

Now Miller may have problems of his own.

Two of the guards who helped "arrest" the blogger-journalist, Alaska Dispatch editor Tony Hopfinger -- who was later released after questioning by police -- were actually active duty soldiers in the US Army.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Well now isn’t this something to ponder as it’s revealed Joe Miller, Republican Candidate for the United States Senate has not just active duty U.S. Military personnel on his campaign security staff, but that two of them recently participated in the arrest of a blogger/journalist evidently Miller did not feel should be present at the particular functioned.

Handcuffed and detained by his private security detail two of the members of that detail were active duty U.S. Soldiers, acting in that ‘law enforcement’ capacity.

No charges were actually filed by the real police, and the blogger was later released.

It makes you wonder what the state of politics has come to when candidates for the Senate feel the need for such heavy handed security tactics to control their audiences, and are turning to active U.S. Military Personnel to do it.


www.rawstory.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

It's pathetic really. And those soldiers will be dealt with by the military. They had better be punished anyway.

DoD Directive 1344.10 -- governing "Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces on Active Duty" -- provides: "A member on AD [active duty] shall not: . . .[p]articipate in partisan political management, campaigns, or conventions."

www.dod.mil...

what? no republicans posting replies?...no tea-party replies? i guess it must be ok with them. please, let's keep the clicking of boot heels to a minimum, and put down your stright arm.

Originally posted by jimmyx
what? no republicans posting replies?...no tea-party replies? i guess it must be ok with them. please, let's keep the clicking of boot heels to a minimum, and put down your stright arm.

I think everyone on both sides of the political divide might not be sure what to say about this.

Some people are of course very sentimental towards our troops while others typically do speak to the constitution and keeping active duty personnel out of civilian law enforcement.

I was pretty shocked by the lapse of judgement.

I doubt I am alone.

Originally posted by Aggie Man
It's pathetic really. And those soldiers will be dealt with by the military. They had better be punished anyway.

DoD Directive 1344.10 -- governing "Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces on Active Duty" -- provides: "A member on AD [active duty] shall not: . . .[p]articipate in partisan political management, campaigns, or conventions."

www.dod.mil...

The military code of justice is nothing to be trifled with.

I wonder what possessed these soldiers to take such a chance.

Thanks for posting and the great links on that.

Please keep in mind I have not read the contract Miller had with the Anchorage School District, for the use of the middle school auditorium. But, I will address the information that is known.

active-duty soldiers moonlighting for Miller's security contractor, the Drop Zone, a Spenard surplus store and protection service,

Miller hired Drop Zone, which is a private company that provides security details. Miller did not directly hire the soldiers. They were employees of Drop Zone.

Off duty soldiers can moonlight at other jobs so long as it doesn't interfere with "readiness," the paper wrote, or affect "good order" or discipline.

Apparently, there is nothing restricting the soldiers from working for Drop Zone. Now, there could be problems in the area of maintaining "good order" and "discipline", if the arrest of Hopfinger is found to be invalid and, hence, a violation of his rights. That is yet to be determined.

"Miller's chief guard at the Middle School event, Drop Zone owner William Fulton, said it wasn't his job to ensure soldiers complied with the regulations, though he said he informs them of their duty,

That may be true, as far as the Army is concerned. However, at least in Texas, the laws regulating private security companies specifically hold the owner and managers of a private security company liable for the actions of their employees.

Finally, Miller has said the Anchorage School District required him to have "security" on premise, during the event. Richard Mauer, the author of the article referenced in the OP article, says

"The school district said there was no such requirement made of Miller

The only thing that will clear this up, is for the contract, if one exists, be made public.

All excerpts taken from the original Mauer article, at the

Anchorage Daily News

Actually, I have no problem with it. The blogger was an asshat acting up at aa private function, he was detained to keep decorum. Secondly, before we get on anyone about active duty troops being miseused, better look to Pelosi, talk about misuse of troops, oh but it's for the left so it's o.k.? I smell aa set up by someone needing attention and he figured this would get him his 5 minutes of fame.....you know, his don't taze me bro moment.

reply to post by WTFover




That is some wonderful research and some good questions.

I too would like to see the contract and see just what kind of security arrangements it calls for.

It could simply have been just asking for a 'security deposit' on the room to make sure nothing was vandalized throughout the school when it was open after hours for the event.

Mr. Miller does seem to have a penchant for Public Property it would seem.

Yet it would appear that Mr. Miller was more focused on his own personal security in hiring the agency than the school itself.

After all a couple of campaign volunteers could make sure vandals weren't roaming the halls at will while the school was open for the event.

I think what we are witnessing in part in aftermath of the contentious health care town hall meetings is candidates simply wanting to have that ability to remove animated and overly vocal people from the crowd.

It used to be in the good old days when people weren't quite so alarmed at what was going on in Washington D.C. that a candidate especially an encumbant would just trade zingers and one line barbs with critics and clowns.

Now it's pull out the pepper spray, zap them with a tazer, put them in handcuffs and hall them to jail.

Which is pretty sad considering about the only place a average person can meet still with their representative in this representative republic is at campaign events.

Regardless who is to blame or responsible, for me in the end of the day it shows a shocking lack of fortitude and a real disdain for the people themselves.

As always thank you for posting my brilliant friend.

I did find this in the Anchorage School Board Policy, Section 852 c.

The permit holder shall be responsible for the conduct and control of both patrons and participants, and must comply with all applicable state and federal laws, city ordinances, District regulations, by-laws, and policies and permit conditions. All measures necessary to ensure the safe, healthy, and lawful conduct of permit activities shall be undertaken and financed by the permit holder. These measures may include, but are not limited to, crowd control and fire and police protection.

The sentence I bolded may be what Miller suggests required him to have security at the event. If so, I would agree, particularly due to the use of the word "financed", in the policy.

Source

Originally posted by adifferentbreed
...acting up at aa private function...

If it was a private event, then yes, Miller can keep out whoever he pleased. However, the photos of the crowd appear to contradict that. Especially since they were taken by a photographer from the Anchorage Daily News.

www.adn.com...=1507473&view=large_view

I'll have to see more evidence to make a decision. A video would be nice. And, from one of the photos at the link, it appears at least one video camera was present.

reply to post by Aggie Man


If, in fact, they were only there in the role of a security detail, then they were not "participating", in the context of the code you cited.

Originally posted by WTFover
I did find this in the Anchorage School Board Policy, Section 852 c.

The permit holder shall be responsible for the conduct and control of both patrons and participants, and must comply with all applicable state and federal laws, city ordinances, District regulations, by-laws, and policies and permit conditions. All measures necessary to ensure the safe, healthy, and lawful conduct of permit activities shall be undertaken and financed by the permit holder. These measures may include, but are not limited to, crowd control and fire and police protection.

The sentence I bolded may be what Miller suggests required him to have security at the event. If so, I would agree, particularly due to the use of the word "financed", in the policy.

Source

Hard to believe Harry Truman would sometimes sneak out of the White House at night and walk the streets of D.C. alone.

Without reading all the applicable state, federal and city ordinances, school district regulations, by laws and other unspecified policies the word 'may' leads me to believe it's at the permit holder's discretion which of these additional measures that they take in order to minimize their own liability as a lessor.

Do you know what predicted this?

The Webbot

Makes you think it could be right about other things as well. Spooky

Its interesting that the president also recently signed an order to allow active duty troops to respond to a domestic "cyber threat" as well. The use of military for domestic peace keeping was the beginning of the downfall of Rome.

Senatus Populusque America. As meaningless a phrase today as it was 1700 years ago. How ironically appropriate. Even funnier is that Mussolini tried to use it in his "New Rome" propaganda. I digress.

As much as people want to believe in SPQR, the government is no longer "by the people" and its definition of "for the people" is sociopathically twisted similar to HAL 9000's idea of preserving the mission. This is going to be reflected first in the creation of a new Praetorian Guard as shown above.