Which only proves our point. 

You can’t even hold a peaceful protest in front of Maxine Waters’ office, protesting her incitement of her supporters to violence, without facing the violence of her supporters, to the point of lethal force.

We went there to conduct a peaceful protest against Maxine Waters’ inflammatory incitement of harassment and intimidation, with her calling on her followers to harass members of the Trump Administration, saying:

“If you see anybody from that [Trump] Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them! And you tell them that they are not welcome, anymore, anywhere” 

And that is exactly what her followers did today against a planned peaceful protest, with her followers showing up armed with steel pipes and bats, in an angry mob, to make it clear that peaceful protesters are not welcome there, with local police reading that mob’s intent and concluding that it was not safe to hold a peaceful protest there in front of Maxine Water’s office.

We were only attempting to do what Maxine Waters herself later stated in her re-wording of her original comments  –  that everyone has a right to peacefully protest, that all citizens should protest concerns that they believe are unjust.   Unfortunately, you can’t do that in front of her office without being attacked (the footage from today shows her supporters chasing one man down the street, apparently just because he was white, with one Maxine Waters supporter, who was filming, asking others “did you chase that white boy down the ally?’ and then saying “if you’re anti-Maxine, don’t go down there” and “if you’re pro-Trump, don’t go down there.”)

It is sadly ironic that it is Maxine Waters’ supporters who acted in a violent and racist manner, after she libeled us by asserting: 

“The Oath Keepers would like nothing more than to inflame racial tensions and create an explosive conflict in our community”

Oath Keepers is overtly, and strongly, anti-racist.  Our bylaws expressly deny membership to anyone who discriminates on racial lines, and our call to action for this protest clearly stated: “Other patriotic groups are welcome to participate in this protest, so long as they support the Constitution and do not discriminate on racial lines.”  We are hated by white nationalist groups precisely because we are not racially orientated, are outspoken in our oppositions to racism, and because we have a zero-tolerance policy of allowing racists to participate in our events.  We welcome all patriots, of all races, as our “about” page makes clear. https://oathkeepers.org/about/

In fact, our team leader on the ground today, Johnny Itliong (who is also on our national Board of Directors), is half Filipino and half Mexican, and one of our national LEO Liaisons, Greg McWhirter (also on our BOD) is a current serving black police officer. Greg was particularly incensed by the libelous statement issued yesterday by Maxine Waters that described the organization Greg helps lead as an “anti-government militia” that is violent, and that is intent on inflaming racial tensions. Our membership is made up of current and former government employees, and we are most assuredly not anarchists, since we defend the Constitution which established the Federal Government. Nor do we incite violence or initiate violence.   We merely defend ourselves and others against illegal violence, as we did in Ferguson, in Berkeley (twice), in Portland, Boston, etc and as we conducted disaster relief after the hurricanes in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico last year, for example.

But those facts didn’t stop Maxine from libeling us, and didn’t stop her supporters and her allies in the media from following her lead.  

Today, some of her supporters also grabbed an American flag off of a passing vehicle and burned it.  That provided the telling optic of Maxine Waters’ supporters burning the flag of their own nation, and the flag of the nation Maxine Waters supposedly serves, as a member of Congress, right there in front of a congress-member’s office, as they cheered her on as “Queen Maxine.”   Clearly, those supporters hate this nation, hate the First Amendment, and feel loyalty only for Maxine, rather than for the nation of their birth.

It should be noted that the protesters on our side would have been unarmed and the police would not have allowed them to carry any weapons to defend themselves with. LAPD made it clear they would have policed and controlled our protesters only, to the point of regulating how thick a stick we could use for a sign, but would not have policed or controlled the Maxine Waters supporters.  As was done in Berkely, twice, we would have been prevented from carrying pepper spray,chemical mace, riot shields, collapsible batons or any other means of self-defense.

The only Oath Keepers who could have been armed would have been our current serving or retired police officers, who have a right to carry concealed handguns nationwide under LEOSA (Law Enforcement Officer Safety Act), as our current serving and retired police officers did at Berkeley.   We wanted to avoid any of our police officers having no choice but to use lethal force to defend themselves from attack by pipe and bat wielding Maxine Waters supporters.

We went there today to conduct a peaceful protest against violence, not to engage in violence.  

And the response of Maxine Waters and her supporters only proves our point.  

FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:

A group of counter-protesters there to support Waters were chanting “black power” and other slogans when the pickup approached.

The vehicle, occupied by two men who appeared to be white, was stopped by the crowd. Some marchers opened the doors and one grabbed the flag flying on a pole in the bed of the truck, which sped off.

The flag was stepped on and lit on fire as someone stoked the flames. A few people cheered and someone yelled, “This is not the American flag, this is their flag.”

Stewart Rhodes

Founder Oath Keepers