Arizona Counterterrorism Agencies Monitor Police Victims, Ignore Right Wing Threats

[Mister Mumbler]

Was looking around my local news sites looking to see if our ballot counts had all finished up, when I found this;

Arizona Counterterrorism Agencies Monitor Police Victims, Ignore Right Wing Threats

BLM activists, Poder in Action, and even police brutality victims are among those being watched by local law enforcement units, New Times has found.

www.phoenixnewtimes.com

(It's a bit long)

"Americans tend to see these kinds of law enforcement interactions differently, as the tumult of this past summer’s George Floyd protests showed. Many would characterize Oakry as a victim of police brutality. Others would defend the actions of the police.

Few, though, would conclude Oakry was worthy of being surveilled by a counterterrorism unit. But following the incident, the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center (ACTIC), an ongoing law enforcement collaboration between federal and local agencies, began monitoring Oakry."

On the morning of June 17, Phoenix police/ACTIC TLO All-Hazards Analyst Brenda Dowhan sent out an advisory alerting Arizona and federal counterterrorism personnel — AZDPS, local police department TLOs, FBI, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security personnel — to the imminent press conference.

“Members of Black Lives Matter AZ will hold another Press Conference in front of City Hall this morning at 1100 with the Ames family. The event originally scheduled for 1400 hrs, ‘Confronting the Policing Crisis: Turning the Tables,’ has been cancelled. Additional protest events for the week will be forthcoming,” wrote Dowhan, who has a documented history of monitoring constitutionally protected activities of Phoenix-area activists for local police and ACTIC that dates back to the days of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Records indicate that Dowhan’s primary role is to keep tabs on the social media activity of activists targeted by the fusion center.

Dowhan, Churan, and other Arizona TLOs then teamed up to monitor the activities of certain individuals affiliated with the press conference. Among those targeted was Katt McKinney, founder of Black Women of Faith and leader of All Black Lives Matter Arizona. Records indicate that Churan actually wrote an email to Tempe police TLOs advising them to “monitor” McKinney the day after she appeared with Ames and Maupin during the June 17 press conference.

“She [McKinney] has also been doing interviews with Maupin recently about the Phoenix PD [Ames] incident. Per Phx PD they are aware of her, and she has been by Maupin’s side for years,” wrote Churan, who then provided TLOs with links to both McKinney’s personal and her Black Women of Faith Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube accounts.

Back in June 2019, when New Times initially sought Phoenix Police Department records possessed by terrorism liaison officers relating to various individuals and groups, the department disclosed the number of “possibly responsive” records it had located for each request.

According to Phoenix police, its TLOs were, at that time, in possession of 10,092 “possibly responsive” records relating to Black Lives Matter, and 10,965 “possibly responsive” records relating to “antifa.”

The department had far fewer records on right-wing organizations and individuals. PPD claimed 4,615 “possibly responsive” TLO records relating to Patriot Movement AZ; only 1,633 records pertaining to AZ Patriots; 2,126 records relating to neo-Nazi terror group Atomwaffen Division (with leadership reportedly based in Tempe); and, even more remarkably, zero records relating to Robert Sterkeson.

A Phoenix-area resident and self-described Nazi, Sterkeson has been operating a website and network of social media accounts under the banner of “BombIslam” since 2005.

Over the past 15 years, Sterkeson has made a name for himself in fascist and racist circles, primarily for harassing Muslims outside of Phoenix-area mosques and disrupting events held by the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR-AZ.

Sterkeson has a history of arrests and law enforcement encounters that involve violence, property damage, and concerns relating to weapons.

On October 27, 2018, white supremacist Robert Bowers entered the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and shot 11 people dead with an assault rifle. That same day, Robert Sterkeson walked into the lobby of the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, unfurled a large Nazi flag, and shouted anti-Semitic hate at people attending a conference of the Jewish National Fund.

It is not known to what degree Sterkeson and Bowers knew or communicated with each other. But it is true that Bowers shared a post authored by Sterkson on the right-wing social media site Gab the day prior to the synagogue shooting.

In addition to being in charge of security at the Sanders campaign event, the Arizona Department of Public Safety is the lead state agency administering ACTIC. Its spokesman Sgt. Kameron Lee told New Times that AZDPS troopers securing the Sanders event did not have any contact with Sterkeson at any point during the incident and were not aware of his presence in the coliseum that evening, either before or after the flag incident.

In light of that admission, consider that Sterkeson was known to be in possession of an allegedly stolen assault rifle, ammunition, and a scope. The few ACTIC records in existence pertaining to Sterkeson warn of his history of explicit threats to shoot Muslims and Mexicans, as well as his threatening actions and statements towards both Jews and left-wing politicians. But when left-wing Jewish presidential candidate Bernie Sanders came to speak in Arizona, the same local law enforcement and counterterrorism agencies that surveil victims of police violence and civil rights activists were apparently oblivious to Sterkeson’s activities.

(Sorry for the quote dump, it's a really long article)

 

[Revnak]

Really funny when you then combine that with the federal records for terror and realize that despite being so much more heavily monitored these left-wing groups are caught committing so many less acts of terror.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

So the police, when accused of amassing too much power, use their excessive power explicitly to not do their job and instead protect their excessive power?

Color me shocked.

 

[Chimpzy]

Really funny when you then combine that with the federal records for terror and realize that despite being so much more heavily monitored these left-wing groups are caught committing so many less acts of terror.

Nah, just means the surveillance is working. So many October Revolutions successfully thwarted. /s

 

[Neuromancer]

Nah, just means the surveillance is working. So many October Revolutions successfully thwarted. /s

I mean, you only need one of them to be successful, amirite?

 

[Kwak]

What else do you expect when you go against the dominant paradigm?
Jellybabies? Reform? A commitment to ethical principles?
Ha!

 

[Revnak]

Nah, just means the surveillance is working. So many October Revolutions successfully thwarted. /s

You realize this is gonna be nearly the exact argument, right?

 

[Chimpzy]

You realize this is gonna be nearly the exact argument, right?

I might've.