You might want to start doing a better job of looking for these.
Holy shit. I would like to believe thatthis is just a one-time fuck up. I really would.
Security details at Barack Obama’s rally Wednesdaystopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.
The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security.
Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department’s homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order —apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service — was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena’s vacant seats before Obama came on.
“Sure,” said Lawrence, when asked if he was concerned by the great number of people who had gotten into the building without being checked.But, he added, the turnout of more than 17,000 people seemed to be a “friendly crowd.”
The Secret Service did not return a call from the Star-Telegram seeking comment.
Doors opened to the public at 10 a.m., and for the first hour security officers scanned each person who came in and checked their belongings in a process that kept movement of the long lines at a crawl. Then, about 11 a.m., an order came down to allow the people in without being checked.
Several Dallas police officers said it worried them that the arena was packed with people who got in without even a cursory inspection.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because, they said, the order was made by federal officials who were in charge of security at the event.
“How can you not be concerned in this day and age,” said one policeman.
You know, this is some serious shit. First of all, if there’s one city in the US where you’d want presidential-level security to be extremely tight, it’s fucking Dallas. Second, I had a bad feeling at the Obama speech in Madison. Now, I know that Madison, Wisconsin is not the most gun-friendly town in the US. But it only takes one fucking nut, y’know? There weren’t any metal detectors at all in Madison, and the gate security types only did the most cursory check–they just asked you to open your coat, and, if you had a purse, they glanced inside. Keep in mind that people dressed for a Wisconsin winter have lots of places to conceal weapons on their persons. All it takes is one douchebag with a nine tucked in the back waistband of his pants in a situation where security is that lax.
That the feds weren’t concerned about a presidential candidate’s security is, at best, a fuck-up of colossal proportions.
I know it’s really difficult to provide meaningful security at large gatherings, but passing through a metal detector should be a bare minimum.
A black man is a serious contender for the Presidency of the United States. To say that this fact does not sit well with a lot of people in this country is a massive understatement. Security should be especially vigilant around Senator Obama. I wish that wasn’t the case, but I’m afraid it is. In living memory, black men and women have been killed not just for leading, but for daring to stand up. There are the well known cases, like MLK and Medgar Evers, and lesser-known incidents, including the one I’d like to share with you now.
Once upon a time near Hattiesburg, Mississippi, there lived a man named Vernon Dahmer, Sr. He owned a farm, a sawmill, and a general store. By the standards of small-town/rural Mississippi in the middle of the 20th century, he was quite well-to-do. Oh, and he was black. That detail will become very important to the story. He was active in the local NAACP, and worked diligently to get other black Mississippians registered to vote. That’s right. He wanted citizens to vote. He wanted them to vote so badly that he paid the poll tax for many local black residents out of his own pocket. Clearly, this man was a dangerous radical whose continued rabble-rousing just could not be tolerated.
So, in January of 1966, the local KKK came calling at the Dahmer house. They firebombed his house. Dahmer grabbed his shotgun and laid down covering fire (the Klan started shooting, attempting to kill his family as they escaped the blaze). He drove off the attackers, but was so badly burned that he died the next day.
That was 42 years ago. In 1998, a racist asshole named Sam Bowers was finally convicted of murder for ordering the attack, and that sorry bastard died in prison a few years later.
Think about that: Not too many years ago, a group of “concerned citizens” attacked and murdered a man (and attempted to murder his family)because he wanted black people to vote. That was his “crime.”
If you think there are no more people like Sam Bowers in this world, then I’m afraid I have to tell you you’re very, very wrong. Consider the recent episode in Jena, LA, where some white people hung a noose from a tree because a few black kids dared to sit in the shade.
So please, Secret Service. Get on the fucking ball. Oh, and that deputy police chief who said that the 17,000 people in attendance were a “friendly crowd” needs to either smarten the fuck up or shut the fuck up. You’d expect a cop to know better than that shit.