St Johns County Sheriff and the Patriot Act

You know you’re in big trouble when the top law enforcement officer in the county passes out t shirts advocating military sniping of dissenting civilians.

When the St Augustine Record reported that Sheriff David Shoar would be addressing homeless veterans’ issues to a veteran’s group in Coquina Crossing at their meeting on May 14, as co-founder of PUSH: People United to Stop Homelessness, I was excited and encouraged to attend. I went to take notes on his plans to help homeless veterans in St Johns County in order to disseminate them to the PUSH community.

Over 130 people attended that night. We were all given an orange ticket upon entering for a raffle the sheriff would hold later. After a short business meeting, the Sheriff was introduced to resounding applause. I seated myself in the back with a pad to take notes. Mr Shoar made a few remarks, drawing some more laughter and applause. He held up a black T Shirt with type on it that I was unable to read from the back to more laughter and applause. Mr Shoar stated he was proud of St Johns County support for its veterans. He introduced 4 officers who were veterans currently serving on his force. He estimated 25-30% of 600 current inmates in his jail are veterans and feels we are missing the boat serving returning vets due to psychological impacts not recognized in the past. He noted at least we talk about this now although in his view, homelessness is an enigma. This, from a man with a purported Masters in Public Administration. His office is taking steps by training volunteers from his force in crisis intervention to help with homelessness and mental health issues. After completion of the 30 day class ,one officer from each team will have more experience dealing with these issues. He touted the Four Star Foundation, a non profit that provides linkage to services for veterans. He applauded the construction of the new veterans’ home in the county. When the floor was opened for questions, I had felt the issue of homeless veterans had not been fully addressed and raised my hand. I stated that the following Friday, May 16, would mark the one year anniversary of the death of Billy Healey, a 34 year old homeless Air Force veteran who took his life by lying on the railroad tracks in St Augustine. I asked whether the sheriff’s department had any programs to address the huge numbers of young Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who would be returning to our community. Bottom line, the answer was no.
Time to cue the raffle. The sheriff had about 10 bags on the stage and our tickets were for those. Shortly after asking my question, I won one of the bags and had to walk all the way to the front of the room to collect my prize. I badly wanted to leave as there was evidently not going to be any real discussion of homeless veterans’ issues but stayed out of respect. Subsequent questions involved lack of respect of today’s youth, recidivism rates, arrest of “illegals” and percentages of violent offenders. One member requested SJC post a weblog of inmates similar to Putnam County’s. At first opportunity as the meeting ended, I escaped to my car, skipping the coffee and dessert affair also funded by the sheriff.
I got home around 930 and decided to open that gift bag. I found a nice green sheriff’s ball cap, a gold and green medallion with sheriff insignia, a green glass coffee mug with gold detailing and the hilarious black t shirt I couldn’t read before.
I opened this shirt and on the front over the left breast is a white silhouette of an Army sniper holding a rifle. On the back, in bold white block letters is the statement:
“IF YOU CAN’T STAND BEHIND OUR TROOPS, DO US ALL A FAVOR AND STAND IN FRONT OF THEM”.
I stood for minutes trying to grasp the meaning of this all the while denying to myself the possibility that the highest law enforcement officer in the county was advocating military sniping of civilians but then I remembered the laughter and applause when the shirt had been held up and realized there could be no other meaning and that this was a most serious breach of the public trust by our highest elected law officer. It is chilling.

Which I think is the point. On Saturday May 17, during a peace demonstration that has been ongoing for over 5 years, a city police officer made a huge show of violation of a sign ordinance. During the Memorial Day celebration in the Plaza, city officers circled the park in SUVs and on bicycles. The county has been showing off its brand new Command Task Force unit by driving it around town. In fact, its appearance prompted my call to the sheriff’s department weeks ago, wondering what it was and what it was for. It was confirmed that the vehicle was being driven around the county to display to the citizens. The department is ecstatic to have this piece of equipment and others like it. Combined they give local law enforcement the ability to transmit live video feeds in real time to connected law enforcement agencies all over the place.

There’s more. Local law enforcement agencies have been receiving military equipment courtesy of Department of Homeland Security for years. We’re talking semi automatic weapons, helicopters, tanks, combat gear. Local “task force fusion centers” have been set up all over the nation to provide the coordination between federal (FBI,ICE and DHS) state and local law enforcement in the event of an “attack”, a natural disaster and “civil unrest”. These centers have armed security guards authorized to shoot to kill in the event of an emergency. Ours is conveniently located in Jacksonville although there is no known location for our nearest detention center, hundreds of which have been built or renovated from military bases by KBR and other favored military contractors.

We’re in trouble. Whether it is a small group of peaceful anti war activists, Food Not Bombs serving food to all, animal rights activists or labor organizers, it makes no difference. I repeat: it makes NO DIFFERENCE. The House passed HR1955 last year: The Violent Homegrown Radicalization Terrorist Act which includes groups like these. It passed 404-8. The bill may come before the Senate soon as S1959. Currently over 40,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are diagnosed with PTSD. With t shirts like this being applauded and distributed, what would it take for a traumatized young vet to obtain a weapon and start firing into a crowd of war dissenters? We have got to start paying attention and stop this erosion of our freedom, an erosion that starts with a local sheriff getting away with passing out t shirts advocating military violence against civilians and could well end in an unspeakably insane act of killing in our own county.