by Paul Copher
As he drove to the meeting, the police officer pulled his take-home marked car off the secondary road, bumping and jolting onto a fire break trail.
Certain that he had not been observed, he opened his police car’s door and unlocked the trunk. Quickly the officer removed a rectangular piece of cardboard and a roll of duct tape. He dumped them on the front seat. Then he looked down to his chest to make sure he no longer had his badge and nametag on his uniform shirt. Sliding back behind the wheel, he cranked the ignition again. The car lurched forward in a spray of gravel.
After making the usual checks for surveillance, he drove up to the gate of the compound. A police car would not look unusual entering this gate—for any number of reasons—he knew. He laughed ironically as he tugged a black ski mask into place. “Just my luck to be mistaken for some stop-and-rob convenience store bandit in this get-up” was the thought that sidled through his mind. Quickly, he ripped off several lengths of the duct tape and exited the car with the cardboard. Within moments he covered his license plate and vehicle identifier numbers. And, just as he finished, the reception team appeared at the entrance. They had been observing him on the closed circuit camera system. It was their job to let him through the reinforced gate.
He drove up the road. Several other police officers from neighboring departments were already in place—and similarly disguised. They all stood by their vehicles, waiting.
They didn’t have to wait long. Within five minutes about 30 people left the main hall and trooped toward the parked police car and private sedans, which were to be used as visual aids.
Among the crowd, the officer recognized several local businessmen, laborers, and residents of the compound. There were others he didn’t recognize, group members who belonged to various Klan and Aryan Nations strike force teams that had gathered for this training. Also included were motorcycle gang enforcers wearing their “colors,” tax-protesting Posse Comitatus members and some of the more violent fundamentalist Christian-identity radicals.
But the shuffling crowd of note-taking students nearly snapped to attention as the police officer with the sergeant’s stripes came forward. He announced: “The lesson for today is how to kill uniformed police officers during a routine traffic stop, the type of weapons that you need for assassinations, and the procedures that officers use while making their stops.”
When this intelligence was received from an informant, federal agents in the know were stunned. Here were local and state police officers teaching domestic terrorists the vulnerabilities of the police, teaching techniques they could use to kill other officers.
After an investigation, it was discovered that the trainers were members of the white supremacist network. The training was to be used by supremacists when stopped after robberies, bombing - or in pre-arranged ambushes of selected Black, Hispanic or Jewish law enforcement officers.
The federal agency that collected this information was reluctant to share it with the police community at first, for fear of panic. Later the story was circulated, but only to agencies within the immediate area of the training compound or, at the discretion of the agents working the case.
To me this incident points up two issues at the least. Each is critical; together they represent a near crisis. The first is a lack of cooperation among U.S. law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies that, at times, verges on murder. The second issue is that of hate groups, and what they portend.
Admittedly I did not see the entrance of the rogue officers into the training camp. Obviously I have taken a certain amount of literary license in describing some of their thoughts and actions, based on debriefings. But I have little doubt events happened in much the way described. I certainly have no doubt how deadly serious this issue was.
If anyone doubts the potential danger that resulted from this clandestine session or if anyone doubts the dangers faced by officers who were purposely kept ignorant of the fact that this training had been given, all they have to do is read the text of the training guide used at the White Supremacist gathering in Idaho. The document leaves little to the imagination:
***
TRAINING SEMINAR, DEC. 1986
Topics to be covered
A. Killing police officers during routine traffic stops.
B. Bank and armored car robbery tactics.
C. Weaponry that Aryan Nations Members are encouraged
to have and use.
D. Recent FBI/ZOG operations against the movement.
OPERATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
All members should purchase and wear body armor when conducting operations. Armor with side panels and ceramic inserts is preferred. Do not worry about wearing a vest on the outside of your clothing. The police are trained to shoot at the center of the body mass and will do so automatically in a gun battle. The Movement now has access to European body armor that can withstand multiple hits of rifle and rifled slug projectiles.
Obtain C.B. radios and have them installed in your vehicle glove box. If you are on your way to or from an operation and are stopped by the police, advise the back up vehicle by C.B. Turn off your radio and shut the glove box. Scanners that can pick up the police radio transmissions can be bought and installed in each car.
All members should start learning how to build bombs and keep them available.
If your car is identified as being used in a robbery, sell it at once to a car lot that buys vehicles for cash. The police do not watch these lots.
After a robbery shave your beard and cut your hair. Change your clothing and put on a business suit. Transfer any funds into your family car and drive to a preselected motel near the crime scene. Plan to stay a few days.
KILLING POLICE OFFICERS DURING ROUTINE TRAFFIC STOPS
Travel in groups of at least two vehicles. The first vehicle should contain the robbery/operational team. The back up vehicle should look like a family car and have a man and a woman in the front seats.
When stopped you will have 3-5 minutes to make up your mind to kill the officer before his/her back up arrives on the scene. Monitor your scanners.
The primary duty of killing the officer rests with the second vehicle occupants.
TECHNIQUE ONE: When the first car is stopped, the back up vehicle should turn off its lights and coast to a stop behind the patrol car. The shooters should exit their vehicle quietly. Walk to the passenger side of the patrol car and shoot the officer once in the torso and once in the head.
TECHNIQUE TWO: After being stopped, the first driver should begin to argue with the officer and become abusive to get his attention. The back up personnel should pull in behind the patrol car and exit their vehicle in a run. While running they should be yelling, “Can we help you officer,” or “Hold on officer, we can help.” The officer will switch his attention back to the first subject, thinking the “citizens” are there to render assistance. The officer should be shot at point blank range, once in the torso and once in the head.
WEAPONRY
Invest only in high quality firearms.
Purchase from ads in newspapers and from individuals at swap meets. Do not buy guns at gun stores.
Obtain weapons that use commonly found ammunition.
Hunting rifles with scopes are useful for long range use or assassinations.
Semi-automatic rifles are good for counter-SWAT operations. Do not buy or convert these rifles into full auto. They waste too much ammo and are harder to control.
Buy large bore handguns and avoid cheap “Saturday night specials.”
Semi-auto pistols should be loaded while wearing gloves. Load the magazines with penetrator/ teflon/ arcane/ plus P or Glaser Safety Slug bullets.
Purchase 12 gauge shotguns with pump or semi-automatic actions. Do not cut the barrels. Order short legal riot or deer barrels. Carry #4 Buckshot as slugs or 00 shot require too much accuracy.
***
This is what the police taught at the training facility. The information was not distributed by the feds for “fear of unsettling” the local and state police. Maybe. I believe the word wasn’t passed on so the various “Aryan “ cops wouldn’t know an informant was in the crowd and possible compromise an on-going investigation. Yet after the case surfaced, and the issue of secrecy was moot, the info still wasn’t given out because it might “upset the public.”
You bet it would—and should. This information was taught to dozens of white supremacists, most of who are still free, white and loose throughout the U.S. and Canada.
An interview with one of the officers involved - he was “asked to leave” by his agency - showed he did not think of himself as a racist - at least in the sense of believing in racial or ethnic superiority. Rather, he was mad at the government for what he saw as preferential treatment of minorities over other citizens. He said he had seen minorities pass through the police academy when a “white” cadet would have been booted out for the same performance. He was angry at what he said was inequality, the right of blacks to have their own all-black unions, colleges and even beauty contests. He said that anyone trying to stage an all-white beauty contest would be called racist, but that he felt blacks could do it and the court would side with them. “White extremists get put on trial, but ethnic or religious extremists are allowed to hold rallies in major cities,” he said. It is such perceived inequities that help in the recruitment of members to extremist movements.
The true story indicates just how the police and intelligence community has been infiltrated in the past. There is no reason to believe the past isn’t prologue. For that reason, an on-going counterintelligence program must be stressed to all officers. Top management of a department - in addition to all of its other problems - has to consider the damage that rogues of all types can do to them and others. It also illustrates the need for better cooperation and communication among intelligence agencies, more willingness to share and an end to turf wars.
For police and security officers there is a clear message. Do not assume that the “other” guy is not as well-trained as you are. Do not assume your procedures are unknown to others. Always believe that someone may be after you - a little paranoia is NOT bad. But most importantly create and practice your own plan for personal protection.
To the community at large, from the highest government official making television news, to the citizen watching the television news at home, there is an even more important message: There is danger in any group that is based on hate.
The people who engage in such hate-seeded thinking are preparing to carry out their twisted fantasies. For instance, a drum of cyanide was found at a Covenant, Sward and Arm of the Lord compound, in Arkansas. One informant said it was to be pumped into a town’s water supply, or put in spray bottles and fogged over vegetables or fruit in poor black areas of town. Also found during the same raid were Claymore mines which ringed the compound. Fortunately, they had been detonated by a lightning strike, prior to the raid. Such hard evidence is frightening enough, but the flights of fantasy of these people is equally disturbing. For instance, an informant who infiltrated one of the more radical rightist groups indicated that a unit had discussed possible cultivation of the AIDS virus with the idea of using it, in a spray form, on food.
Extremism is more widespread than we like to think - or are willing to believe. Cities that believe themselves free of racial or ethnic violence may be surprised at how widespread the supremacist network is. I found a whole cell of high school members of the Aryan Youth Movement operating in the open. Another school had flyers on bulletin boards calling for students to join an Alliance of White Students to counter the school’s grant money, space and recognition to the Afro-American club. Such activities, particularly among young, do not bode well for the future. Nor does the willingness to suppress such information, to hide it from people whose lives may depend on it, make me feel comfortable.
Paul Copher, Jr. is a Cultural Specialist with expertise in counterintelligence and terrorism, as well as white supremacy groups. He was a liaison to Turkish National Police and INTERPOL, and has spent time in numerous foreign countries. Paul Copher, Jr. is now a private instructor in Terrorism, Area Studies, Cross Cultural Communication, Personal Protection and Counterintelligence. He can be reached at email: PaulC76504@aol.com.