‘Rush the Police, Hog Tie Them’: Inside the Far Right’s Zip-Tie Fetish “The zip-tie discourse started with people who wanted to arrest their political enemies in the streets and evolved into what we saw on the 6th,” one close observer notes. https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-were-the-capitol-rioters-carrying-zip-ties The pictures of MAGA mob members toting zip ties and flex cuffs on the Senate floor sent chills down the country’s spine as Americans wondered what use the rioters had planned for them. It’s unclear why the men dressed in military-style gear were carrying the restraints—whether they planned to use them on members of Congress, police, or counterprotesters. Accused rioters Eric Munchel and Larry Rendall Brock Jr. will now have to answer to a federal court about why they were in the Senate bearing plastic cuffs. But long before the cuffs showed up on the Senate floor, zip ties were a popular piece of extremist gear that—like the military-style helmets, body armor, and tactical gear—represented the far right’s attempts to imitate and usurp the military and law enforcement functions of government. Pro-Trump extremists on The Donald, a MAGA-oriented social media site, encouraged those attending the “Stop the Steal” rallies to arrest antifa members and “oath breakers”—a term for members of Congress agreeing to the vote count—and told attendees that “Flexcuffs are dirt cheap online. Put a big bundle on your belt like [law enforcement officers] do.” On Parler, one user wondered why the military couldn’t force members of Congress to “fulfill their oath” and “rush the police, demand they stand down, hog tie them with zip ties, takes them capital, bring in unmarked white van, blindfold the cops, strip them naked in the vans, and the take them out to the desert, and leave them all there naked, with one blanket to share??” “Bring zip ties to zip tie the enemy to ‘disarm’ them. They can’t throw if their feet and hands are zip tied together. While in a large group rip off their backpacks too. Stay together,” another Parler user urged. “I’m sad I’m stuck home.” Immigrants were among the earliest victims of the radical right’s fascination with zip ties. As the George W. Bush administration began to consider immigration reform, the radical right seized on undocumented immigrants as an issue they were willing to fight over. The Minuteman Project militia, founded in 2004, drew in over a thousand followers for extrajudicial border patrols and other militias soon headed the border to harass and detain suspected migrants, often with zip ties. Among the groups that headed to the border in the 2010s was “Rusty’s Rangers,” a militia reportedly led by Kevin Massey, who reportedly held suspected migrants at gunpoint with zip ties. The FBI later learned that Barry Croft, one of the men charged with attempting to kidnap, try, and execute Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer after Trump’s calls to “liberate Michigan” from her coronavirus quarantine regulations, had “attempted to provide support” to Massey after the FBI charged him with firearms violations, according to an October 2020 FBI search warrant application. “They're either mimicking or playing at [being cops] or, in some cases, these folks are former military and law enforcement and not acting but revealing their backgrounds.” — American University’s Joseph Young “The far right is a pretty diverse group but one of the subgroups that's driving it is the militia movement,” Dr. Joseph Young, a professor at American University who studies right wing extremism, told The Daily Beast. “That subgroup has been influenced by law enforcement, by the military in their dress and their garb. They're either mimicking or playing at it or, in some cases, these folks are former military and law enforcement and not acting but revealing their backgrounds.” But the practice of toting around zip ties as part of a right-wing paramilitary cosplay became much more popular once the Trump administration came to office and brought with it a fanbase of radical right-wing supporters eager for street combat. Robert Evans, a Bellingcat journalist and researcher who focuses on the far right, noticed a spike in militia interest in zip ties shortly after militias used them to detain a counterprotester at a “free speech” rally in Portland. Members of the violent Three Percenter and Oathkeeper militias subdued a man with zip ties at the rally, held shortly after the “Unite the Right” riot in Charlottesville, and turned him over to officers from the Federal Protective Service, which guards federal buildings. The push to carry zip ties and restraints, Evans says, arose out of a belief that militias were ideologically aligned with law enforcement and could “arrest” left-wing opponents like antifa and other activists who confront the right at street protests. “The zip tie discourse started with people who wanted to arrest their political enemies in the streets and evolved into what we saw on the 6th,” Evans told The Daily Beast. As evidence, he pointed to leaked far-right chat logs obtained by the Unicorn Riot activist group, which show extremists encouraging each other to carry the improvised handcuffs. “If you’re going out protesting and you are a peaceful protester, take some zip ties and subdue some of these people in a citizen’s arrest.” — Fox News host Kennedy “If the police again refuse to do anything about those wearing masks (a crime in progress) what are everyone's thoughts on subduing them and placing them in zip ties as part of a declared citizen's arrest?” extremists wrote about antifa members in a popular discord chat server after the white nationalist “Unite the Right” riot in Charlottesville, VA Activists with Rose City Antifa, a Portland-based left-wing group, say that they’ve seen a number of right-wing activists who’ve picked up on the zip tie meme. The group shared several photos with The Daily Beast of protests from 2018 through 2020 showing right wing militia members in Portland and Olympia, Washington, seen carrying zip ties, flex cuffs, and in one case, police-style handcuffs. “Initially we saw zip ties carried primarily by associates of far-right militia movements such as the Oath Keepers or the Three Percenters,” an RCA spokesperson told The Daily Beast. “As the rhetoric issuing directly from the president and the far right became more explicitly demeaning toward anti-fascists and the movement for Black Lives in the past year, we've seen a general increase in tactical gear, open-carrying, and police-style supplies like zip ties among hate groups like the Proud Boys, as well as ostensibly less extreme ‘conservative’ and ‘Back the Blue’ groups in Portland.” The tactic may have remained an otherwise obscure tic of the far right but the climate of vigilantism ushered in by the national unrest Minnesota police killed George Floyd provided some mainstream exposure. As protests and riots spread across the country, Fox News host and former MTV VJ “Kennedy” urged viewers to carry zip ties and make their own “arrests.” “If you’re going out protesting and you are a peaceful protester, take some zip ties and subdue some of these people in a citizen’s arrest,” she said. “If they are hurting people, if they’re lobbing Molotov cocktails, if they are setting things on fire, and if they are breaking things and committing crimes, go ahead and help them find what they ultimately want, which is apparently arrest.” Once President Trump lost the election in November, however, the focus of the far right’s zip tie discourse extended not just to the usual targets like antifa and leftwing activists, but government officials as well.
Donald Trump, the first President to go down in history to be re-elected after being impeached twice by the House but never convicted in the Senate.
https://www.military.com/daily-news...colonel-capitol-riot-aimed-take-hostages.html Prosecutor: Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel in Capitol Riot Aimed 'To Take Hostages' FORT WORTH, Texas — A retired Air Force officer who was part of the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol last week carried plastic zip-tie handcuffs because he intended “to take hostages,” a prosecutor said in a Texas court on Thursday. “He means to take hostages. He means to kidnap, restrain, perhaps try, perhaps execute members of the U.S. government,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Weimer said of retired Lt. Col. Larry Rendall Brock Jr. without providing specifics. The prosecutor had argued that Brock should be detained, but Magistrate Judge Jeffrey L. Cureton said he would release Brock to home confinement. Cureton ordered Brock to surrender any firearms and said he could have only limited internet access as conditions of that release. “I need to put you on a very short rope," Cureton said. “These are strange times for our country and the concerns raised by the government do not fall on deaf ears.” Brock appeared in court in a light green jumpsuit, a mask and with shackles at his hands and feet. Weimer did not detail a specific plan by Brock but noted “his prior experience and training make him all the more dangerous.” He also read in court social media posts from Brock, including one posted on the day of the Capitol riot that said: “Patriots on the Capitol. Patriots storming. Men with guns need to shoot their way in.” Brock was arrested Sunday in Texas after being photographed on the Senate floor during the deadly riot wearing a helmet and heavy vest and carrying plastic zip-tie handcuffs. The 53-year-old is charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. Brock's attorney, Brook Antonio II, noted that Brock has only been charged with misdemeanors. Antonio said there was no direct evidence of Brock breaking doors or windows to get into the Capitol, or doing anything violent once he was inside. “It’s all talk. It’s all speculation and conjecture,” said Antonio, who noted Brock’s long service in the military, including being reactivated after Sept. 11 and his four tours in Afghanistan. Weimer said Brock will likely face additional charges. More than 100 people have been arrested in the Capitol riot, with charges ranging from curfew violations to serious federal felonies related to theft and weapons possession. The FBI has been investigating whether some of the rioters had planned to kidnap members of Congress and hold them hostage. Before his arrest, Brock told The New Yorker magazine that he found the zip-tie cuffs on the floor and that he had planned to give them to a police officer. “I wish I had not picked those up,” he said. There was no evidence presented that Brock had a firearm on the day of the Capitol riot. Antonio asked an FBI agent who was testifying whether it was possible Brock had just picked up the cuffs, and the agent acknowledged that was a possibility. Weimer read a termination letter from Brock’s former employer that said he had talked in the workplace about killing people of a “particular religion and or race.” Weimer also read social media posts in which Brock referred to a coming civil war and the election being stolen from President Donald Trump. Weimer said Brock’s posts also referenced the far-right and anti-government Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, a loose anti-government network that’s part of the militia movement. The Oath Keepers claim to count thousands of current and former law enforcement officials and military veterans as members. The FBI agent though testified there was no evidence beyond the social media posts that Brock was involved with either of those groups. Judges across the country, including some nominated by Trump, have repeatedly dismissed cases challenging the election results, and Attorney General William Barr has said there was no sign of widespread fraud.
Can he be sent to Gitmo as an enemy of the state or someone who tried to kill Americans in an attack? Let him see what it feels like