WHEN anti-federal activists occupied a nature reserve in Burns, Oregon last month, members of the Oath Keepers, an association of current and former soldiers, police officers and other all-action types, grabbed their weapons and flocked to the high-desert town. The group’s leader, an Ivy League-educated lawyer and ex-serviceman called Elmer Stewart Rhodes, opposed the occupation but felt his men could end the stand-off. When one of the occupiers was killed on January 26th, Oath Keepers rushed to evacuate women and children from the scene, fearing an attack by the Feds.
Beyond the group’s main objective of defending the constitution, Mr Rhodes believes Oath Keepers have a duty to protect those unwilling or unable to protect themselves. “When we hear gunfire, we run towards it,” says Mr Rhodes on the phone from his home in Kalispell, a logging town in Montana. In November 2014, when protests erupted in Ferguson, Missouri after a grand-jury decision not to indict a white policeman for shooting an unarmed black teenager, Oath Keepers hurried there, climbed onto its rooftops and patrolled...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/1Oxiv4c
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