Sheriffs Encouraged To Act as Shield Against Federal Tyranny

“Sheriffs are the Ultimate Enforcers of the Constitution, Protectors Against Government Tyranny, America’s Last Hope of Preserving the Republic Envisioned by the Founding Fathers”

From The Denver Post by Nancy Loftholm, February 12, 2012

The 100 or so sheriffs gathered in a Las Vegas hotel ballroom two weeks ago learned that some weighty titles have been attached to the stars they wear on their chests.

“Ultimate enforcers of the Constitution.” “Protectors against government tyranny.” “America’s last hope.” “Brave oath keepers.”

And the Sheriffs, including eight from Colorado, learned that they need to protect their citizenry from much more than local lawbreakers. In today’s world, public enemy No. 1 just might be the federal government — or the “out-of-control federal bureaucracy,” as organizers of the convention like to refer to it.

The person who will “stand tall against federal tyranny,” even if it means armed resistance, according to organizers, is the County Sheriff.

The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association’s inaugural convention was designed to be the national coming-out for this idea and the start of an educational movement that its founder hopes will sweep the country. Its sponsors included the John Birch Society, the Gun Owners of America and the Front Sight Firearms Training Institute. Advertisers included survivalist businesses, anti-IRS proponents, purveyors of gold-buying secrets and one company that sells a guide, “How to Turn Your Home into a Fortress.”

“We have a large group of people in my county who agree with these principles,” said Weld County Sheriff John Cook, explaining why he attended the conference. “I agree with a lot of it. But I don’t advocate, obviously, violence against other law enforcement offices.”

The conference was organized by former Graham County, Ariz., Sheriff Richard Mack. Mack gained fame in the 1990s and became a Tea Party darling when he and six other Sheriffs challenged the constitutionality of the gun-control measure commonly known as the Brady Bill. In a case that went to the Supreme Court, Mack’s attorneys successfully argued that local law enforcement jurisdictions can’t be compelled to carry out federally mandated background checks. It was seen as a huge victory for the sovereignty of local jurisdictions.

Three years ago, Mack wrote a book, “The County Sheriff: America’s Last Hope.” In it, he asserted that Sheriffs have the supreme law enforcement power in their counties under the Constitution and the 10th Amendment. Much of what federal agents are doing in counties is unconstitutional, he wrote. Federal agents have no authority beyond policing treason, piracy, treaty violations and counterfeiting.

Thus, the scofflaws that Sheriffs might encounter today — and who should be run out of town by a SWAT team, if that’s what it takes — include agents for the U.S. Forest Service; the Bureau of Land Management; the IRS; the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Environmental Protection Agency; and even the Food and Drug Administration.

Online Constitutional Sheriffs materials state, “The Sheriff’s position overrides any federal agents or even the arrogant FBI agents who attempt to assume jurisdiction in our cases.”

Colorado had the largest representation at this convention, along with California and Utah.

“I think Sheriffs went because they just wanted to be informed about what is expected of a sheriff,” said Montezuma County Sheriff Dennis Spruell. “I know I want to make sure the federal government does what it’s supposed to do and doesn’t encroach on the rights of my citizens.

“As for that making us radicals, I don’t see that.”

Some Colorado Sheriffs, like Spruell, said they went because they believe in much of what the Constitutional Sheriffs group espouses. They stressed that, at the same time, they have mostly good working relations with law enforcement officers from federal agencies that operate in their counties.

“I have good cooperation with federal agents. I have no problems with them,” said Montrose County Sheriff Rick Dunlap. “The feds always contact me when they are doing something in my county.”

Some Sheriffs were simply curious about Mack’s teachings and hoped to learn something about the group. Others said they felt they should go because they have a lot of conservative, right-wing constituents who believe in what was taught in Las Vegas.

In some cases, those constituents donated the money to send their Sheriffs. Some pestered the Sheriffs about going — something that doesn’t happen when the meeting is, say, a mainstream gathering of the County Sheriffs of Colorado.

“It was odd. Two people came to the window out front to ask if I was going,” Weld County’s Cook said.

Mesa County Sheriff Stan Hilkey was one Sheriff who didn’t receive an invitation to the convention and was a little uncomfortable with the idea of constituents raising money to send Sheriffs to it. He also was unhappy with the impression some Sheriffs had that if they didn’t go, their conservative voters would try to oust them in the next election.

“I have a lot of respect for the Constitution and for its framework of keeping our people safe,” he said. “But Sheriffs should not be strong-armed into going to something like this.”

Chris Olson, executive director of the County Sheriffs of Colorado, said of the convention: “We didn’t endorse it or authorize it. It was an individual Sheriff’s decision.”

Mack, who still refers to himself as “Sheriff Mack” and is currently running as a Republican for a congressional seat in Texas, said his organization didn’t pressure any Sheriffs. In a phone interview, he also said that his movement may come across sounding bellicose, but he is really promoting peace.

“The potential for violence is always there. But I pray it won’t come to that. We don’t want that,” Mack said.

Some of the speakers at the convention did tell of confrontations that involved the threat of officers for different agencies trying to arrest each other. The use of force was not ruled out.

Elkhart County, Ind., Sheriff Brad Rogers told of chasing federal regulators out of his county after they repeatedly did inspections at an Amish dairy farm that was selling raw milk. He threatened to arrest the regulators if they tried to come back.

Sheriff Tony DeMeo of Nye County, Nev., recounted how he had to threaten to bring out his SWAT team to go up against a federal government SWAT team when federal agents were seizing cattle from a local rancher.

Sheriff Dave Mattis of Big Horn County, Wyo., told the conference about the edict he has issued in his county. Federal agents are forbidden to enter his territory without his approval.

El Paso County Commissioner Peggy Littleton, who attended with El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa, gave a presentation that took another tack. She told how her county recently passed a resolution to nullify the National Defense Authorization Act. She urged other counties to do the same.

Fear that this act gives the federal government the power to arrest and detain citizens without filing charges or seeking convictions is another issue that garners a lot of attention on websites associated with the Constitutional Sheriffs group.

It also became a convention flash point when a speaker repeatedly called Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war, a “traitor” for supporting the Defense Authorization Act.

Montrose County’s Dunlap said he and several other Sheriffs “were ready to walk out at that point.”

Many of the presentations at the convention revolved around more common land-use disputes over road closures and hunting restrictions. Those were the stories that resonated most with Colorado Sheriffs who attended and who believe the federal government is overstepping its bounds on these issues.

Steven Hall, a spokesman for the BLM, said he doesn’t want to argue with Sheriffs about interpretations of the Constitution and federal jurisdiction on federal lands. He said that for the most part, his agency has good working relationships with Sheriffs, especially when it comes to issues such as fighting wildfires and eradicating marijuana.

“There has been some heated rhetoric but no serious incidents. I hope it remains that way,” he said.

Steve Segin, a spokesman for the Forest Service, issued a statement saying his agency has had “excellent working relationships” with Sheriffs in Colorado.

Several representatives for the FBI at the state and national level said they had not heard of the Constitutional Sheriffs movement. They declined to comment.

Mack said he is already planning a second convention for this summer, when he will continue to promote the idea that “the greatest threat to our freedom now is the federal government.”

“There is nothing subversive about any of this,” he said. “It’s as American as apple pie.”

U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Wife Robbed at Knife-Point on the Caribbean Island of Nevis

From NBC News by Mike Kosnar, Michelle Kosinski and Pete Williams, February 13, 2012

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, his wife and several family friends were robbed by a person with a knife at the Breyer vacation home on the Caribbean island of Nevis, the court confirmed to NBC News on Monday.

The local St Kitts Nevis Observer newspaper described the attacker as wielding a machete.

About 9 p.m. ET last Thursday night, Justice Breyer, his wife and house-guests were robbed by one person, wearing a mask and wielding a knife, a court official said. The robber made off with about $1,000 in cash.

No one was hurt in the incident.

Previously filed financial disclosure forms as well as articles and tourist websites acknowledge that Justice Breyer is a regular vacationer to the island and has owned a home there for quite some time.

The Nevis Police Department is investigating and says there are no suspects or arrests at this time.

Local news reports as well as the police acknowledge other robberies and break-ins in the area around the same time.

It’s the third time in recent years that a Supreme Court justice has been a crime victim.

Back in 2004, Justice David Souter suffered minor injuries when he was mugged by a group of young men while jogging.

And in 1996, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had her purse snatched near the Kennedy Center while walking with her husband and daughter. She was not hurt in the incident.

Crime in the Carribbean, and partcularly on Nevis, has climbed dramatically in recent years, according to the United Nations.

Over the past year, Americans living on Nevis say they’ve had enough of the frequent home invasions.

One American expatriate, who no longer wants to be named because he says he’s been harassed by local officials, started his own crime-reporting service for people on the island, because residents claim police are inadequate.

Last year citizens met with police, and staged a rally, to try to call attention to the crime problem.

People are furious, according to NBC News. Some Americans who own properties on the island no longer want to retire there because of the crime — and they say the crime rate has lowered their property values.

Current Police Officer, Former Cheerleader Gives Daughters Tips

From The Salisbury Post by Mark Wineka, February 14, 2012

Landis, NC — For those of you who don’t consider cheer-leading a sport or athletic pursuit, meet David, Dallus and Dakotah Lambert — the 3 D’s.

They will change your mind.

Dallus and Dakotah are cheerleaders for South Rowan High School. Since they were about 5 years old, they’ve been doing flips, tumbles, back-tucks, back-layouts and handsprings — all under the watchful eye of their dad, David, who happens to be a China Grove police officer.

David Lambert helps his two daughters, Dakotah and Dallus, demonstrate a single base stunt. David was a varsity cheerleader at South Rowan High School in 1986 raised his daughters to follow in his footsteps. Dallas and Dakota are current cheerleaders on the varsity squad at South Rowan. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Many cheerleaders in this area know David (and the girls) from the five-and-a-half years he and his wife, Kim, operated the 3D Flips gym, where the athletic moves that are a part of so many cheer routines today were practiced night after night.

David also served as den father and coach for weekend cheer events, when he would travel with his daughters, other gym rats and their parents to competitions across the region.

A decade old photo shows sisters Dallus and Dakotah Lambert with their homemade cheerleader outfits before going to a footnall game at South Rowan. The Lamberts’ now cheer on the varsity squad and follow in the footsteps of their father , David Lambert, who was a male cheerleader for South Rowan in 1986. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Lambert closed his gym after becoming a police officer in 2006.

Today he serves as resource officer at Jesse Carson High School, where cheerleaders sometimes practice outside his office. He offers a spot or advice here and there, when he is asked.

David Lambert shows off a photo album of pictures from 1986 when he was a male cheerleader on the South Rowan varsity squad. Lambert’s daughters , Dallus and Dakotah Lambert, both cheer on the current varsity squad at South Rowan. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

The same goes for the South Rowan High squad and, of course, Lambert is always available for 17-year-old Dallus and 14-year-old Dakotah if they want to practice certain moves and flips at home or church.

“My phone still rings to this day,” he says. “I miss coaching, but I’d rather be the assistant coach now.”

The “tumbling” has always come naturally to Lambert. As a senior at South Rowan High School — David and Kim graduated together in 1986 — he was teaching friends how to do a back handspring in the gymnasium one day when the cheer-leading coach, Julie Terry, asked if he might be interested in becoming one of the county’s first male cheerleaders.

Before he knew it, Lambert and some strong buddies of his found themselves cheering at basketball games.

“We had like nine guys who came off the football team,” he recalls.

At first, the guys drove themselves to the away games. But after they were accepted as part of the squad, they rode on the buses with everyone else.

In performing the various flips and hoisting and throwing girl cheerleaders in the air, Lambert says, “we did stuff back then that is highly illegal today,” describing how more safety is built into stunts and routines now.

His senior year of high school cheer-leading could have easily been the end of Lambert’s association with the sport.

It wasn’t until 2000, long after he was married and raising a family, that his preacher’s daughter, Terrin Brown, sought his help in doing some tumbling moves.

Lambert taught her on old karate mats at the church, and soon eight to 10 of Terrin’s friends were joining her, seeking Lambert’s help and instruction.

“I told my wife, ‘Maybe I can make something out of this,’ ” Lambert says.

Over the next half-dozen years, they would operate cheer gyms out of three locations.

First, they scraped together the mirrors, mats and spring floor and set up a gym above the K&W Cafeteria in Kannapolis.

The second location was in the old Belk Department Store building in China Grove. The Lamberts set up their last 3D Flips gym off N.C. 152.

Over the years, Lambert “worked every kind of job you can imagine,” he says, before devoting his evenings to the gym. In the beginning, he told himself, “I’ve got the girls, I’ve got the gym, but I just don’t have the know-how.”

He received important instructional help for his cheer gym from Amy Tyler, founder of the Greensboro All-Star Cheerleaders program, and he also “picked everybody’s brain I could think of,” Lambert says.

Lambert looks back on those days fondly. His whole family was together, working, practicing and running around the gym from the time school was out until 9 p.m.

“It was amazing the time we had,” he says.

Kim Lambert proved to be the gym’s backbone, doing the books and paperwork, keeping track of payments and making up the schedules.

“I had fun.” David says. “I had the good part, where I could play.”

Lambert says he started out with “pee-wees,” but that soon expanded to girls in middle school and high school. Girls who have cheered for Northwest Cabarrus, South Rowan, Carson, East Rowan and West Rowan were among the youngsters who trained in his gym.

Lambert usually has straightforward advice to cheerleaders, who sometimes have to get over the fear of performing certain moves. He tells them to use what they know and feed off the adrenaline, momentum and crowd noise.

For the girls, Dallus says, the testy moments with their father are usually borne of frustration.

“Frustration over something I know I can do, and it doesn’t work,” says Dallus, a junior who has been a varsity cheerleader for three years. “Both of us are crying and going back and forth.”

Dakotah is a freshman cheerleader on the varsity squad.

Cheer-leading can be dangerous, of course. Dallus dislocated her jaw during her freshman year when she caught a teammate’s elbow as she finished a routine. Cheerleaders often deal with broken fingers and arms, sprained knees and turned ankles.

David Lambert said cheerleading competitions are pressure packed, with the teams having, for example, 21/2 minutes to nail a perfect routine.

If college cheer-leading isn’t in the Lambert girls’ future, coaching might be. Dallus helped with Dakotah’s middle school team at Corriher-Lipe last year.

They come by the coaching part of it naturally.

When their father, David, is watching basketball games at Carson or South, he probably pays more attention during the timeouts, when the cheerleaders are performing.

“I still enjoy working with them,” Lambert says.

Union Co., NC Emergency Crews Getting ‘Disaster Ready’ With Special Training

From http://www.wbtv.com, February 14, 2012

UNION COUNTY, NC – Crashing through doors, rounding up bad people, and jarring blasts all rush the adrenaline.

On many days, Lt. Phillip High of the Union County Sheriff’s oversees the shooting range, but going through training gives him of fresh perspective.

“It looks easy, but it’s a lot harder than it looks,” he said.

High and 13 of his fellow deputies are sweating it out and stepping it up at the Nation’s Center for Domestic Preparedness at Fort McClellan near Anniston, Alabama (https://cdp.dhs.gov/resident/index.html).

Rick Dickson is one of the lead instructors.

“There are activity and reports out there that small town USA needs to be just as prepared as the large towns.”

He said, “There is not a first responder in America who wants to respond to an event and get it wrong.”

Getting it right requires exhaling through a series of worst-case scenarios.

Think back to last September, a dangerous ammonia leak shut down the Pilgrim’s Pride poultry processing plant in Marshville.

“We weren’t trained,” High said.” We weren’t equipped to do that.”

Four months earlier, two people died when a pair of locomotives collided in nearby Mineral Springs.

Nine cars derailed and one them full of cooking oil exploded into flames.

Deputy Garrett Davis was among the first answering the call.

He said, “I got a little close to that train wreck, and not knowing what was on the train it could have been any chemical.”

“I got a little close to that train wreck, and not knowing what was on the train it could have been any chemical.”

Davis and his colleagues are suiting up and learning how to reduce the harmful effects from chemical exposure, and developing the skills to quickly tell the difference between workplace accidents and full-blown crime scenes.

One immediate thought these days is domestic terrorism.

Staying covered, sealed, and safe are among the life saving lessons.

Chuck Medley is among those grading the performances in a high tech control room and right out in the field.

“We have a camera in each room,” Medley said.

Preparation also means traveling in the shoes of others.

Deputy Brian Funderburke said, “We get called asked for assistance with fire calls, and now we might have a little bit more understanding with what the fire department may see or what they may go through.”

Oklahoma City, and the World Trade Center offer the most tragic examples of terrorism on American soil, but now local law enforcement agencies including deputies from Union County leave this place with an improved skill set to help shield their communities from a series of threats.

Former South Carolina Trooper Admits Growing and Carrying Marijuana in Patrol Car

From http://www.wsoctv.com, February 14, 2012

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. —

A former South Carolina State trooper has pleaded guilty to growing and carrying marijuana plants in his highway patrol vehicle.

Kurt Steffen, 30, of Summerville faces up to 40 years in prison for his role in a growing operation.

The U.S. attorney said Steffen was growing more than 300 plants when deputies searched his property in 2010.