Investigation Shows Hundreds of US Cops Being Trained by Far-Right Extremists

Hundreds of cops across the United States have been taught by individuals who espouse far-right extremist views, according to a new investigation that was published Friday to sound the alarm on a burgeoning and unregulated private training industry.

Reuters identified five law enforcement trainers who have been hired by police and sheriffs’ departments nationwide despite their support for right-wing militia groups, including the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and Three Percenters; the QAnon conspiracy, which baselessly claims that Democrats and Hollywood stars belong to a cabal of Satanist pedophiles and cannibals; and former President Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen.

Richard Whitehead, one of dozens of active and retired police officers or trainers who were listed in a database of members of the Oath Keepers, “has called for public executions of government officials he sees as disloyal” to Trump, Reuters reported. In a 2020 social media post, he urged cops “to disobey Covid-19 public-health orders from ‘tyrannical governors.”

During his day job, “the Idaho-based law enforcement consultant has taught at least 560 police officers and other public safety workers in 85 sessions in 12 states over the past four years,” noted the news outlet.

Whitehead, Darrel Schenck, Adam Davis, Tim Kennedy, and Ryan Morris are tapping into a lucrative business opportunity that likely wouldn’t exist if U.S. police officers were adequately prepared during their initial job training, Reuters reported.

As the news outlet explained:

Private trainers work in an unregulated industry that largely has evaded the heightened scrutiny of U.S. policing in recent years in the wake of high-profile police killings of civilians. Trainers like those identified by Reuters, a half dozen police-training specialists say, highlight a lack of standards and oversight that allows instruction that can often exaggerate the threats that officers face, making them more likely to respond with excessive force in stressful situations.

State-based oversight institutions, often called Peace Officer Standards and Training agencies, set requirements for police training, such as the types of classes and minimum teaching hours that officers must complete. But the institutions have little power in most states to influence course content or set standards for private police trainers, in part due to budget constraints, said Randy Shrewsberry, a former police officer. He saw unregulated police training as such a problem that in 2017 he founded the California-based Institute for Criminal Justice Training Reform.

According to a 2019 analysis of historical FBI data published in the journal Criminology & Public Policy, “The number of line-of-duty deaths has declined dramatically over the last five decades.” Police deaths per 100,000 officers fell by 75% over the past half-century—from 81 in 1970 to 20 in 2016. Deaths from felonies decreased even more than accidental deaths during that time.

“In light of such data showing declining dangers to officers, many training agencies long ago abandoned training that emphasized putting officers through simulations of threatening situations,” Reuters reported.

The news outlet added:

The mindset that trainers impart, such as a feeling of constant vulnerability, can be more influential than the technical knowledge they share, said Seth Stoughton, a law professor at the University of South Carolina and former police officer with expertise in law enforcement training. Stoughton said studies show that training which overemphasizes life-threatening situations can impart a “warrior mentality,” convincing the officers that they face constant deadly threats.

In a promotional video that Kennedy released in 2020, Chris Jackson, an officer who works for a California police agency operated by a Native American tribe, said Kennedy’s course had “opened his eyes to the world” and changed the way he would respond to threats. “You never want to be a victim of anything,” he said in the video.

Jackson told Reuters in an interview that the training, which his agency paid for, made him more aware of potential threats and prepared to respond with less hesitation. “Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to eliminate the threat,” he said.

More than 5,000 people in the U.S. have been shot and killed by cops since 2015, including 1,050 in the past year alone. Police kill civilians in the U.S. at a far higher rate than their counterparts in comparable countries.

Originally published at Commondreams.org, written by Kenny Stancil.