Welcome To The Powder Keg (revised)

Florissant, Missouri, is a suburb of St. Louis County about 18 miles from St. Louis City (proper). Like Minneapolis, Baltimore, and New York City, St. Louis and Ferguson, Missouri were targeted for complete mayhem.  Florissant was added to that list.

Peaceful demonstrations turned violent quickly when professional agitators rolled in and mingled with the Marxist terrorist groups Black Lives Matter as well as ANTIFA, and everybody took the cue to “get their clown on.” They looted and burned, and it had nothing to do with Mr. Floyd.

Let me hip you to something, “These folks don’t give a shit about George Floyd! They don’t give a shit about Rayshard Brooks either!”

The problem is at the top, folks. It’s not the frontline cops who have brickbats bouncing off their skulls every time shit “pops off.”  It’s the command staff, (“the brass”) who are afraid to do their jobs and the politicians who are holding the cops back. They want to protect their jobs, and their money.  Integrity be damned.  Someone gets sacrificed to satisfy the mob.

 “Under the bus you go, tiger! Hold on because we’re going to back it up and then park it on top of you.” And, that’s how it’s done.  Regardless of the sacrifice, Atlanta burned.

It makes as much sense as someone whistling at my neighbor’s wife and I get so mad that I go down the road and beat the shit out a local farmer planting corn and steal his tractor. On the way home I smash out the window of the local liquor store and steal as much as I can carry.  “Don’t worry folks. I’m just acting out.  I’ll be finished in a couple weeks.” Does that sound logical or normal? No!

That’s what is being played out in the major cities where BLM and the ANTIFA pussies (Yup, I said it) are destroying shit, and they are being allowed (if not encouraged and sometimes paid) to do it! You want chaos? You don’t want the police? This country will burn to the ground!

The folks who really need the police are already prisoners in their own neighborhoods!  Defund the police? Defund the politicians and put more cops on the streets to protect these folks. And then, let the cops do their jobs!

Florissant, Missouri. On June 2nd an unmarked police vehicle occupied by three officers attempted to curb a vehicle. Its three occupants bailed from the moving vehicle and the police vehicle struck one of the fleeing occupants and he was arrested, roughly. I saw some of the video. I will neither condemn nor defend the actions of the officer.  That’s what the courts are for. There’s always outrage.  The officer driving was white; the suspect treated and released for an ankle injury, was black. Clergy groups called for the officer to be suspended. BLM got in on the act quick, fast and in a hurry.  They organized protests, and demanded the officer be fired.  The chief of police and the mayor asked for an independent investigation and it was underway. The protesters demanded the officer be terminated. The mayor and chief acquiesced, quickly.  The officer was terminated, quickly.   The protests continued, now demanding the officer be charged and arrested, so that happened, also quickly. The protests continue today. 

I’ve seen it, firsthand. The police station is boarded up.  There have been as many as a dozen police officers protecting the mayor’s house.  The protesters want the other two officers terminated and charged with, well … anything.  They’ve been told, “It’s not going to happen.  They didn’t do anything criminal.”  So, what exactly do the protesters want? Who knows?

The old cop in me, I went up to put eyeballs on the scene.  I took along a friend.  Someone posted on social media that the U.S. flag in front of the PD had been desecrated. That pissed me off!

The BLM and ANTIFA folks bellowing into their bullhorns, signs, buckets and drumsticks, not really organized at all, just screaming at the guys and gals in uniform and making demands.  I saw someone in a white shirt and a gold badge slink out the front door of the PD and spied him, hiding in the bushes near a brick pillar, watching from a place of cover and concealment, the activity on the line some 70 meters away.  He never made an attempt to get off the porch and talk with the protesters or join the cops holding the line. I waved at him. He didn’t wave back. He knew it was me and I, him. It was a disgrace. He should be embarrassed

I was some thirty meters from the crowd, just watching,

“Check this guy out,” a slightly built, smiling black man approached my friend and I,

“You guys here to join the protest?”

“Nope. We’re just watching Old Glory. Don’t want to see anything happen to her.”

He scurried off.

I turned to my friend,

“They’re running counter intelligence.  He’s a scout, watch, where he goes. He’ll tell his friends about us and we’ll have company, pretty quick.”

He did exactly that, and within seconds, we were swarmed by five black men, a tall skinny fellow with a big mouth and something in his waistband under his shirt, another was wheelchair-bound and carrying an AR-style pistol.  A dark-skinned lad with dreadlocks was carrying an AR-style rifle on a sling, another who could have been his twin was similarly armed but with a red bandanna holding his hair up. All smiles, he was the talker of this group. His rifle was equipped with a drum magazine. There was a portly fellow in a “wife-threatener” (usually we call them a wife-beater except in cases wherein the person wearing it is not physically up to the task, and I don’t think he was up for much physical activity) This guy was also sporting “white face,” makeup which added a little “comic relief” to a scene that had the potential to go horribly wrong.

 Red bandanna started to speak just as a pudgy person, that I could only describe as androgynous, bulging out of shirt and pants, joined the group.  It yelled something from behind its mask that was unintelligible, but angry. 

Red bandanna, “What are y’all doing here?”

“Watching our flag,” as I pointed to it.

“It ain’t my flag, shit!” He laughed as he spoke.

“Well, it’s my flag, and my friend’s flag”

“What if I go over there and tear that flag down off that pole and burn it? Whatcha gonna do about that?”

I looked red bandanna square in the eyes, “It’s still there.  You want to take it down you’re certainly welcome to try.”

“You prepared to die for that flag?” he seemed serious enough for me. A threat? You bet!

I answered, “Lots of folks have died for it. What are you prepared to do? That’s the real question.”

It was hot out, but not so hot for the red bandannas’ skin to be leaking so hard.  He had stopped laughing but I hadn’t laughed since the encounter began. To me, this was not a joke.

The tall one with the big mouth jumped up and perched atop an orange water-filled barricade. He was in my space.  Red bandanna told him to move away from me.  He did.

I saw every trigger finger on every rifle I could see.

The fat tub of shit in whiteface had to get in on it, red bandanna suddenly quiet,

“What if I snatch that hat off yo head? Whatchu gone do about that?”

Still watching every trigger finger,

“This hat? I’m bettin’ it’s gonna stay right here on my head. What are you gone do ‘bout that?”

He must have lost his voice. No reply.

Red bandanna,

“What you gone do, kill us? You packin’?”

“You’re all carrying guns. There’s what, five of you and two of us? This is America. You can carry guns. We can carry guns. What’s the big deal? No reason to get all nervous.”

Red bandanna had “that look,” the look when you’ve started something you weren’t really sure you wanted to start.  Brandishing weapons attempting to instill fear, and making threats, weren’t working.

Calmer heads prevail. We were outnumbered, but not really out-gunned; they had long guns and probably very little training.  We were armed and had lots of training. Discretion being the better part of valor, my friend and I agreed that we’d go leave the way we came, so we simply backed up, cautiously (turning and running usually triggers an enhanced mob attack), and left.   

I think they considered following, but red bandanna knew there was something in the wind that told him it might be a bad idea. Old Glory still at full mast, my hat still on my head.  I certainly didn’t want to be on the evening news or in the newspapers.  We would have been labeled as “troublemakers” spoiling for an armed confrontation.  I did wish they had just kept their distance. We were just on opposite sides.  Where’s the harm in me, a law-abiding citizen on a public roadway, engaging in a conversation about our beloved flag, being accosted by a group of armed men making credible threats?  Powder keg. That’s the best way to describe it, and it probably plays out more often than you’d think, but nobody will tell that story.  Another time, another place, a similar situation will play out and someone will do something they will regret.  We, as Americans cannot roll over and let the mob rule. There comes a time when you need to make a stand.  My question, the one plaguing me is, “Where are the other patriots?” The powder keg is there, and somebody is going to touch that fucker off!

Kirk Lawless is a 28 year, decorated, veteran police officer from the St Louis area. He’s a former SWAT operator, narcotics agent, homicide investigator, detective and Medal of Valor recipient. Off the job due to an up close and personal gunfight, he now concentrates on writing. He’s a patriotic warrior, artist, poet, actor, musician, and man of peace.

Contact : kirklawless@yahoo.com