If there’s one thing about learning history that people should know, it condems them to watching the world repeat its worst mistakes.
Take for example a very clearly hostile subject who grew up in a violent, racist Colorado home building a militant plan for mass murder and sharing it with local police.
… elaborate plan to stockpile guns, ammunition, body armor and a homemade bomb to become “the next mass killer.” […] So began a day of terror Aldrich allegedly unleashed in June 2021 that, according to sealed law enforcement documents verified by the Associated Press, brought SWAT teams and the bomb squad…
At this point in 2021 the subject basically approaches police as a domestic terrorist on a short fuse, boasting about assault rifles, ammunition and bombs in a residential neighborhood.
For some strange reason, instead of being properly treated, removed from being a threat to society, police closed the file by reasoning police couldn’t infringe on “assault property” rights. Did they reason that the suspect’s guns were more protected than the human lives he threatened?
Historian protip: That’s a subtle yet important reference to slavery (e.g. slave catchers). Sherman’s fast victorious march that burned across the Confederate South operated on the sound humanitarian principle that lives matter more than property. The U.S. military practices Sherman doctrine to this day. Thus an American law officer saying they refuse to seize or destroy war-making property (assault rifles) is likely intentionally on the wrong side of history.
The suspect very predictably took the pile of guns warned about and went on in 2022 to carry out a domestic terror attack killing 5 and wounding over two dozen.
Many more Americans would have died except for a non-white military veteran nearby who charged and quickly disabled this terrorist — he grabbed the attacker’s holstered pistol and severely clubbed him with it.
The turn of events begs the giant question whether Colorado Police facilitated terrorism.
Now go back and read about the mass murder of Americans in 1921 Tulsa, keeping in mind it was due to the America First (KKK) platform of police turning a blind eye to terrorism based on hate.
And also consider back then that it was non-white military veterans who stood up to the terrorists.
Tragically the overwhelming America First mob in Tulsa couldn’t be stopped, including fire bombs dropped from airplanes, and they destroyed the city.
What happened next?
The “know nothing” KKK celebrated by building themselves a “secret society” meeting hall on the ruins, where “invisible” men conspired to seal records and… prevent anyone from finding out anything, let alone mourning the dead or knowing the direct role police and firefighters played in facilitating terrorism.
Back to today, although there are many more examples in American history like Tulsa, the Colorado Police are playing a very familiar looking know nothing card.
…charges against Aldrich were dropped and there was no effort to seize their weapons under Colorado’s “red flag” law for reasons the district attorney and the sheriff have refused to explain because the case is sealed.
[…]
El Paso County is especially hostile to the state’s red flag law, as one of 2,000 counties nationwide that have declared themselves a “2nd Amendment Sanctuary,” opposing any infringement on the right to bear arms. It passed a resolution in 2019 specifically denying funds or staff to enforce the law.
[…]
“We’re not going to be taking personal property away from people…” Elder said as the law neared passage in 2019.
Being an official opposed to any infringement seems now likely to be proven as someone inhumanely valuing property over the lives of Americans.
The difference here between 2021 and 1921 unfortunately is therefore best measured in terms of politicians enabling intentional rise of unregulated technology intended for terrorism.
One person today with less or even no power can easily acquire mass casualty assault weapons making their attacks far more like a repeat of the racist Tulsa mob even without one.
Police in 1921 probably very cruelly rationalized that rich white oilmen shouldn’t have “personal property” seized, even when that meant planes dropping napalm on communities to destroy as many Black lives as possible (elimination of prosperity, especially targeting military veterans).
And that is the history lesson here, which says Tulsa immediately should have become required reading in America. Instead the case was sealed to hide police failure to act on obvious terrorism signals.
America generally had been starved for risk based transparency and accountability that has worked in places like occupied Germany after WWII.
If police cadets in Colorado were screened on America’s long history of ambivalence to hate crimes (e.g. America First), and required to focus on and prevent yet another atrocity from white terrorists, then maybe 2021 would have seen swift action by police to immediately halt an open plan for mass murder.
