Paul Kennedy of the National Lawyers Guild in Houston and an attorney for a number of Occupy Houston activists arrested during the protests said he did not hear of the sniper plot and expressed discontent with the FBI’s failure to share knowledge of the plan with the public. He believed that the bureau would have acted if a “right-wing group” plotted the assassinations, implying that the plan could have originated with law enforcement.
“[I]f it is something law enforcement was planning,” Kennedy said, “then nothing would have been done. It might seem hard to believe that a law enforcement agency would do such a thing, but I wouldn’t put it past them.”
He added that the phrase “if deemed necessary,” which appeared in the bureau’s report, further suggests the possibility that some kind of official organization was involved in the plan.
– From the June 29, 2013 TruthDig article: Redacted FBI Documents Show Plot to Kill Occupy Leaders If ‘Deemed Necessary’
I don’t typically cover stories that are a few years old, but the following information is so interesting and disturbing I simply had to highlight it.
First a little background. Back in 2013, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request resulted in the discovery of a FBI document that provided knowledge of a plot to assassinate leaders of the Houston chapter of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) using snipers.
Naturally, such a plot should be big news, but the FBI and local police departments have been extremely sheepish in answering questions about it. In addition, despite evidence of such a plot, the perpetrators were never arrested or identified. This is quite bizarre, and has rightly raised a lot of questions as to whether the government, or the local police force, were behind the potential hit. If this is indeed the case, you don’t need me to tell you how disturbing that is. After all, OWS was largely a non-violent movement.
From TruthDig:
A Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Washington, D.C.-based Partnership for Civil Justice Fund yielded an FBI document containing knowledge of a plot by an unnamed group or individual to kill “leaders” of the Houston chapter of the nonviolent Occupy Wall Street movement.
Here’s what the document said, according to WhoWhatWhy:
An identified [DELETED] as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors (sic) in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary. An identified [DELETED] had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. [DELETED] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles. (Note: protests continued throughout the weekend with approximately 6000 persons in NYC. ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests have spread to about half of all states in the US, over a dozen European and Asian cities, including protests in Cleveland (10/6-8/11) at Willard Park which was initially attended by hundreds of protesters.)
Paul Kennedy of the National Lawyers Guild in Houston and an attorney for a number of Occupy Houston activists arrested during the protests said he did not hear of the sniper plot and expressed discontent with the FBI’s failure to share knowledge of the plan with the public. He believed that the bureau would have acted if a “right-wing group” plotted the assassinations, implying that the plan could have originated with law enforcement.
“[I]f it is something law enforcement was planning,” Kennedy said, “then nothing would have been done. It might seem hard to believe that a law enforcement agency would do such a thing, but I wouldn’t put it past them.”
He added that the phrase “if deemed necessary,” which appeared in the bureau’s report, further suggests the possibility that some kind of official organization was involved in the plan.
When WhoWhatWhy sent an inquiry to FBI headquarters in Washington, officials confirmed that the first document is genuine and that it originated in the Houston FBI office. Asked why solid evidence of a plot never led to exposure of the perpetrators’ identity or arrest, Paul Bresson, head of the FBI media office, deflected the question. According to WHoWhatWhy, he said:
The FOIA documents that you reference are redacted in several places pursuant to FOIA and privacy laws that govern the release of such information so therefore I am unable to help fill in the blanks that you are seeking. Exemptions are cited in each place where a redaction is made. As far as the question about the murder plot, I am unable to comment further, but rest assured if the FBI was aware of credible and specific information involving a murder plot, law enforcement would have responded with appropriate action.
The obvious question to ask in attempting to determine the identities of the planners is this: Who has sniper training? A number of Texas law enforcement organizations received special training from Dallas-based mercenary company Craft International, which has a contract for training services with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The company was founded by a celebrated Army sniper who was killed by a combat veteran he accompanied to a shooting range.
Bizarrely enough, Craft International, is the firm founded by since deceased, Hollywood hero Chris Kyle, i.e. the “American Sniper.” I’m certainly not accusing him or the firm of anything, but it a strange coincidence.
Remington Alessi, an Occupy Houston activist who played a prominent role in the protests and hails from a law enforcement family, agrees with attorney Kennedy that the plot likely did not originate with a right-wing group. “If it had been that, the FBI would have acted on it,” he said. “I believe the sniper attack was one strategy being discussed for dealing with the occupation.”
The grotesque irony here, Lindoff writes, is that “while the Occupy Movement was actually peaceful, the FBI, at best, was simply standing aside while some organization plotted to assassinate the movement’s prominent activists.”
Lindorff concludes: “The FBI’s stonewalling response to inquiries about this story, and the agency’s evident failure to take any action regarding a known deadly threat to Occupy protesters in Houston, will likely make protesters at future demonstrations look differently at the sniper-rifle equipped law-enforcement personnel often seen on rooftops during such events. What are they there for? Who are the threats they are looking for and potentially targeting? Who are they protecting? And are they using ‘suppressed’ sniper rifles? Would this indicate they have no plans to take responsibility for any shots silently fired? Or that they plan to frame someone else?”
Because freedom.
The above article becomes particularly interesting in light of the following:
It’s Official: The FBI Classifies Peaceful American Protestors as “Terrorists”
How the Boston Police Were Too Busy Monitoring “Occupy Boston” to Notice Tamerlan
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G
Follow me on Twitter.
“OWS was strictly a non-violent movement.”
… then some of them were violent.
You should remove this line, Michael. It isn’t true, and doesn’t matter to the point about the outrage at the FBI.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/01/30/10268080-occupy-oakland-400-arrested-after-violent-protest
That is what you had to say about the post? Proving that some demonstrations got violent. That was your takeaway? I’ll change it to “largely” non-violent so we can actually discuss the important implications of the post.
Did you see how Dorothy came off as a moon bat with her paranoia?
That’s what clearly false claims make you sound like.
I’ve always assumed you’re more reasonable, but if it annoys you so much to get criticized in a helpful way, maybe I was wrong about that.
I changed the language, now please comment on the meat of the post itself.
I was also commenting on your snotty tone, Michael.
… or do you give yourself a pass on the rules, like every statist, ever?
You ran away from that honest question the last 4 times. Are you finally ready yet to discuss your lack when it comes to anarchist ethics?
“You can’t tear down the Master’s house using The Master’s tools.”
-Maya Angelou
I never said I was an anarchist or any other label. I’m not arguing with you, and I suggest no one else on this site does either, because all you do is argue with people in the comment section. I have had many complaints about you from readers, because all you do is argue with other readers. It’s a pattern, everyone sees it. Grow up and be productive here.
Michael
Please don’t feed the trolls — especially the NSA/FBI/AEI/Deep State ones
So your theory is that I’m a ‘troll’ who is getting paid by the NSA … to help Michael improve his copy?
BTW, disparaging comments are VERY persuasive: you have nothing valid to say.
Tommy, calm down and comment on the post. Half the time here you merely spend fighting with other people. It’s not productive.
I am calm Dr. Freud.
I see from your attempt to turn tables that you AREN’T ready to discuss your lack.
If OWS was truly non-violent, would the powers that be not have had sufficient motive to infiltrate the movement to incite violence, thereby deeming the aforementioned organization sufficiently threatening to justify carrying out their plan? Happens all the time!
False-flag infiltration can happen to anyone.
Unfortunately, once you invoke such hypotheticals, the only reasonable conclusion is that you can’t trust any group.
When it comes to intelligence gathering tax payer funded serial sociopath behavior it is “garbage in garbage out.” I have the utmost respect for the current FBI head however I wonder what kind of propaganda his followers are being fed.
Here’s a little thought experiment:
An organization seeks to illegally terrorize and radically influence another organization’s policy direction by decapitating its leadership through assassination. The action cannot be justified under any known law or moral point of reference generally accepted by Americans. The attempt will be made through subterfuge and, if necessary, misdirection to other actors who in reality have had nothing to do with the plot. If detected, the perpetrators should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, with no compromise as to the severity of punishment. Failing that and to avoid the threat of possible fatal harm during the attempted assassination , the targeted group should be legally and morally free to use overwhelming lethal force, killing the perpetrators of the plot. There should be no repercussions, either legal or social, from their act of self-defense.
Case 1: The targeted group is a police department command structure and the attempt will be set up to blame left wingers despite the fact a militant right wing group are the would be assassins. The assassins are all killed in self-defense during commission of the attempt.
Case 2: The targeted group is a lawfully organized protest or social change organization. The assassins are those from law enforcement at some level. They will attempt to frame another organization and claim there was a rivalry. The assassins are all killed in self-defense during commission of the attempt.
One can quite easily imagine the very different circumstances that would prevail based on these two outcomes, if indeed there was even a discovery of the facts of Case 2 and a trial.
America worships its enforcers, whether snipers, police, or any other group with that role. Our grocery semis are draped in messages of thanks to the troops–to be killing people in a land they have no business to be in, it seems. Insurance companies have pictures of Kevlar-clad “warriors”, with prominent Stars and Stripes draped over a tank in some God-forsaken corner of the globe. Yellow ribbons on bumpers, God Bless Our Troops! banners, I Support Our Police stick-ons…we can’t get enough of a bad thing.
It’s not fear of prosecuting them…the problem is we love them too much to correct them, much less leash them. We are so totally brainwashed it is almost unthinkable to the average American to lay a hand on our boys, no matter how much they may misbehave.
The fault lies in us. We have allowed this cancer to grow so large that to cut it out now seems tantamount to committing hara kiri.
Maybe we should do that and get it over with. I’m pretty sure most of the world would not lose much sleep over our passing.