OK My Friends,
I took some time to draft a letter that should serve as a preliminary notice to the public entities in Clark County. This should test the waters to see what kind of response we can expect.
I sent it out to the four major police departments in our area, Metro, Henderson, NLV, and Boulder City. I've opted out of sending anything to their legal departments at this time and will leave that to the Sheriff and police chiefs.
I'll follow up with the media outlets but not until the agencies have time to respond. If we don't hear back then this will go to the media and I'll serve the entities personally. I'd prefer to sit down with the Sheriff but I really don't think that's necessary. If they pass it on to their legal department things should be clear and simple in short notice.
On another note, I plan to get us some info cards to hand out at our locations. We'll have a photo on one side and contact info along with a statement on the other. I'll post that separately so we can all have some input in selecting the photo we use in addition to what to write on the back. I've shot an email to my printer to get a quote on 3"x 5" and similar sized card stock full color cards.
Below is the email I shot out.
To Whom it May Concern:
As a result of the Chattanooga, TN attacks on military installations, a number of citizens in Clark County have chosen to make their voices heard by taking up arms and guarding the recruiting stations and other military outlets throughout the county. We feel that it is not only our privilege and duty to protect those who have sworn to defend the Constitution with their lives and service, but also that we have to exercise our 1st Amendment rights in sending a message to the President and Pentagon that while they enjoy the highest levels of security and protection it is wholly unacceptable that our troops in the homeland are left defenseless in the wake of possible future terror attacks.
As you know, in Nevada it's legal to open carry weapons, and as protesters we prefer to exercise our 1st and 2nd Amendment rights while protecting the troops as a part of our Free Speech expression. At least one of our guys has stated his presence as strictly symbolic, to send a message to the White House, while others share in a joint mission of protection and speech.
The Supreme Court has ruled on our specific form of protest, that of demonstrating near a business located in a private shopping center, and in
Amalgamated Food Employees Union Local 590 v. Logan Valley Plaza, Inc. 391 U.S. 308 (
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/391/308) they ruled that for our purposes these shopping centers represent a modern day 'town square' which allows us to freely exercise our 1st Amendment rights as it specifically relates to the recruiting centers inside the shopping centers.
Justice Marshall has further noted in
Hudgens v. NLRB that when a shopping mall opens itself to public entities such as recruiting centers and Post Offices, as we have in the mall located at 4632 S. Maryland Pkwy in Las Vegas, it would be impossible not to apply the town square classification to the center.
Since
Logan Valley the courts have narrowed the ruling but have clearly left open the application as it relates to our efforts. They have in fact ruled that it would be improper to ask us to move away from the buildings for a number of reasons, citing among other things the practical efficiency of communicating our message and the safety concerns of moving us to an area that could expose us and others to possible anticipated or unanticipated risks. It is our belief that we need to be in the direct vicinity of the entrances to the facility, not only to best convey our message but also in narrowing exposures to that immediate area rather than in a broader area beyond the immediate vicinity of the military centers in question.
We have never proven to be in any way disruptive to the recruiting centers or other businesses and in fact it's been exactly the opposite. Recruiters and neighboring businesses alike have welcomed us in and even given our volunteers gifts in appreciation for our efforts. We have had a stellar relationship with Metro, UNLV police, Henderson PD, NLVPD, and mall security alike. The bottom line is that everyone from the troops on up have expressed their appreciation in having us there. It has been a very rewarding experience for all to be able to give back to our troops.
The
Department of Defense has argued that we are negatively impacting their recruiting mission by being there but the courts have ruled that they have no standing in their argument. In fact, in a recent FOX5 News interview, two potential recruits who'd just left the station expressed exactly the opposite, that they felt protected in having us there and that we in no way intimidated their efforts.
http://www.fox5vegas.com/story/29701285/citizen-guarding-recruiting-center-says-he-was-told-to-leave
As a side note, allow me to briefly outline a few of the backgrounds of the guys and gals on post. Our volunteers consist of a former Marine sniper, LAPD and NYPD SWAT members, Army and Marine combat vets who recently served in Afghanistan, an Army vet who's training in counter-terrorism, other vets, and several citizens, most of whom have decades of training and firearms experience. My experience has been that this is a highly qualified group of citizens to do the job.
I'll add that we've regularly been vetted by both the military and law enforcement as we've posted at the military centers. We also vet out one another.
The City of Henderson has gotten this right and enforces strictly within the guidelines of
Logan Valley, adding that they've had recent picketers outside of Trader Joe's which cannot be trespassed from that shopping mall. They see our efforts as no different than those who are outside of Trader Joe's.
The courts have made it clear that the 1st Amendment was drafted to protect the People from the government, a direct effort to prevent the government from quenching the Free Speech rights of the People.
However this has proven to be problematic in our situation. Not only do we have a legal right against being trespassed on private property under
Logan Valley, but we are protected from government agency attempts to quash our speech. Even the DoD affirmed this truth in a recent interview with the Review-Journal in which their spokesman stated that the DoD CANNOT trespass anyone from private property. The Court has ruled that their ability to do so ends at their doorstep and only covers the interior of their facilities. The DoD spokesman stated that they can only trespass individuals from federally owned property and that applies to NONE of the facilities in question here in Clark County.
However last week several of our volunteers were run off of several of the properties by a woman who refused to identify herself but who made it clear that she was representing the federal government. In one case she ordered one of the troops to run our guy off and in several other cases she did it directly. When one of our guys questioned her authority (he being a long time LAPD officer) she refused to provide any form of identification but was able to instill enough fear in our guy that he complied voluntarily. Less than an hour later this same woman came to a facility that I was manning near UNLV. I had just called Metro to ask them to intervene and the woman arrived as the Metro officer and another volunteer and I were discussing the matter.
This is all on video, including the woman in question:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcILioB88rM
As the video demonstrates, Metro went inside the recruiting offices and met with the woman in question. They returned to confirm that she was a government employee who claimed to have the authority to trespass us from the property (a clear violation of law), they repeatedly referencing some type of letter that she had shown them. I spoke at length with Metro as to the parameters of the trespass laws but they continued to side with the woman who they identified as being with DoD (Department of Defense). We voluntarily left the scene without incident and proceeded to attain legal advice.
It's our affirmation that both the DoD representative and Metro violated our 1st Amendment and other Constitutional rights as outlined in
Logan Valley and others. Furthermore, it seems that we were welcome to return as long as we weren't carrying our legally-carried firearms, an infringement on our 2nd Amendment rights. The courts, in
Logan Valley, have also seen this as a violation of our 14th Amendment rights.
To be clear, we've had an excellent relationship with everyone involved since we began our project. We have no desire to litigate but reserve our right to do so should this unlawful enforcement not cease IMMEDIATELY. When it comes to protecting our troops we expect law enforcement to PROTECT our rights as citizens, not assist in violating them.
To outline, our mere presence is our protest banner, the fact that we're armed outside of military installations after the highly publicized Chattanooga event. This has widely been covered in the media and all are aware of what we're doing and why we're there. Our weapons are our protest signs. We communicate our message verbally to a lot of the public but it's usually them approaching us to thank us for our efforts because they're fully aware of why we're there.
Because this has been an unorganized effort in which concerned citizens just started showing up to guard stations across the county, it's taken us some time to connect and communicate as well as plan shifts and coverage. One of the things we have inline is to draft some handout's for those who are wanting to know more about our cause. We expect to have those ready for distribution in the next few days.
Again, we don't want to expend private or public resources, but if we continue to receive unlawful resistance we'll be left with no other alternative but to litigate and seek protection under the courts.
The DoD has every right to exclude us from within their facilities while we're carrying firearms, but they have zero authority under the law to make any attempt to trespass us from the properties. The same applies to the property owners themselves.
We have video of NLVPD attempting to trespass two of our guys from a Craig recruitment center, NLVPD claiming that they were acting on the orders of the property owner. That enforcement needs to cease as well. They left voluntarily but they left under the threat of trespass, as shown in the following video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqwCxiZ5rTs
Until the unidentified DoD rep showed up it would be impossible to overstate the positive reception of our guys and gals throughout the county. The government has now instilled undeniable fear into our volunteers to the point that some of them refuse to continue with their efforts, and in doing such the DoD has overtly violated our civil rights under the U.S. Constitution. We demand to know who this woman is and her title as well as the agency that she works with. She is visible in the first video above.
As you can imagine, our men and women volunteers are under enough stress as it is while standing guard against a possible threat toward our military. We don't need the added stress of fighting unlawful government efforts to quash our speech and intimidate us in doing so.
For the record, last Tuesday one of our guys was trespassed from the station on S. Rainbow ave., one from one of the Craig locations the following day, two of us from the UNLV station that same day, another from the W. Lake Mead station sometime that week, and another from a Craig station in NLV on Friday. Those are FIVE SEPARATE INCIDENTS which were all enacted by the woman, as identified as working for the DoD.
We are respectfully requesting the courtesy of a response by all parties involved, and thank you in advance for working with us to protect our Constitutional rights in this matter so that we can continue uninhibited in our mission.
On behalf of a large group of volunteers,
Ron O'Brien
Citizen Guardians
