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July 26, 2020 10:39 AM UTC

Aurora Mayor: Elijah McClain Protesters Are "Domestic Terrorists"

  • 18 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman.

Kara Mason of the Aurora Sentinel relays a shocking outburst from former GOP Congressman now Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman this morning, following a day and night of continuing protest yesterday over the police killing of Elijah McClain. We’ve added a paragraph break because, well, it’s an angry rant without any paragraph breaks:

This morning I went over to the Aurora municipal complex to survey the damage from last nights violence. From the report that I received late last night, approximately 600 individuals attended the protest was over about 150 stayed behind. Those who remained sought to bait the police into a confrontation and to destroy as much public property as possible. The focus of their main effort was on the destruction of our court house where they managed to tear down the plywood protecting the large glass windows and smashed through all but one on the south side of the building.

Make no mistake about it, the ones who remained behind were not protesters but domestic terrorists and they must be treated as such. [Pols emphasis] I understand that our police department chose to show restraint last night by not using nonlethal munitions but now that these terrorists smell weakness, my concern is that they will be back again and again until they achieve their goal. Tomorrow, I will request a briefing on the incident by the interim Chief of Police to myself and the members of our city council and I will be asking why our court house was not adequately defended.

Labeling the protesters, or at least the faction of protesters who destroyed public property in Aurora demonstrating for as-yet undelivered justice in the case of Elijah McClain as “domestic terrorists” is a major rhetorical escalation for Mayor Mike Coffman. Coffman has tried to straddle a line between sympathy over an objectively outrageous death in police custody that technically occurred before he became Mayor, and Coffman’s conservative “law and order” image as a former Marine and Republican congressman.

The mayor of Aurora calling protesters in Aurora  “domestic terrorists” is rightfully worrisome to residents of that city given the current President’s use of the same language to justify sending federal forces into the streets of other American cities. Especially coming from a former Republican Congressman who fiercely defended the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention center.

You may wish to let that sink in for a moment.

With all of these discomforting facts in mind, you might take comfort from the development that a short while later this morning, Mayor Coffman’s statement calling protesters in his city “domestic terrorists” was deleted and replaced:

That’s a relief, we guess, but as they say, you can’t really delete anything once it’s in the wild.

The people of Aurora just got a flash of how Mayor Mike Coffman really feels.

Comments

18 thoughts on “Aurora Mayor: Elijah McClain Protesters Are “Domestic Terrorists”

  1. You say McClain's death "technically occurred" before Coffman became mayor?

     "Technically?"

     As in somehow it's his fault anyway.

    Methinks someone's bias is showing.

     "Technically," indeed.

  2. Domestic terrorists?

    Really, Mikey? I disliked Coffman less when he was desperately trying to peddle himself as RINO during his unsuccessful campaign to keep his US House seat.

  3. This isn't just Coffman's new rhetoric, it's talking points straight from the RNC/Trump campaign and we're seeing it all over Colorado. Denver this past week, Northern Colorado this weekend. Others? Monger the fears and their "Law and Order" candidate can peddle his strongman solution. Sadly, a lot of people seem to be buying it.

  4. It's time for the advocates of socialism and liberation to put their campaigns on hold for a while. They're playing right into Trump's hands with the continued protesting, some of which has obviously gotten violent.

  5. Trust me.  I am NO fan of Mike Coffman. 

    But, I am quite disturbed by the activities of the 150 protesters who did not disperse and who did destruction at the Aurora Court and other municipal offices.  

    These idiots are NOT HELPFUL to the cause.  And with every destructive step they take they make it that more likely that we see Trump for another 4 years, something I could not bear. 

    It hurts me to go by our state capitol and see the vandalism there.  Estimates are it will cost $1,000,000 to fix it all.  

    I fully realize that there may be elements in the protesters who don't even care about the cause but are out just to create mayhem.  And for that, leaders of events might wish to think about how to handle things to avoid these acts of destruction, which reflect badly on their cause.  (In fact, a protester shot two others the other night, when trying to shoot at a car coming after them).  

    ….these Aurora act-uppers are "in essence" inviting Trump to send in his "secret" police squads, and Coffman might even make the invitation.  

    By the way, Chad Wolf, who is the acting head of Homeland Security is past his expiration date.  Acting cabinet officials can only serve 210 days.  That date passed for him 45 days ago.  Why aren't our Senate and House making a stink about this? 

    1. Good points, doremi. Most likely, many of  the vandals that come out at night  are paid agents or ideologues hoping to fuel a “race war”.

      Tay Anderson, who led many of the protests, flat out told the destructive white kids to go home, they weren’t wanted. But many didn’t listen. Still, it makes the vandals guilty of property damage, not terrorism. Nothing new under the sun- In 50 years as a lefty , I’ve seen many a provocateur, agent, and ego-propelled adventurist. Years from now, I hope we’ll know the truth. 
       

      I’m up for a call in campaign about Chad Wolf overstaying his “acting” status. Is anyone organizing it?

      1. Something interesting here…at least to me. Maybe an angle to pursue. This shady looking sleaze bag is hooked up with some major T***p power players.

         

        Exclusive: Acting Homeland Security chief Chad Wolf makes unannounced visit to privately funded border wall

        “They wanted to see what we built, they wanted to inspect it,” Brian Kolfage, founder and president of We Build the Wall, the nonprofit group behind the project, told Yahoo News.

        Kolfage, who launched a GoFundMe campaign last December to raise money for President Trump’s border wall, informed Yahoo News on Wednesday of Wolf’s plan to visit the site of We Build the Wall’s first completed structure in Sunland Park. Kolfage said that his organization has been in communication with officials at DHS for months, and that members of We Build the Wall’s board met with Wolf in Washington, D.C., last week. Kolfage declined to say who, specifically, from We Build the Wall was at the meeting, but the group’s board includes prominent supporters and associates of the president, including former White House strategist Steve Bannon, Blackwater USA founder Erik Prince and Kris Kobach, the aggressively anti-immigrant former Kansas secretary of state and current Senate candidate.    

        https://news.yahoo.com/acting-homeland-security-chief-chad-wolf-makes-unannounced-visit-to-privately-funded-border-wall-223803492.html

        Some guy from Colorado named Tancredo is also on that board. I am guessing they are up to no good.

         

    2. Domestic terrorists is a bit of overkill, but not by much.  The individuals who are left at the end of the protests aren't members of BLM 5280, the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, or other allies.  They don't give two shits about any message except to tear down the system via fire and bloodshed.  They don't care if this plays right into Trump's hand and he gets another four years- they'd rather have that and a further destabilization and violence over righting the ship because they view the ship as unsalvageable.  These asshats are analogous to insurgents using civilians are shields and celebrating innocents who take tear gas or rubber bullets meant for them. 

       

      They’re not protesters in my mind- they are agent provocateurs.

  6. Mike Coffman and Aurora PD could bolster their credibility by calling the driver of the jeep who tried to run down protesters yesterday a terrorist.

    That's someone who was clearly prepared to take lives for his political views, i.e. a "terrorist".  CBS4 has video.

    Instead, APD just says that they have the driver of the blue jeep "in custody", and "are investigating". They appear to be following up with the protester who fired shots at the car and hit fellow protesters instead. Same shit happened with the hit and run driver at the State Capitol protests. It took DPD two months to finally charge Jennifer Watson, but they've had her name, car, license plate, all of it, for months.

    How hard is it to follow established procedures and show that "all lives matter" – even those of protesters.

    It's hard for me to get too worked up about windows and grafitti when folks are being encouraged  to use cars as weapons to kill protesters, and when there seems to be almost no accountability for it.

  7. Hmmm… Marty Coniglio labels federal forces as similar to Nazis in a tweet, then pulls it down, and still gets pushed out.

    Mayor Coffman labels protesters as Domestic Terrorists (without any softening or inferential distance), then pulls the tweet down … and somehow, NO ONE seems to be pushing him to resign. 

    Where is the source of cancel culture?  Who doesn't have a right to "free speech"?

  8. they must be treated as such.

    chose to show restraint last night by not using nonlethal munitions but now that these terrorists smell weakness,

    So, what you are saying is…you want them shot…right?

     

  9. These vandals who call themselves protesters are aiding and abetting the republicans whether they mean to or not.   They need to be investigated and exposed as the conservative operatives I suspect they are, especially since coffman has jumped into it, or educated if found to be legitimately aggrieved demonstrators.  Whichever it is the protests need to stop now before it's too late. The time and money wasted on protesting would be better spent organizing, grooming candidates, and getting out the vote. 

    1. Indeed. While so far none of the truly violent have not been named they could, with enough publicity, put a ribbon on trump's winning a second term just as Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Tom Hayden and the rest put a ribbon on Nixon's victory in '68.

    2. Huh … stopping protests because some (who may or may not be sympathetic to the formal appeals of the protests) turn violent. 

      Good luck trying to persuade people to that point of view.  ESPECIALLY if the protesters do not think the violent few are a part of their movement.

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