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July 28, 2020 02:31 PM UTC

Mayor Mike's "Domestic Terrorist" Slip Going Over Badly

  • 6 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Mayor Mike Coffman’s foot has met his mouth before.

The Denver Post’s Shelly Bradbury followed up the story originally broke by Kara Mason at the Aurora Sentinel over the weekend, former Republican Congressman now Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman’s now-deleted outburst on social media following more protests over the killing of Elijah McClain calling a faction of the protesters who smashed windows at the Aurora municipal complex “domestic terrorists” who “must be treated as such.” Coming from a guy who celebrated his love for the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention center in Congress, this had the effect of understandably freaking out the good citizens of Aurora.

With that said–and never able to be unsaid–Mayor Coffman wants you to know calling protesters who smashed windows “domestic terrorists” “was not appropriate.” If that’s deja vu you’re experiencing, hold that thought!

The mayor in an initial statement Sunday called that smaller group of demonstrators “domestic terrorists,” but deleted that phrase in a revised statement.

“I took it right down after I put it up,” he said. “The reason I took it down is it’s not appropriate. When we think about domestic terrorism in the United States, it’s the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, or the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016, where the target is human beings, and certainly that was not the case here,” he said. “It’s hard to define what this is, so out of frustration I put that up, but I took it down right away.”

“It’s hard to define what this is?” Having seen the same pictures everyone else has, it looks to us like some protesters smashed some windows. That’s bad. We don’t condone smashing windows. But smashing court house windows during a protest is not “terrorism” by any commonly accepted definition of that inflammatory word. Given what Coffman has justified in the past doing to “terrorists” as a “War on Terror” Republican member of Congress, this was a disturbing betrayal of far more negative sentiment toward the protesters against the killing of Elijah McClain than anyone could have imagined.

As our readers know, this is not Mike Coffman’s first trip to the woodshed after letting his inner asshole slip out into the permanent record. In 2012, then-Rep. Coffman told Elbert County Republicans, “I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don’t know that. But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.” Once Coffman realized these remarks had been recorded for posterity, Coffman issued a series of successively more abject apologies–the second one coming after a humiliating on-camera ambush in which Coffman robotically recited the words “I stand by my statement that I misspoke and I apologize” over and over.

When Coffman said President Obama “is not an American,” despite his apology it was difficult to accept the suggestion that Coffman had simply “misspoke.” The specificity and contemplative delivery of those words shows that Coffman did not “misspeak”–he said something objectively horrible, with deliberation, was caught saying it, after which the only thing he could do to save himself politically was apologize. Sometimes such incidents end political careers. But today, Mike Coffman is Mayor of Aurora.

And still…misspeaking. The one thing we can’t call that is surprising.

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6 thoughts on “Mayor Mike’s “Domestic Terrorist” Slip Going Over Badly”

  1. Mike Coffman is an epic POS and the voters of Aurora made a terrible mistake giving him another political lease on life. Damn right it's no surprise.

    1. There were so many people running, he only won by 200 votes. He refused to have a runoff between him and the next highest vote getter. The city council chganged that to where a close election next time will require a runoff.

  2. Aurora PD is evidently abetting and protecting the real terrorist – the driver of the Jeep who attempted to plow into 1,000  protesters marching on I225 last Saturday, July 26. Several were injured getting out of the way. One protester fired a gun at the vehicle, to try to stop it, but hit fellow protesters instead.
     

    Why do I say that the Aurora Police were “abetting and protecting”? 
    * APD allowed the driver in through a barricade. 
    *APD greeted the driver and passenger in a friendly manner when they turned themselves in at the police building.

    * Although the Jeep was impounded, no charges have been filed against the two white males (driver and passenger) in the car. “It looked orchestrated,” said Candice Bailey, one of the March organizers. 

    Unicorn Riot has the story from eyewitnesses.

    CBS also covered it, although they emphasized the shooter story, rather than the Vehicular attempted murder story. This shit happened before, when a car driven by Jennifer Watson tried to run down protesters in front of the State Capitol. Video showed Watson purposely swerving and steering to run people down. It took police two months to find and charge her.  
     

    Somebody’s trying to provoke a race war. Vehicles are becoming one weapon of choice.  There have been 66 incidents of vehicles targeting BLM protesters since George Floyd’s death last May. 
     

    The silence from Mayor Coffman on this act of terrorism is deafening.
     

     

    1. The notion of the Aurora rioters as the living reincarnations of Mother Theresa is belied by the fact that an armed gunman opened fire, wounding several protesters. Then there was that film of the vandal using a hammer to break windows on the city hall — proof that the vandalism and arson was not spontaneous.   About three- fourths of the protesters seem decent, honest citizens.  But that leaves 150 who, if not quite terrorists, fall in the category of armed thugs. 

      Hopefully, further investigation will establish if some of the thugs are provocateurs, boogaloo bois, kkk, and other outriders of the Trump regime.  But gunfire and arson are not tools of peaceful protest.  

      1. Mike Littwin had it right. In the Colorado Sun, he wrote:

        . . .  “We live in a time in which the President* of the United States wants chaos and disunion. Don’t give it to him.”

        If only it were that easy. If only the violence began and ended with the protesters. If only protesters weren’t being hit with less-than-lethal violence that is close enough to lethal.

        Meanwhile back at the front …

        As I mentioned, the driver of the turquoise Jeep who sped his way through a crowd of protesters on I-225 has yet to be arrested, at least as I write this on Tuesday morning.

        Somehow, that doesn’t surprise. Aurora police have identified the driver. They have questioned him. They have seen the video we have seen. They have taken the Jeep as evidence, but they say they need more. Presumably, there are dozens and dozens of witnesses to interview.

        No, the protester shouldn’t have brought a gun to the protest. He claims that it was for self-defense – that he anticipated something like what did in fact happen- Aurora Police deliberately allowed a Jeep through the barricade in order to terrorize protesters. That driver was treated kindly by police, and not charged.

        Videos of cars ramming protesters are now becoming snuff porn among right wing nuts. It seems that police, opportunistic politicians like Coffman, and most media, are minimizing these attacks. It’s one way to radicalize peaceful protesters and make them more inclined to destroy property. “…We have to have our own backs,” said one protester after the Jeep was allowed to speed through the protesters. (Denver Post)

        I’ve been standing for Black Lives Matter on Jeffco Streets, peacefully, with others. If I found that Jeffco cops were encouraging or allowing drivers to run us down, I don’t know that my first choice would be to turn the other cheek. Fortunately, so far Jeffco cops have done their jobs appropriately.

        Other places…..It will take another fatality or two to bring out all the pious “thoughts and prayers”. Yes,  non-violence is the best tactic to get to the goal of police reform and better police-community relations. But cops have to be serious about protecting protesters from violent right wing thugs, as well. 

        1. The gunman — identified as Samuel Young — is being charged with four counts of attempted homicide and two of assault.

          The arsonists also deserve some prison time.  They knew the city hall they tried to burn was occupied.

           

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