After triggering an alarm, he fled the scene in his vehicle, and a high-speed pursuit ended in a shoot-out with state troopers, during which Shiffer was killed. Three weeks later, Trump gave a speech in which he called F. Given the broad support that Republicans have historically enjoyed from law enforcement, their escalating hostility toward the F.
Right-wing extremists, however, have always viewed state agents as pernicious antagonists, and so the institutionalization of that mind-set should come as no surprise as the G. In the early days of the pandemic , as Trump supporters began mobilizing against lockdowns and other public-health measures, much of their rage was directed at law enforcement.
On April 30, , heavily armed conservatives descended on the Michigan state capitol , in Lansing. After a tense standoff in which Bundy supporters surrounded law-enforcement agents and trained rifles on them from nearby hilltops, the Bureau of Land Management released the livestock and withdrew from the area. In the weeks that followed, resentment of law enforcement intensified sharply, with anti-lockdowners perceiving individual officers as complicit in an oppressive, tyrannical order.
Then, on May 25, , a police officer murdered George Floyd , in Minneapolis. I left Michigan to cover the ensuing demonstrations and riots, and when I rejoined the anti-lockdowners I found that their stance toward law enforcement had undergone a dramatic reversal. That June, I attended a demonstration outside the capitol orchestrated by the Michigan Liberty Militia and a right-wing organization called the American Patriot Council.
Ryan Kelley, a co-founder of the latter group, climbed the steps and pointed to several officers who were monitoring the scene. Not long ago, I had witnessed anti-lockdowners furiously berate these very same men. The volte-face reflected a larger pattern of contradiction. After Waco, the Michigan Militia ballooned to an estimated seven thousand members.
