The FBI said Wednesday that members of an anti-gay fundamentalist group participated in the bureau's training of police officers and FBI agents — a move the bureau says it will take steps to remedy in the future.Why Westboro Baptist Church? Why use a hate group to train FBI and police officers? The lawyers in the Phelps family know the laws, and they sue if the authorities don't follow the rules. Could that be the reason? Or does the group help to train officers to keep cool in the face of hateful behavior? Who knows?
The bureau extended the invitations to Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., for training this spring at two bureau facilities in Virginia: Quantico and Manassas.
Westboro has stirred widespread outrage with raucous demonstrations at the funerals of U.S. military service members. The group contends God is punishing the military for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.
H/T to Timothy Kincaid at Box Turtle Bulletin.
Don't ask me, Counterlight.
ReplyDeleteI clicked on comments to post precisely what Counterlight posted. This buggers (pardon the expression) belief.
ReplyDeletespeechless.... an attempt at 'reality training' kinda like reality tv?
ReplyDeleteunbelievable.
wonder if they got paid for it too? I'll take their money and pissed off at/for 'em.
Seems like a good idea to me, if they're being used as the "crowd" for riot training, and frequently get dowsed with tear gas, etc.
ReplyDeleteHave no idea why they would use them. I'll never forget walking past them when they were demonstrating at GC in Minneapolis--just walk by them, don't look at them and don't say anything to them. They were ready with video cameras to record anything one said or did..damn mean people!!
ReplyDeletewonder if they got paid for it too?
ReplyDeleteFrom what I know of the Phelps family, I'd say they didn't do it for nothing.
Battersea Boy, thinking about my tax money going to the Phelps family, makes me angry.
David, the group picketed our church. We ignored them, but a young gay man from our congregation followed them to all five churches and knelt and prayed while they demonstrated. I thought that was a noble and brave gesture on his part.
Mimi, it came out later that they were included in the training sessions so that the FBI officers would be exposed to fanatical domestic terrorists first hand. Some of the FBI officers objected to them being there, so there were disinvited.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/06/30/Westboro_Disinvited_From_FBI_Training/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AdvocatecomDailyNews+%28Advocate.com+Daily+News%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo
Forgot to make that link clickable. Here it is again.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/06/30/Westboro_Disinvited_From_FBI_Training/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AdvocatecomDailyNews+%28Advocate.com+Daily+News%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo
Mike, thanks. That's an explanation, all right. I figured it was something like that.
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