Here is your crazy thought processes of the day. Alaska militia style.

Coleman Barney

Yesterday during the Schaeffer Cox trial, prosecutors were questioning his co-defendant, Coleman Barney, about the reasoning behind why he and fellow militia members walked around heavily armed, seemingly intent on engaging law enforcement officials in a firefight.

Courtesy of Alaska Dispatch:

One issue jurors will likely be asked to think about as closing arguments near is whether Cox and his group sought out or created the conditions that would have yielded the potential for violent conflict. Cox had established rules of engagement for the group, centered on whether government came after him or left him alone. Yet by skipping a court date in a minor weapons case, Cox assured his non-compliance with the law and solidified his status as a fugitive, raising the potential for his arrest. 

Coupled with Cox's public displays of disrespect to and defiance of the court system, a climate was brewing that could have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Prior to skipping a court date, Cox had encouraged supporters to come to other, earlier court hearings in ploys to get attention and intimidate state court judges. Barney has said during these courtroom appearances, Cox had twice taken his antics too far. Telling judges that people wanted to kill them in the middle of the night, and telling Alaska State Troopers that the militia had them "outmanned and outgunned" was too extreme, Barney said. As a result of his growing discomfort, Barney had asked Cox to tone it down. Even so, the impact of Cox's courthouse grandstanding has been difficult for Cox and his men to shake. 

During their federal trial this week, when Skrocki asked if Cox was "using the militia to threaten the court system," Barney said "yeah." 

Staying with the theme, Skrocki attempted to show jurors that the security details in service to Cox were more than a group of guys exercising their Second Amendment rights to bear arms. These were men who intended to go to great lengths to keep their man safe. 

"This would have caused a lot of heartache with law enforcement at any level," Skrocki asked, using his right hand to hold up an AR 15 semi-automatic assault rifle in the courtroom. The weapon, a Valentine's Day gift from his wife, was among those Barney carried during a protective detail for Cox in November 2010. Skrocki's point was, if police or troopers or the FBI came across men carrying such weapons in public, they'd be inclined to check the situation out. And yet, it was a confrontation with law enforcement that Cox feared, and the very scenario that had given way to the prospect of launching the retaliatory 2-4-1 plan. 

Barney said he was aware that certain situations required more decorum. A protective detail for Cox outside a Fairbanks courthouse was kept more simple, with maybe nine men armed with handguns, including himself, working to make sure Cox made it safely from the courthouse exit to a waiting car. But when Cox was due for a television appearance, the situation was different. 

The television station was on private property, Barney believed. Because of this, he said he didn't think being more heavily armed would cause public distress. To this location he brought side arms, the AR 15 and 180 rounds. For extra "non lethal" defense tactics, he mounted a grenade launcher to the rifle and loaded it with a canister of rubber pellets -- an illegal combination, according to the indictment. Another man rode the wooded perimeter of KJNP, and Lonnie Vernon, similarly armed, worked the entry point of the lot. 

Skrocki tried to get Barney to admit he'd been given orders by Cox that night to shoot to kill. But Barney was clear, opening fire on law enforcement was only intended as a last resort. And, a last resort only to be invoked if unidentified people, including undercover agents who failed to identify themselves, showed up and started shooting. 



Are we to believe that if law enforcement officials had simply demanded that Barney and his associates put down their weapons that they would have complied? If they were serious about believing that the government had put out a hit on Cox, why would they?

No matter how you look at it this was a scenario fraught with the potential for violence.

So to reiterate Cox had his "bodyguards" walking around carrying assault weapons, in preparation for a conflict with law enforcement, that the walking around with assault weapons would have almost guaranteed to happen. And apparently NONE of these idiots saw this a provocative act, or that from the outside it actually appeared that they were attempting to INSTIGATE a firefight with law enforcement? Seriously?

As I have mentioned before it appears that Schaeffer Cox suffers from extreme paranoia, which just might be the result of a mental imbalance. Yet how he managed to surround himself with so many sycophants that did not seem capable of recognizing that Cox was delusional and who appear to have been willing to murder State Troopers on his behalf, is incredibly troubling to me.

Barney keeps insisting that he did not agree with Cox, and that he thought some of what he did was over the top, but he did not seem to show any signs of refusing an order to shoot law enforcement officials if Cox told him they were in imminent danger.

The idea that these heavily armed individuals were running around Alaska following the orders of a mad man, should be a wake up call to ALL Alaskans to stop and take a good hard look at the AIP, the various Alaska militias, and even the NEW Republican party in this state. Because if you think this kind of thinking is contained to just this handful of suspects you are sadly misinformed.