Sept. 7, 2022

"Two constables, four police chiefs and over 3,000 other Texans were members of the Oath Keepers, report says" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

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More than 3,000 Texans — including four police chiefs, two county sheriffs, two constables and two county commissioners — have been members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right extremist group that played a prominent role in the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, according to an analysis of leaked membership rolls.

The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism published a report Tuesday after reviewing more than 38,000 names on a massive cache of documents from the Oath Keepers that was leaked to transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets and released last year. The documents included chat logs, emails and membership rolls from 2020 and 2021. It’s unclear when the membership lists were last updated.

The ADL’s report analyzed where the members lived and worked and found that Texas had more people listed in the Oath Keepers’ membership rolls than any other state. Texas is the country’s second-most populous state.

Texas also had the most people who were either elected officials, law enforcement officers, military members or first responders, the report found. Of the Texas signups, 33 were law enforcement officers, 10 were members of the military, eight were elected officials and seven were first responders. No federal officials were listed in the membership documents.

At least six law enforcement officers who have been affiliated with the far-right group at some point are currently at the helm of their departments: Howe Police Department Chief Carl Hudman; Tom Bean Police Department Chief Timothy Green; Idalou Police Department Chief Eric Williams; Amarillo ISD Police Department Chief Paul Bourquin; Nueces County Sheriff John Chris Hooper; and Clay County Sheriff Jeff Lyde.

Other people in the Oath Keepers’ membership rolls who currently serve as elected officials in Texas include Ellis County Commissioner Paul D. Perry; Galveston County Commissioner Joseph Thomas Giusti; Collin County Constable Joe Wright; and Faulkey Gully Municipal Utility District board member Mark H. Syzman. Syzman is also a retired U.S. Army Military Police Master Sergeant.

The Oath Keepers asks its members to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” The group, fueled by baseless conspiracy theories, claims that the government poses a threat to civil liberties. In reality, former Oath Keepers spokesperson Jason Van Tatenhove — who has since left the group and speaks publicly about its dangers — has said the group is actually “selling the revolution.”

On Jan. 6, 2021, the Oath Keepers descended on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to lead the siege challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election. At least 26 members of the group have since been arrested in connection with the attack.

With the exception of Hood County Constable John D. Shirley and Steven Glenn, an alderman in the North Texas town of Quitman, none of the Texans named by the ADL responded to calls or emails from The Texas Tribune seeking comment Wednesday.

Glenn, who was sworn in as alderman in November 2020 and is seeking reelection this year, said in an email statement that he was with members of the Oath Keepers during a hurricane in Houston helping deliver supplies to residents hit by the floods. He said he has “zero idea of any of (the Oath Keepers’) involvements” since then.

“Shortly after that, I saw exactly what the founder was all about. I cut ties with them immediately,” Glenn wrote in a statement to the Tribune.

Shirley said he publicly resigned from the group in November 2020. Shirley was a member for more than a decade and served as the Oath Keepers’ Texas chapter president, national peace officer liaison and on the group’s board of directors. In February 2020, Shirley submitted a letter to Hood Country Today defending the organization’s mission.

The Oath Keepers’ membership list does not reflect the extent of the members’ involvement in the group. The ADL report said that some may have been introduced to a watered-down version of the group’s mission and many have since left the group. Hundreds tried to cancel their memberships after the Jan. 6 riot, BuzzFeed News reported. But the ADL also points out that the Oath Keepers have always been vocal about its extremist far-right views since its inception in 2009.

“Even for those who claimed to have left the organization when it began to employ more aggressive tactics in 2014, it is important to remember that the Oath Keepers have espoused extremism since their founding, and this fact was not enough to deter these individuals from signing up,” the report notes.

The fringe group has focused on recruiting current and former military, police and first responders. The ADL report says that in written comments provided to the Oath Keepers, some people who joined the group offered to use their positions of power to aid the Oath Keepers in a variety of ways. One member of the Idalou Police Department, outside of Lubbock, said he would use his position to introduce other law enforcement officers to the Oath Keepers’ ideology through presentations, according to the report.

The ADL report does not identify the person or their position in the department. Williams, the Idalou police chief, told PBS Newshour that it had been over a decade since he had been a member or had interaction with the Oath Keepers. Williams denounced the riot of Jan. 6 as “terrible in every way.”

The city of Idalou declined to comment on whether the police department has policies regarding staff’s membership in extremist groups.

Wright, the constable in Collin County, signed up for the organization before he took office for the first time. The ADL noted that he shared his government position during sign up: “Constable elect for Collin County Pct. 4 Constable’s office. Currently a Collin County deputy sheriff.”

When the Oath Keepers’ documents were first leaked in October 2021, Wright told USA Today that he didn’t know much about the group when he joined.

“To be honest, I felt pressured to join it in this county for political support,” Wright said at the time. “The Oath Keepers, if you didn’t support them, you were going to get bad reviews.”

Wright said he did not support the group and had not engaged since.

“I’m not into radical. I’m into doing my job,” he said.

Lyde, the sheriff of Clay County, was also identified as a former member of the Oath Keepers last November. He was indicted by a Clay County grand jury that same month for two charges of official oppression, according to court documents filed last year. Lyde is also facing questions about why he left the Department of Public Safety over a decade ago, in part, for submitting false information on performance reviews.

Hooper, the sheriff of Nueces County, was reported to be a former member of the Oath Keepers last November. He told the Corpus Christi Caller Times that he had not been a member since 2009 and had distanced himself from the organization.

Members of the Oath Keepers listed in the documents also included Texans in other occupations. An attorney with a law firm based in East Texas told the group that he “may be able to assist in legal matters,” the report said.

The ADL did not identify the attorney and declined to share the names of individual law enforcement officers or military personnel identified through their analysis, citing concerns that the report could be used to dox rank-and-file personnel.

Among those arrested in connection with the attack on the Capitol Jan. 6 is Oath Keepers founder and leader Stewart Rhodes, a Texan who was arrested in January and is accused of conspiring to oppose the transfer of presidential power by force.

More than 70 Texans have been charged for their roles in the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to a USA Today database. They include Guy Reffitt who was sentenced to 7 1/4 years in prison last month after prosecutors said he “lit the match” for the riot.

North Texas has been a focal area for the investigation into the riot, with more than a dozen area residents having been charged in the federal investigation into the attack, including Kellye SoRelle, a lawyer for Oath Keepers based in Granbury.

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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/07/texas-oath-keepers-adl/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

The detention of Brittney Griner, the WNBA professional basketball player from Houston who was arrested in Russia more than four months ago, has been extended by six months pending the outcome of her trial, her lawyer told CNN on Monday.

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Griner’s trial is scheduled to start Friday. The Phoenix Mercury player, who plays in Russia during the American league’s off-season, has been held in detention since mid-February and faces charges punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Griner was arrested at Sheremetyevo International Airport near Moscow after arriving from New York. Russian officials claimed to have found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage.

U.S. State Department officials have classified Griner as “wrongfully detained,” which sparked a growing movement for the player’s release led by her wife, Cherelle Griner.

The Women’s National Basketball Players Association, along with dozens of civil and human rights organizations, signed a letter this month demanding President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris strike a deal for Griner’s release.

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who represents Griner's hometown of Houston, said she discussed Griner’s detainment at a meeting with Biden. Fellow WNBA players have also taken to social media to increase pressure on the Biden administration.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that the release of the WNBA player is a “priority” but has not shared details as to how that might happen.

“I’ve got no higher priority than making sure that Americans who are being illegally detained in one way or another around the world come home,” Blinken said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

Blinken also said he was in contact with Cherelle Griner, who has told the Associated Press she is not confident that the Biden administration is making her wife’s case a priority.

Griner’s detention comes amid U.S. efforts to support Ukraine in that country’s continued invasion by Russia, and her supporters have expressed fear that Griner is being used as a political pawn.

The Russian news agency TASS has hinted that the U.S. and Russia could reach a deal to exchange Griner for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence in the U.S. for agreeing to sell arms to a Colombian terrorist group. When asked about the likelihood of such an exchange at a May press briefing, a U.S. State Department spokesperson declined to comment, saying, “I’m not going to get into — I’m not going to entertain that.”

Another Texas native who was being held in jail by Russia, former Marine Trevor Reed, was released in April in a prisoner exchange.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/27/wnba-brittney-griner-russia-detention/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

May 29, 2022

"U.S. Justice Department will review Uvalde response as furor mounts over law enforcement actions" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

The U.S. Department of Justice will review the law enforcement’s response to the Uvalde school massacre as local police face intense scrutiny for not acting quickly enough to confront the shooter.

“The goal of the review is to provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and responses that day, and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events,” Anthony Coley, a spokesperson for the U.S. Justice Department, wrote in a statement Sunday.

Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin requested the Justice Department investigation, Coley said.

Police officers made a crucial error in waiting to stop the 18-year-old gunman rampaging at Robb Elementary School because the school district's chief of police wanted to wait for backup and equipment, said Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety. Meanwhile, students were still trapped inside with the gunman, repeatedly calling 911 for help.

By the time a specialized team of federal officers arrived and entered the school, more than an hour had passed since the shooter had arrived at the school, McCraw said.

“From the benefit of hindsight, where I’m sitting now, of course it was not the right decision,” McCraw said. “It was the wrong decision, period. There's no excuse for that.”

“When it comes to an active shooter, you don't have to wait on tactical gear, plain and simple,” he said.

After the mass shooting at Colorado’s Columbine High School in 1999, law enforcement moved away from the tactics of waiting and setting a perimeter during an active shooter situation. Police are now trained to immediately enter and try to stop the shooter.

Since the shooting, state law enforcement officials have given vague and conflicting answers on what exactly happened after the gunman arrived at the school. In the days after the massacre at Robb Elementary, officials with the Texas Department of Public Safety said the shooter was met by a police officer employed by the school district — and gave conflicting accounts about whether the officer fired at the gunman.

Agency officials now say there was no police officer on campus when the shooter first arrived — but did not explain why they first believed there was.

Gov. Greg Abbott has also walked back some of his initial statements about the shooting, saying he was “misled” about the police response.

“I am livid about what happened,” Abbott said during a Friday conference in Uvalde. “The information I was given turned out, in part, to be inaccurate, and I am absolutely livid about that.”

U.S. Rep Joaquin Castro called for the FBI to intervene and launch an independent investigation into the police response to the shooting.

Uvalde County Commissioner Ronald Garza on CBS’ “Face the Nation” said he “welcomed” a federal inquiry. Garza said he was “still in the dark” over the slow law enforcement response to the shooting.

“We need to learn more,” Garza added. “As tragic as this may seem, we need to learn from this, you know. And parents deserve answers.”

Abby Livingston contributed reporting.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/29/uvalde-shooting-response-justice-department/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.