Update:
1. I have edited the above photo to make it less shocking.
2. I have also edited the caption to explain that the group in the photo is not the one alleged to have threatened FEMA personnel this past weekend in North Carolina. Rather, it was a group in Wyoming that opposed a Federal-Government initiative to reintroduce wolves into the ecosystem.
3. Local law-enforcement has arrested an individual who allegedly threatened FEMA personnel in North Carolina. The arrestee is apparently not part of the “militia” that allegedly was out “FEMA hunting.”
www.washingtonpost.com/…
[A]uthorities in North Carolina arrested an individual and charged him in connection with alleged threats made against FEMA, a spokesman with the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office said.
[T]he charge is going armed to the terror of the public, a misdemeanor, and the man will be identified later Monday in a news release.
The threats were made at a gas station on Route 9 in neighboring Polk County, prompting an attendant there to share concerns with active-duty U.S. soldiers who visited, Keever said. The Army reported the incident to law enforcement authorities, who arrested the man Saturday night.
Keever said while there have been unconfirmed reports of “truckloads of militia men” in the area, the details in this case do not bear that out. “This was a lone individual,” Keever said. “We’re trying to get the word out about that.”
End of Update
The Washington Post is reporting that Federal emergency-response staffers in hard-hit Rutherford County, North Carolina were directed on Saturday to stop working and move to a different area due to concerns about “armed militia” members on the prowl for FEMA personnel.
Early Saturday afternoon, an official with the U.S. Forest Service sent an urgent email message to a number of different Federal agencies warning that, “FEMA has advised all federal responders Rutherford County, NC, to stand down and evacuate the county immediately.” The message stated that National Guard troops 'had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying there were out hunting FEMA.’”
The email message also stated that, “The IMTs [incident management teams] have been notified and are coordinating the evacuation of all assigned personnel in that county.”
The article goes on to say that the alert had triggered a pause in clearing trees off of dozens of blocked roads to make them available to search-and-rescue teams and to groups delivering supplies. By Sunday afternoon, the teams were back in position, according to an anonymous official.
Chimney Rock, in Rutherford County, has become one of the centers of tension and conflict after a rumor spread on social media that government officials planned to seize the decimated village and bulldoze bodies under the rubble. Authorities and news outlets debunked the assertion, but people still took to social media imploring militias to go after FEMA.
A person familiar with FEMA operations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the agency was working out of an abundance of caution and its teams were operating at fixed locations and secure areas instead of the usual practice of going door to door.
Riva Duncan, a Forest Service official who lives in Asheville, who is also with the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, told a reporter that people have been yelling, “We don’t want your help here,” at federal employees who were delivering aid or showing up to effect repairs. She also said that one Forest Service employee was pulling into a gas station when someone yelled at him to leave, saying “We don’t want the government here!”
Two Cajun Navy volunteers said that, on Saturday, a resident came to a supplies-distribution center and threatened FEMA personnel who were stationed there. Lake Lure Police and Rutherford County Sheriff’s offices confirmed the incident.
It is a very sad commentary on the times in which we live that civil servants who come to help those in need are met with threats. Every public official, and those who seek to hold public office, should roundly condemn such threats. In one particular case, no… make that two particular cases, I will not hold my breath
