6, much of the FBI’s attention has shifted to investigating participants in the U.S. “But if you replace ‘Three Percenters’ with any well-known gang, I would think multiple photos … flashing signs … while posing in front of a gang flag with others wearing clothing with that gang on it would be sufficient to say he is in that gang.”īalancing public safety and the First Amendment “Until this case, I knew nothing about this group,” Magistrate Judge Scott Varholak said. Mesa County’s undersheriff isn’t alone in equating militia activists with gang members.ĭuring one of Gieswein’s hearings in January, a federal magistrate drew the same comparison as he weighed the evidence of Gieswein’s participation in the Three Percenters. “Just like we would on a gang committing crimes in our area.” “Very early on, we try and contact this individual and sit down with them… to see if it is someone who is just making statements in a polarized environment or are they taking substantial steps to commit criminal activity,” Rowell said. The priority is to follow up on every report they get. When someone hits his radar as potentially dangerous, he or one of his deputies usually makes a phone call, or sometimes even requests an in-person meeting to check on them. “We know the people who live on those fringes in our community … You’re talking the 1 percent of people who are on the fringes, who pose a risk to the community. “A lot of the time, we have relationships already built with those people,” Rowell said. He would be “shocked” if someone among his approximately 250 employees weren’t already aware of any person of interest in a potential domestic extremism investigation. Though his jurisdiction covers roughly 160,000 people, he said that Grand Junction is still a small town for the most part. In Mesa County, Undersheriff Todd Rowell is taking a notably personal approach in monitoring extremist activity. Four Coloradans have so far been charged with federal crimes connected to the storming of the U.S. That tension creates challenges for law enforcement officers scattered across Colorado, where there are blossoming extremist groups and people who may have been radicalized and pose a danger. “We are aware this is a significant issue. “We have to make sure we adhere to the specific regulations on this: People can belong to a group, it’s the individual actions or the group actions” that may cross the line, said Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen.
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Plus, the feds often caution local authorities to not cross free speech boundaries, which means local deputies must carefully balance respect for First Amendment rights against the need to anticipate possible violence. But given that specific investigations are still often decided by local leaders, it’s up to them to decide whether to track a group or contact someone making online threats. Police chiefs and elected sheriffs across Colorado say they work with federal law enforcement on intelligence sharing to help understand the current threats. “A lot of normal people are being labeled as extremists.”įederal authorities rely on local police and sheriffs to be the foot soldiers in efforts to root out domestic extremists in communities across the country - but how much local officials actually track extremist groups varies from place to place. flags … That doesn’t mean they’re doing anything wrong in being part of a group,” Mikesell said. Other than they show up and they do some different events for the U.S. “I don’t know a whole lot about them to tell you the truth.
Gieswein, according to the FBI, was a member of the Three Percenters, a group federal prosecutors have dubbed “dangerous and violent.” Investigators believe they are loosely affiliated with the Oath Keepers, a paramilitary group that officials have said in documents was “plotting to undo” the election results.īut Gieswein’s Three Percenters was not a group Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell knew well. Capitol carrying bear spray and a baseball bat. The Woodland Park resident with no criminal history was wearing paramilitary gear on Jan. This includes people like Robert Gieswein. Capitol came from small towns across America where they made no effort to hide even extreme political views.īut in many cases, even in rural areas where the local police and deputies might have the best chance of spotting extremists, law enforcement was unaware of the militia members and others operating in plain sight. Many of the hundreds of suspects charged with storming the U.S.
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