The longest Twitter thread I've ever posted. Re: #AlbuquerqueProtest tonight & the fact that known terrorists who threatened me 2 weeks ago were allowed to continue to operate & shoot someone tonight because #NMpol can't seem to grasp the meaning behind #DefundThePolice #BLM
Tonight, a fasicst, white supremacist shot live rounds at peaceful protesters in Albuquerque attempting to bring down the memorial to racist colonizer Juan de Onate. At the time of this writing, we know that one protestor was hit and wounded severely and taken to the hospital.
My sincerest best wishes to them and their people are not enough, especially considering we’ve known about this extremist group for weeks. How do we know?
They threatened me.
They threatened me.
2 weeks ago in Las Cruces, members of this same group, the so-called “New Mexico Civil Guard” showed up uninvited to “observe” a peaceful protest in Las Cruces. I was not in attendance but when I heard there were armed white men menacing the protest I grabbed my phone & went down
I documented what I saw via a live Facebook feed. It was dark & difficult to see faces but it was clear enough that armed, white, men were staging in the parking lot directly across from the protest, wearing long guns on slings at low ready, with other tactical equipment
Later that night, some of those men were interviewed by the @CrucesSunNews and declared themselves “boogaloo bois” which, right there was a self-declaration of their allegiance to white power, anti-government terrorists.
The men who posed for the newspaper photo were not the original men I documented, they showed up later. That’s worth mentioning because of what happened next.
Two days later, the day after New Mexico’s primary election, I was alerted by a number of friends that private information about me had been shared on the publicly facing New Mexico Civil Guard Facebook page.
These terrorists not only outed me but other people I know who either shared my original post or commented on it with specific vigor, it seemed.
This is not the first time I’ve been doxxed in the course of working for @ProgressNowNM. It’s not the first time people have said hateful things about me, my body, my political leaning, etc. But this was the first time that people sent me direct messages threatening real violence
The escalation was clear.
I took some steps to ensure my own safety. Double checked on my people, locked down some social media settings, and alerted people out loud that I’d been outed by sharing these screenshots.
I took some steps to ensure my own safety. Double checked on my people, locked down some social media settings, and alerted people out loud that I’d been outed by sharing these screenshots.
I also chose to exercise my own right to self-defense under the second amendment and carried a gun when I went out. That’s likely a whole other post for another time, but for now, I won't apologize for wanting to defend myself and my people.
But tonight’s violence in Albuquerque is so utterly heartbreaking because we know it could have been avoided. Myself, a number of other sources, have been calling out the potential violence of the New Mexico Civil Guard for weeks now.
AND, moreover, the people who make up their ranks, people from Cowboys for Trump, the IIIers, ProudBoys, these are all WELL DOCUMENTED hate groups, that seemingly the various police powers in New Mexico all ignored long enough to allow them to shoot someone last night.
In just a few hours I saw every major political person in this state say something about this.
I’m glad @MayorKeller is going to take down the statue, it should have been down years ago as it was a painful reminder to Indigenous people EVERY DAY of the colonialism that nearly resulted in their actual extermination.
I’m glad @GovMLG used the word “terrorize” and “menace” but it’s too late, I and others already said those words weeks ago.
I’m glad @MartinHeinrich is calling for a federal investigation into the shooting because it “wasn’t the first report of heavily armed civilian militias appearing at protests in New Mexico.” BUT
Yeah, it wasn’t. WE’VE ALL BEEN SAYING THAT. And, it wasn’t just me, or other activists in the last few weeks, but literally it’s been the actual thing Black and Brown and Indigionous folx have been saying for DECADES.
White supremacists with guns are the problem. They always have been. The systems in place, the police that protect them and are part of them on and off duty, the courts that filled with appointees from NRA supported elected officials,
the state capitals filled with those same NRA shills, all the way up to the oval office, WHITE SUPREMACISTS WITH GUNS ARE THE PROBLEM.
#BlackLivesMatter because I got threatened with violence and had all the privilege in the world to report it, retreat to safe spaces, exercise my right to self-defense, etc.
#BlackLivesMatter because while all this watching and waiting has happened, Black people across the country continue to be found killed in heinous ways and have their deaths covered up by police.
#BlackLivesMatter because when righteous human beings show up to tear down the symbols of their oppression, white men with guns take it upon themselves to act as executioners on the spot in defense of a piece of metal they see as having more value than a human being.
Watching the scene tonight in Albuquerque was heartbreaking because it was the actual thing that these people said they were going to do. And no one with power or authority did anything to stop it. If you don’t understand the concept of #DefundThePolice,
Just think about the fact that for weeks now the New Mexico Civil Guard has been threatening to and actually showing up to “defend property” with guns and after being allowed to over and over and over again, finally pulled the trigger tonight
and were peacefully and without violence to their bodies arrested while their victim bled helplessly on the ground. The New Mexico Civil Guard are responsible for tonight’s violence without question. But the silence and foot dragging from New Mexico’s political elite
that seem to want to plug their ears to the calls from Black and Indiginous people for JUSTICE NOW and not sometime down the road emboldened every one of those white guys with guns today.
I’m a white guy with all the privilege in the world and I felt threatened by these terrorists. Imagine living that fear for generation after generation.
