In March 2020 I started my three-year term of office on my neighborhood HOA Board. Note the date: it was also the start of the Covid pandemic shutdowns and the start of the 2020 Presidential campaigns. While the Democrats had many candidates vying for the nomination, the Republicans were sure to re-nominate the incumbent President Donald Trump.
Then, just two months later, a 46-year-old black man named George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis, touching off a wave of protest rallies across the country against the seemingly endless sequence of police killings of unarmed black men. The rallies touched off a backlash. President Trump came out forcefully on the side of the backlash, even urging police to shoot protesters. All sorts of racist and white supremacist groups flocked to the President’s campaign, and their flags found their way into the campaign. One of these flags was the thin blue line (TBL) flag. Suddenly, TBL flags sprouted up all over my neighborhood.
Since the HOA had strict bylaws against political signs and banners, and the TBL flag was closely associated with the Trump campaign, the Board felt it had to send a letter to the principal offender to take down the flag. The HOA letter created a huge blowup, including a Letter to the Editor of this newspaper and a petition drive against the HOA. The recipient of the HOA letter responded with his own letter, quoting to us the exact language of the “flags” bylaw (different than the “signs” bylaw) — which says that, in addition to the U.S. and State flags, also allowed are “decorative banners, military unit flags, sports loyalty flags, and other loyalty flags.” He also pointed out that he was a retired police officer, and to him the TBL flag was a loyalty flag and hence was allowed. After reconsidering, the Board had to agree, and we rescinded the letter.
The recission did not settle the basic issue. Although the TBL flag can indeed be a “loyalty” flag, it is also much more than that. The thin blue line is meant to symbolize that only the police stand between the defense and survival of Western civilization and the abyss. The abyss, in the thinking of some who promote this symbol, is anyone who tries to cross or challenge that line — and that includes fellow Americans exercising their constitutional right to protest; these challengers will be met with violence. Some who display this flag in the current political context mean it to have the same threat-of-violence effect as waving a Nazi Swastika or a Confederate battle flag. It is deliberately meant to be provocative and threatening. It is this implied threat of political violence inherent in these symbols that is so concerning.
On which side of this issue are Adams County police? Whenever false and unsubstantiated claims are raised — and there have been several in past years — that Black Lives Matter protesters or Antifa are coming to town to take down Confederate monuments on Gettysburg National Military Park grounds, the Proud Boys or the KKK then use these claims as a pretext to roll into town allegedly to protect the monuments. Borough and Park police have a history of welcoming them as friends and allies, while at the same time going into a tizzy when one sole African-American college professor shows up at the Military Park to talk to tourists about the historical context of the Confederate monuments.
Still not convinced? Fast forward now to this Summer, a season of near-weekly protest rallies on Lincoln Square in Gettysburg. On the very day in June of the “No Kings” Rally, Adams County Sheriff James Muller uploaded a Facebook post, since removed, that showed a photo of a white pickup truck with a red blood-spatter pattern on the hood, with the caption “The All-New Dodge Ram Protester Edition.”
The Sheriff sets the tone for law enforcement in Adams County. By stating, however briefly, that violence against peaceful protestors was a laughing matter, the Sheriff of Adams County failed in his duty. Rather than promoting a safe environment for the residents of and visitors to Adams County, he has condoned and promoted violence against those who hold political views in opposition to his.
And what was the response from local Republican officials and other law enforcement officers? Either silence, or equivocation (suggesting he did not really post it), or a failure to condemn (saying only they do not “support, condone, or agree”). This implied endorsement of political violence by Adams County law enforcement must stop. Now.
Jeff Colvin has spent his professional career as a research physicist, first at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and then at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the two US nuclear weapons design laboratories. He lives in Gettysburg part-time and is chair of Gettysburg DFA Government Accountability task force.