Missouri Caucus RP supporters arrested for videotaping/helicopter brings cops in.

Discussion in 'Elections & Campaigns' started by marbro, Mar 18, 2012.

  1. marbro

    marbro New Member

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    You got to ask yourself why so many GOP leaders are forcing their caucuses to be non transparent. Why would they deny video cameras and not make vote totals public in caucuses? Only answer I can come up with is FRAUD.
    *edit the arrest is for trespassing not videotaping. videotaping was just against the caucus rules.


    Police and organizers shut down proceedings at one of Missouri's largest caucuses today, as Ron Paul supporters feuded with local GOP leaders.

    "It's like the Hatfields and the McCoys around here," St. Charles County's former GOP chairman told ABC News, after police arrived on-scene with a helicopter and removed Paul backers.

    In St. Charles, an exurb of St. Louis and one of the state's largest GOP counties, Paul supporters sought to elect their own chairman and adopt their own rules when proceedings opened - both of which are part of standard caucus rules and procedure. But as they argued with the caucus chair, Paul supporters held video cameras - against caucus rules, according to a GOP official who was there - and things became contentious.

    "It turned into a little food fight within the caucus, between the caucus chairman trying to control the caucus and certain elements, I guess with Ron Paul, trying to be heard," said Tom Kipers, a former chairman of the St. Charles GOP, who attended the caucus at Francis Howell North High School.

    An off-duty police officer, hired as security, eventually fielded a trespassing complaint against the Paul supporters and notified on-duty police in the area municipality of St. Peters, who, along with police from other jurisdictions, arrested two Paul supporters and ended the caucuses early. A joint-jurisdictional police helicopter arrived on the scene. Kipers said about 10 officers arrived in total.

    "Two people were arrested for trespassing after receiving numerous warnings to leave the school property," the St. Peters police said in a press release. "Both subjects were transported to St. Peters Justice Center where they were booked for Trespassing and released on a summons."

    The St. Peters police identified the Paul supporters as Brent Safford, 45, of O'Fallon, Mo., and Kenneth Suitter, 55, of St. Charles.

    Caucus business never really got started. The St. Charles GOP does not know whether it will send any delegates to the congressional-district or state conventions, having elected none.

    Saturday's episode was a near repeat of 2008, when Paul backers succeeded in overwhelming other factions at the St. Charles caucus, according to Kipers. Their elected delegates were subsequently tossed from the congressional-district convention for being verifiable Libertarians (by primary voter rolls) and not Republicans, although Missouri has no voter registration by party.

    At the state convention, in a spirit of reconciliation according to Kipers, they were reinstated and the officials who had barred them were themselves barred for having done so.

    "Did I expect this to happen? Kind of," Kipers said of Saturday's episode. "That's why we hired … policemen."

    It's too early to tell which candidate performed best, and the Missouri GOP said anecdotal evidence indicates that very few counties chose to "bind" their delegates to any particular candidate.

    The county caucuses are Missouri's main event in the 2012 primary season. There will be no traditional "winner": caucusers did not vote on presidential candidates, even in a "straw-poll" or "beauty-contest" sense, as in Iowa. Instead, caucusers chose first-tier delegates to Missouri's congressional-district and state conventions, who will then elect and allocate 49 of the state's 52 national delegates.

    Rick Santorum won the state's nonbinding Feb. 7 primary, 55 percent to Mitt Romney's 25 percent. Newt Gingrich was not on the ballot, having made no attempt to qualify. The state party tried to cancel that event after a complex intra-state political saga.

    Santorum supporters prevailed in Chesterfield, one of the largest caucus sites in St. Louis County, the only Missouri county holding multiple caucuses. Attendees elected slates of first-tier delegates who support Santorum, according to a local GOP official.

    Paul supporters, meanwhile prevailed in Boone, a mid-sized county that encompasses Columbia and the University of Missouri. The county elected a slate of 48 Paul-supporting delegates and five who back Romney, the local GOP chairman said.

    Paul supporters and local officials get along well in Boone, chairman Bruce Cornett said, although one 75-year-old county GOP member referred to them as "loud" and "obnoxious" at Saturday's event.

    The caucuses won't end until next week. Nearly all the caucuses took place today, but Jackson County, which encompasses Kansas City and is one of Missouri's largest counties by GOP votes, will not caucus until March 24.
    http://news.yahoo.com/police-interv...kers-missouri-caucus-223928873--abc-news.html
     
  2. marbro

    marbro New Member

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    Here is a video. I am still trying to find more information on why this man was arrested. It appears he was just talking.

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofu_MlypJms"]Ron Paul Supporter Arrested Outside St. Charles County, Mo. Caucus 03/17/12 - YouTube[/ame]

    Edit* he was arrested for trespassing and the caucus was shut down.
     
  3. hoytmonger

    hoytmonger New Member

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    I've just read a post on another site from an attendee of a Missouri caucus (I won't post it without his permission), but he stated that his county went overwhelmingly for Paul... and Santorum supporters left in a huff.

    District caucuses to be held on April 21.
     
  4. marbro

    marbro New Member

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    Thats great news!
     
  5. camp_steveo

    camp_steveo Well-Known Member

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  6. Woogs

    Woogs Well-Known Member

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  7. Woogs

    Woogs Well-Known Member

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    From the Daily Paul, an update from Brent Stafford, the man arrested at the Missouri County Convention.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    This is Brent Stafford. I wanted to let everyone know I am out of jail and am just now starting to read some of the posts about what happened today.

    I am actually in my car right now, so I will post more complete details when I get to someplace where I can take more time.

    First of all, thank you to everyone who was concerned and calling the police station. Apparently they were getting flooded with calls.

    I was trying to reconvene the meeting in the gymnasium, according to the rules, and was told I have the leave the gym along with everyone else or I would be trespassing. I went outside and tried to let everyone know we were going to try to reconvene. Some people we trying to go to a nearby park to do so, but the rules are clear the the caucus may only be held in the location printed in the Call to Caucus printed in a newspaper 15 days prior. The ONLY place we could reconvene was at the high school.

    I stood on a chair to address the crowd to let them know we were going to reconvene and what we needed to do. At that point I was approached by told I was under arrest.

    More to come...

    --------------- Update

    Okay, I have a minute, and a beer! Here is the saga.

    There are three main culprits to today's fiasco. Eugene Dokes - St. Charles County Republican Committee Chairman, Bryan Spencer - Chairman of the Caucus Committee for the St. Charles County GOP (he organized the caucus), and Matt Ehlen - The guy they installed as Chairman and who ended the meeting before conducting any business.

    I approached Bryan Spencer several times, prior to the commencement of the caucus, to point out where things that were being planned violated the rules. He said, "We are going to do it this way, challenge it if you want." He is the one that was trying to rig the process to select delegates proportionally based on who was in attendance. They conducted a straw poll as people were checked in, in violation of State GOP rules.

    The meeting was supposed to begin at 10:00am. There were so many people still in line that by the time the meeting was ready to start it was just after 11:00am.

    Eugene Dokes started the meeting by immediately declaring there would be no video or audio recording allowed, and that if anyone refused to stop, they would be removed by police. The entire room of what has been reported as over 2,500 people began booing and demanding that recording be allowed. It was not just Ron Paul people.

    Eugene Dokes then refused to commence the meeting until everyone stopped recording. I made multiple attempts to make a point of order to address the situation, but he refused to acknowledge me. He then left the podium and called the police.

    There were St. Peters Police, St. Charles Police, St. Charles County Sheriffs, and Missouri Highway Patrol that eventually came into the gymnasium and through threat of arrest made everyone turn off their cameras. Of course many did not.

    Eugene Dokes then started to convene the meeting a second time.

    Let me digress a moment. We had prepared very well ahead of time. I won't get into all of the details, but the Mitt Romney people agreed to support me for Chairman. This was an incredible vote of confidence in my ability to chair and to convene a fair process. I had also hire the President of the Missouri Association of Parliamentarians who I intended to appoint for that role. I never got that chance.

    Eugene Dokes appointed the Creditials Committee, Rules Committee, and Parliamentarian. These are all appointments made by the elected Chairman, not the temporary Chair which is what Eugene Dokes was acting as. The body loudly booed and started making all kinds of points of order and other declarations of disgust at the blatant disregard for the proper process.

    He then opened the floor for nominations. I immediately started nominating myself multiple times. He recognized a woman, who was obviously preselected, who nominated Matt Ehlen. At that point about 2,000 people started chanting my name to be appointed. Eugene Dokes ignored that and called a hasty voice vote and declared the one nominee, Matt Ehlen, as the Chair.

    Hundreds of people started calling for Division of the vote. Eugene Dokes ignored them all.

    Matt Ehlen took the podium and tried to regain order. After anout 20 seconds he declared that St. Charles County would not send any delegates to the CD and State Conventions. He quickly found motions to adjourn and closed the meeting.

    At that point I went to grab the parliamentarian I had hired. She had not been allowed inside, because of an arbitrary rule Bryan Spencer made up, but I had checked in with her by sticking my head through the door of and on earlier. I told her to come with me and I headed to the podium. I asked her how to reconvene and since no business had been conducted according to the Call to Convention, we had every right to reconvene.

    I took the microphone and announced that people should not leave and that we would reconvene the meeting. Eugene Dokes came up and unplugged the microphone. At that point the police began ordering people out of the gymnasium.

    At that point I went outside to try to reconvene the caucus, according to the rules. A number of people were going to go to another location to reconvene. I had to stop those that had not left and explained that we were required to convene at the location published 15 days prior in the newspaper or it would be invalid.

    I then found where the biggest crowd had gathered and began to address the crowd. Everyone got quiet to hear me. There were 300-400 people there. I explained very quickly that we needed to begin collecting a roster, as required, and what that meant. I was immediately approached by 4 or 5 police of unknown jurisdictions who made me step down from the chair and put me into handcuffs.

    When I asked what I was being arrested for, or if I was being arrested, I was told they would tell me later. Eventually I was booked for trespassing and released.

    The actions of Eugene Doke, Bryan Spencer, and Matt Ehlen were the direct cause of the event getting out of control. They have tried to shift the blame, but it is all on them. If they had conducted the meeting according to Robert's Rules and the proper order of the agenda, none of this would have happened.

    ---------------- Update #2

    I forgot to mention, I am on the St. Charles GOP Central Committee, the one Eugene Dokes is Chairman of, as well as being Chair, Vice-Chair, and Secretary of three different GOP Legislative Committees.

    I need to remember to tell the media that. It was so crazy today I just wanted to tell what happened and forgot to mention it.

    http://www.dailypaul.com/221346/thi...uri?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
     
  8. RP12

    RP12 Well-Known Member

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    Yet again nothing will be done about it and the media will keep chanting "Paul cant win". No (*)(*)(*)(*) he cant. The (*)(*)(*)(*)ing GoP is a fraud.
     
  9. Woogs

    Woogs Well-Known Member

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    Taken from the comments at this page...

    http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politic...rguments-arrests-and-a-good-day-for-ron-paul/

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    I was at this caucus. I am a Romney supporter and the media has gotten this story wrong, as usual. I’m here to set the record straight.

    First, the issue with the fellow who would not put away his camera is separate. Completely separated by probably 15 minutes of calmness and order. The initial commotion caused by enforcing that rule, whether it was proper or not, or against the rules or not, was completely separate from what followed at least 15-20 minutes later. Completely separate.

    The real issue occurred later, when the St. Charles Central Committee (100% Santorum supporters) had their temporary chairman (Eugene Dokes) up there appointing people against Robert’s Rules of Order as adopted. He was appointing people all by himself, dare I say like a dictator, without a vote. And then he even appointed one of his Committee friends (also a Santorum supporter) to be chairman, with a hasty voice vote. When the Ron Paul crowd and our team stood up and called for a point of order and a Division (hand count), he ignored all of us.

    There was no collusion between the Ron Paul crowd and our side prior to the caucus, I can say that without a doubt. When we saw how the Central Committee was trying to ramrod all of us, our organizers quickly got with Paul’s organizers to protest together against this. And I think we are right in doing so.

    So, to recap, the issue was the temporary chairman, Mr. Dokes, was blatantly disregarding parliamentary procedure and Roberts Rules of Order. He ignored all points of order, including one time saying “I’m not taking those now.” Well, he has no choice, according to the rules. Then he adjourned the meeting without a vote. The whole thing was a ramrod job by the St. Charles Central Committee. I am so disgusted that this could be happening in America.
     
  10. camp_steveo

    camp_steveo Well-Known Member

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    ^It sounds like the Santorum folks were in the wrong.
     
  11. What is free

    What is free New Member

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    They want to control the elections, just how Santorum wants to control the way you live your life. :no:
     
  12. CoolWalker

    CoolWalker New Member

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    That and a buck and a half will get you some crappy coffee.
     
  13. reckoning

    reckoning New Member

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    It should not be illegal to video tape a voting process, this is insane..
     
  14. hoytmonger

    hoytmonger New Member

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    I received permission to post this...

    http://huntersandarchers.com/showthread.php/2372-Missouri-caucus-today-the-17th-update
     
  15. RP12

    RP12 Well-Known Member

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    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKe0dxBJy1A"]Reality Check GOP committee attempts to manipulate delegate process in Missouri - YouTube[/ame]

    More information and blatant fraud by the GoP.
     
  16. Justin Valuable

    Justin Valuable New Member

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    I had a Ron Paul supporter arrested at a Rick Santorum rally in Dallas.
     
  17. Krypt

    Krypt New Member

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    Was he interrupting the cult meeting Santorum was having?
     

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