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Tuesday, October 20th, 2020

U.S. police chiefs grapple with new Election Day threat: Armed men at the polls

Author:     Andrew Blankstein, Tom Winter, Brenda Breslauer and Rich Schapiro
Source:     NBC News
Publication Date:     Oct. 18, 2020, 3:02 AM PDT
 Link: U.S. police chiefs grapple with new Election Day threat: Armed men at the polls
Stephan:   Remember when the United States leaders lectured nations in South America and the Middle East, and elsewhere, condemning them for violence during elections, and the failure of their democracies. Well, in less than four years Trump, and the morons who support him, have so destroyed our own democracy that other nations now view us with pity or contempt. All in less than four years, so much for Reagan's "shining city on a hill."
White terrorist Justin Hall of Roanoke stands guard with his firearm near the Smyth County Courthouse in Marion, Va., Credit: Andre Teague / Bristol Herald Courier/AP

The summer months were unrelenting for John Clair, a police chief in rural Virginia.

Clair’s normally sleepy town of Marion was the site of two Black Lives Matter protests where heavily armed militia members showed up in droves, alongside other counterdemonstrators, and engaged in tense standoffs with protesters.

“People would call me up and ask how I’m doing,” Clair recalled. “And what I’d say is, ‘I’m dealing with the most complex leadership challenge of my career in the midst of the most widespread social crisis in 100 years. But other than that, I’m doing OK.’”

Clair is now grappling with a different kind of leadership challenge: Election Day.

He’s spent the past several weeks trying to figure out how to provide security at the polls amid the threat of armed troublemakers without scaring away the kind of voters who might be put off by the sight of uniformed policemen.

“I feel like I’m […]

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