Nothing quite so perfectly illustrates what’s wrong with America’s media class as what happened Saturday in Denver. A group of conservative “Patriots” announced a pro-police rally. The organizer of the event said the intention was “to make a public show of force after communist and socialist protesters broke up a pro-police rally in July.”
Communists — yes, self-described Communists — then announced their own counter-protest, declaring on Facebook:
Rightwing vigilante violence against anti-racist protesters has become commonplace. Especially since, both locally and nationally, the cops and courts have mostly given these terrorists a green light.
But we are undeterred! We feel it is our responsibility to vocally oppose fascists every time the try to assemble. And we hope you feel the same way! And what are our options? To cede our streets to them? That’s how you get Hitlers.
You see how Communists deploy words like “fascist” and “terrorist” against anyone who disagrees with them, and make the preemptive accusation of “vigilante violence” against the people who were, in fact, rallying in defense of law enforcement. This is how a pro-police, law-and-order rally is made to seem like something sinister and dangerous. And the media eagerly regurgitates this Communist propaganda narrative.
By publicizing the Communist message, of course, the media acted as recruiters for the counter-protest, encouraging their audience to turn out and fight the alleged “fascists” (i.e., the ones who are for the police and against rioting). The predictable result is violence:
A private security guard is being held as a suspect in a deadly shooting near the Denver Art Museum, according to the Denver Police Department (DPD).
Matthew Dolloff, 30, is being held at the Denver Downtown Detention Center on suspicion of first degree murder. He has not been formally charged.
Dolloff was contracted through Pinkerton by 9NEWS. It has been the practice of 9NEWS for a number of months to contract private security to accompany staff at protests.
DPD originally took two people into custody and later found the second individual, a 9NEWS producer who works in the investigative unit, was not involved in the incident. The producer is no longer in police custody and is not a suspect.
This incident occurred beneath a city police surveillance camera and police confirmed they have footage of what happened.
DPD said that a little before 3:50 p.m. there was some sort of verbal altercation just as protesters were leaving the area.
Someone sprayed pepper spray and DPD said that is when at least one shot was fired.
This “contracted through Pinkerton” claim has proven false. We’ll get to that part of the story in a second, but first we must tell you that 4chan — that unruly hive of hackers — identified Dolloff within two hours of the shooting, whereas it wasn’t until Sunday afternoon that the media named him. Even 9News (KUSA-TV, the Denver NBC affiliate) didn’t name him until police issued a statement Sunday, despite the obvious fact that (a) many employees of 9News knew Dolloff’s name, and (b) Dolloff’s arrest record was publicly available through the Denver County Jail’s website.
Meanwhile, hackers combed through Dolloff’s online presence and discovered abundant evidence of his far-left fanaticism, including his participation in the 2011 “Occupy Denver” protests, where he was quoted telling a reporter “corporations have killed America.” Dolloff hates cops.
Question: Is “f**k the police” a sentiment that you would expect to see expressed by someone who aspires to work as a security guard?
It turns out that Matt Dolloff was not licensed as a security guard (licenses are required by law in Denver), nor was he an employee of Pinkerton, which issued a statement saying Dolloff was “a contractor agent from a long standing industry vendor,” whatever that means. A city official made clear it was illegal for Dolloff to be an armed guard:
“If he was operating as a security guard, he was in violation of the law,” department spokesman Eric Escudero told the news station.
“Security guards are prohibited from carrying or using a firearm without getting an armed firearm endorsement for their license.
“All security guards in Denver are required to get a federal background check before they receive their license.”
So who is this “industry vendor” who KUSA-TV used to hire Dolloff?
It doesn’t matter, really, but there is something odd here. Nothing on Dolloff’s online presence suggested he had worked as a security guard. What are the odds that an “industry vendor” would send a cop-hater with no license to work security for a Denver TV station at this rally?
Just a random coincidence, I’m sure.
The victim was 49-year-old Navy veteran Lee Keltner:
Keltner was identified as the victim by family members who revealed the grandfather and military veteran was shot dead in front of his 24-year-old son.
Carol Keltner, who said she is the victim’s mother, wrote in a social media post that her son was ‘murdered’ because he supported the police.
‘My son Lee was at the patriot rally today in Denver,’ Carol wrote in a Facebook group called Northeast Arkansas Tea Party Group. ‘After the rally a person on the BLM and Antifa side went up to him said a few nasty words then shot him in the head.
‘He was murdered because he backed the police. His 24 year old son was with him. I moved to Arkansas because Colorado got too expensive and liberal. The left has gotten out of hand.’ . . .
Keltner’s sister, Suzan Keltner, on Sunday said her nephew has been struggling to cope after witnessing his father’s death.
‘He was my brother, my only sibling,’ Suzan told the New York Post. ‘He also served our country.’
Jay Keltner, who identified himself as one of Lee’s sons, also posted about the tragedy on Facebook, writing: ‘I can’t believe my dad’s gone. This will never be right #RIP.’
We will certainly learn more about what happened in the days and weeks to come. Keltner’s family will be suing KUSA-TV for this.
