The U.S. Army said that Jacob Fracker – one of the two off-duty Virginia police officers who have been arrested on federal charges related to the Capitol riot – is a corporal in the Virginia National Guard.
The disclosure of Fracker’s status as a guardsman comes as thousands of National Guard service members, some of them armed, provide security in and around the Capitol in the wake of the deadly riot Jan. 6.
Yes, police “have First Amendment rights.” And in a well-disciplined police force, as in a well-disciplined military unit, organizational solidarity may matter more than a member’s attraction to groups and ideologies on the extreme fringes of society. The center holds.
McVeigh, a decorated Gulf War vet, didn’t blow up the Oklahoma City federal building, killing 168 people, until after leaving the military. That explosion was 25 years ago: before the nation’s first Black president served two terms, before Donald Trump’s election and (nearly complete) one term, before white terrorist groups became emboldened and increased their numbers, before QAnon was even a thing, and — yes — before a Republican president embraced, energized, and enabled white nationalists.
The violence at the Capitol on January 6 (with all that came in the months before) raises the live possibility that the police and the national guard may harbor potential security threats to the president-elect and other officials, as well as guests, at the inauguration.
Mark this as one more consequence of the campaigns, election, and tenure of Donald Trump. The once unthinkable has become a ghastly possibility.
[Update:] “Twelve National Guard troops deployed to Washington ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration were flagged during background checks and have been sent home, Defense Department officials confirmed Tuesday, offering scant details as to what raised suspicions about them.”
(Image of Jacob Fracker and Thomas “T.J.” Robertson from CNBC.)
