Dale Meadows, of Morgan County WV, was arrested on May 21 for allegedly making threats against Barack Obama however news of this incident is just now coming out because local law enforcement had evidently been prohibited by federal authorities from releasing information on the arrest until now.
The nature of the threat(s) have not been released by the authorities but the Morgan County Sheriff Vince Shambaugh said the fact that Meadows was a military veteran may have been the reason the Secret Service took the threat seriously and had requested assistance from the county SWAT team. There was concern that due to his military background and weapons training there may have been some problems taking Meadows into custody.
Apparently Meadows was having some issues with the Veterans Administration and at some point allegedly made some threats against Obama. It has been reported that Meadows does not have any record of prior negative contacts with law enforcement and in fact he was arrested while laying in his bed without incident.
Morgan County Sheriff Vince Shambaugh said Monday that a local man has been arrested and charged with making threats against President Barack Obama.
Dale Meadows, of 12311 Valley Road, Berkeley Springs, was arrested without incident on May 21 after his department was contacted for assistance by two U.S. Secret Service agents from Charleston, Shambaugh said.
At that time, the agents’ requested assistance in locating Meadows and serving an arrest warrant, he said.
While the details of Meadows’ alleged actions have not been made public, Shambaugh said that his prior military background may have played somewhat of a role.
“Evidently he had been disgruntled with the Veterans Administration and some other veterans’ organizations. And for whatever reason, it went to the point of him making threats,” Shambaugh said.
“I don’t know the details of his actions, but it must have been credible enough for probable cause for a warrant for whatever he’d said or done,” he said.
When his name was run through the system, Meadows was not found to have any previous history with law enforcement, Shambaugh said.
A SWAT team was assembled and team members met at the sheriff’s office with the agents to conduct a briefing before going to Meadow’s residence, which was located 12 miles south of town, near the Virginia line, he said.
“We took extra precautions because he is a veteran and has had weapons training, so we felt it was better to err on the side of caution,” Shambaugh said.
The rest of the article can be read here>>>
Is it possible we will begin to see an escalation of these types of incidents in this country due to the Department of Homeland Security’s Operation Vigilant Eagle? Who knows. We’ll just have to keep a sharp eye out in the future because these military vets are certainly being looked at.
From the DHS document addressing returning military veterans distributed to law enforcement throughout the U.S.,
Disgruntled Military Veterans
(U//FOUO) DHS/I&A assesses that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat. These skills and knowledge have the potential to boost the capabilities of extremists—including lone wolves or small terrorist cells—to carry out violence. The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today.
After Operation Desert Shield/Storm in 1990-1991, some returning military veterans—including Timothy McVeigh—joined or associated with rightwing extremist groups.
A prominent civil rights organization [I’m certain the report refers to The Southern Poverty Law Center which is a FAR left wing group that believes anyone to the right of Fidel Castro must be part of a “hate group”….ed] reported in 2006 that “large numbers of potentially violent neo-Nazis, skinheads, and other white supremacists are now learning the art of warfare in the [U.S.] armed forces.”
The FBI noted in a 2008 report on the white supremacist movement that some returning military veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have joined extremist groups.
