The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Chad Wolf announced on Wednesday that it is deploying Rapid Deployment Teams (RDT) across the country to protect federal monuments from “violent anarchists and rioters” during the Fourth of July holiday weekend.
In a statment, DHS said that Wolf had created the DHS Protecting American Communities Task Force (PACT), which is “a special task force to coordinate Departmental law enforcement agency assets in protecting our nation’s historic monuments, memorials, statues, and federal facilities.”
DHS said that an order signed by President Donald Trump last month, “Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Activity,” directed DHS to “provide personnel to assist with the protection of federal monuments, memorials, statues, or property.”
“As a result, DHS created the PACT, which will conduct ongoing assessments of potential civil unrest or destruction and allocate resources to protect people and property,” the statement concluded. “This may involve potential surge activity to ensure the continuing protection of critical locations. DHS’s Office of Operations Coordination will also partner closely with the Departments of Justice and Interior to establish information and intelligence sharing.”
The move comes as dozens of statues have been removed or destroyed by left-wing protesters in recent weeks, including “statues of former Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant, and attempted to destroy the statue of former President Andrew Jackson before being stopped by law enforcement,” The Daily Wire reported. “Statues of the man who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner,” a notable person from the Catholic church, and a Holocaust memorial have also been destroyed in recent days.”
“DHS is answering the President’s call to use our law enforcement personnel across the country to protect our historic landmarks,” Wolf said in a statement. “We won’t stand idly by while violent anarchists and rioters seek not only to vandalize and destroy the symbols of our nation, but to disrupt law and order and sow chaos in our communities.”
“As we approach the July 4th holiday, I have directed the deployment and pre-positioning of Rapid Deployment Teams (RDT) across the country to respond to potential threats to facilities and property,” Wolf continued. “While the Department respects every American’s right to protest peacefully, violence and civil unrest will not be tolerated.”
In a tweet, Wolf said that the anarchists and rioters “clearly hate this country” and that “we are here to stop them.”
.@DHSgov is pre-deploying rapid deployment teams to respond to any threats to our monuments in critical areas. We will not let anarchists and rioters who clearly hate this country continue to terrorize our cities and destroy federal monuments. We are here to stop them. pic.twitter.com/MK5wICYOf9
— Acting Secretary Chad Wolf (@DHS_Wolf) July 1, 2020
.@DHSgov will ensure that we have law enforcement personnel ready to protect our federal properties, facilities, buildings, statues, and monuments across the country. pic.twitter.com/2HhFkBnHRW
— Acting Secretary Chad Wolf (@DHS_Wolf) July 1, 2020
The destruction of statues and monuments across the country was partly sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis back in May. After Floyd’s death, rioters burned down buildings, looted stores, and attacked law enforcement officials across the country. The violent riots eventually turned their focus to Confederate statues but quickly progressed to destroying statues of former U.S. presidents and non-political figures.
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