Don't hurt yourself going all up in arms until you've reached the exciting conclusion of our story.
(CNN) -- A Missouri police officer involved in maintaining security in troubled Ferguson was put on administrative leave Friday after a video surfaced showing him railing about the Supreme Court, Muslims, and his past -- and perhaps, he said, his future -- as "a killer."
The officer, Dan Page of the St. Louis County Police Department, became something of a familiar face to many earlier this month when video showed him pushing back CNN's Don Lemon and others in a group in Ferguson. At the time, CNN was reporting on the large-scale and at times violent protests calling for the arrest of a white Ferguson police officer who shot and killed African-American teenager Michael Brown.
But it's another video that led St. Louis County police officials to say they had removed Page from his post and had started a process that will likely include the department's internal affairs unit investigating and a psychological evaluation of the officer.
"(I) apologize to the community and anybody who is offended by these remarks, and understand from me that he ... does not represent the rank-and-file of the St. Louis County Police Department," county Police Chief Jon Belmar told CNN. Belmar called the video "so bizarre."
CNN placed several phone calls Friday to what's believed to be Page's home number seeking comment on the video and disciplinary action against him, but never got a response.
Posted to YouTube and highlighted by CrooksandLiars.com, the video shows the military veteran talking for about an hour to an Oath Keepers group. According to its website, Oath Keepers is "a non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to 'defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.'"
The president of the Oath Keepers' St. Louis/St. Charles chapter, Duane Weed, told CNN that Page was a guest speaker and is not a member of his group. A link to the video of his speech was posted to the local chapter's Facebook page on April 23 -- a day after it happened -- along with text that highlighted what Page had to say about the dangers of private contractors in war zones.
That was just one of many topics Page touched on, sometimes jokingly and at other times very seriously
In his rambling remarks on the video, he talks about what he describes as a draft replacement for the U.S. Constitution, the "four sodomites on the Supreme Court," and a visit to Kenya "to our undocumented President's home." He refers to Barack Obama as "that illegal alien who claims to be our President."
Page frequently references violence, including nine combat tours in the Army, during which he did "my fair share of killing."
Speaking about Muslims, he says pointedly: "They will kill you."
On domestic disputes, he opines: "You don't like each other that much, just kill each other and get it over with. Problem solved. Get it done."
On urban violence, he predicts that "when the inner cities start to ignite, people are going to start killing people they don't like."
And lastly, Page says, "I personally believe the Lord Jesus Christ is my savior, but I'm also a killer. I've killed a lot and, if I need to, I will kill a whole bunch more."
"If you don't want to get killed, don't show up in front of me."
Belmar, the head of the St. Louis County police department, said all the talk about killing was especially disturbing to him.
"As a police chief, that's something I'm not going to be able to endure," Belmar said.
The first reaction most reasonable people have to this kind of "sharing" is something along the lines of abhorrence, astonishment, even aghastness.
Well, okay, aghastness isn't actually a word.
But if it was, you can bet the bank that said reasonable people would experience it..
Meanwhile, most reasonable people who have, for one reason or another, done their homework re' the history of mankind, will almost always find, sprinkled amongst their feelings of outrage, offense, even horrifiedness (okay, truth be told, I'm shooting for some additions to the Scrabble dictionary cause the point totals have been pretty impotent lately), a sense of satisfaction in the wide spread attention that this kind of lunacy gets.
For a couple of reasons.
First, because while, ostensibly, what we don't know can't hurt us (next to "check's in the mail" and/or "ladies and gentlemen, the family friendly dance stylings of Miley Cyrus", one of the great true lies of this life), what we don't know is broken cant be fixed, either.
Second, to put the same point in a more relatable everyday sort of way, ain't no gettin' rid of the cockroaches in the kitchen if'n the cockroaches don't come crawlin' right out on ta' the sink, there.
Regardless of what sensationalism driven media would probably like to have us believe, psychotic, neurotic, despotic, hell, all the "otic" behaviors are absolutely nothing new.
This bounces back to the earlier reference to those who have done their history of mankind homework.
Dan Page is clearly a lot of things.
At the very least, I think it not unfair to call him, by literal definition, a zealot.
zeal·ot
And those of us who have a soft spot for Bugs, Daffy, Yosemite and/or Road Runner would likely suggest another moniker for the man.
Looney Tune.
But he really is doing us a favor.
Because his fanaticism isn't being spewed in some unknown out of the way tavern, bar or honky tonk.
No beer hall putsch going on here, kids.
Nope.
There he is in all his Huey P. Long meets Adolf Shicklgruber meets Rush Limbaugh glory, a 35 year veteran of a highly populated county police department, a supposed trusted member of the community and, theoretically, a role model/influence on generations of citizens, right there in plain cinder block adorned sight on the trusty You Tube allowing everyone, convert, supporter and/or reasonable person overcome with aghastness, to see and hear who he is, where he is, what he is, exposing his venom and vitriol and viciousosity (now that ought to be good for a Triple Word Score) in the clear light of day.
A cockroach scurrying out from under the sink and walking ever so brazenly across the Formica topped counters of our psyches.
By now, to any of the aforementioned reasonable homework doers, the moral of our story will, of course, be obvious.
Dan Page has done us a service.
By putting his zealotry right out here in plain sight.
Where it can be bathed in the blinding light of what reporters like to call "the best antiseptic".
Not to mention bug killer.
Sunshine.
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