When Seattle police officer Greg Anderson’s Instagram video reached a few thousand views, his command sent him a message saying ‘Wow, Greg. What a powerful message! We agree with that one hundred percent. Well done!’
Three hours later, he got a call from his command and their tone had changed considerably: ‘Hey, Greg. The video is up to 400,000 views. It’s time to pull the plug on this thing.’ Anderson declined.
A couple of hours later, with the video skyrocketing and Anderson getting a multitude of encouraging messages from fellow law enforcement officers past and present he has known, the tone of his command in a subsequent phone call was even more threatening: ‘Listen, the video needs to be taken down right now, and you need to accept a letter of reprimand–or, we’re going to take a very different approach to this if you say ‘no’ again.’
Later he was contacted by the Chief of Police, who Anderson says he has great respect for. The Chief put things squarely to Anderson: ‘Greg, if you openly defy your governor, you can’t be a police officer in the state of Washington.’
Greg Anderson’s Video
The video you are about to see here is a remarkably frank and candid reflection on police overreach and tyranny during the current COVID-19 crisis, and the actual role and true responsibilities of police whether in times of crisis or not:
Every time I turn on the television, every time I look to the internet, I’m seeing people arrested, or cited, for going to church, for travelling on the roadways, for going surfing, opening their businesses, going to the park with their families, or doing nails out of their own house, using their own house as a place of business, and having undercover agents go there, and arrest them, and charge them. With what? With a crime? I don’t know what crime people are committing by doing nails in their own house, but, we’re seeing this more and more and more, and we need to start looking at ourselves as officers, and thinking: ‘Is what I’m doing right?’
Now I want to remind you that no matter where you stand on the coronavirus we don’t have the authority to do those things to people, just because a mayor, or a governor, tells you otherwise. I don’t care if it’s your sergeant or your chief of police, we don’t get to violate people’s constitutional rights because somebody in our chain of command tells us otherwise. It’s not how this country works.
I could really quote the whole video, because I believe it is gold. I would highly recommend listening carefully to what Greg Anderson has to say here.
The Aftershocks
A few days after his video was released, Anderson released a companion video to get people caught up with what has happened to him. Here we find out that he has been put on ‘administrative leave pending termination,’ which is essentially his authority’s cowardly way of essentially firing him without having to deal with as much immediate blowback from the public.
After hearing Anderson speak here, it is hard not to be wholly impressed by his integrity and equanimity in the face of uncertainty that has been brought upon him.
What Is A Hero?
Heroes inspire. Heroes stand up for principles no matter the threats to their own personal well-being and safety. Greg Anderson has put a very important stake in the ground representing what it means to be a police officer, and all fellow police officers owe it to themselves to follow his example. The public is certainly behind Anderson’s initiative. If you don’t believe it, look at the overwhelming support he is getting on a GoFund Me page set up by his wife’s best friend, after being willing to forsake his job for his principles:
I just checked again. The donations are at $239,004. In. One. Day. The public is inspired, and obviously have been hungry to hear this kind of message from a member of the police force.
Heroes are now emerging from all of the institutions in our society that are part of a much larger control and domination agenda. We have written about those who have spoken out from the inside about the corruption of mainstream media (CNN’s Political Bias Exposed By Whistleblower’s Hidden Camera Footage, NBC Journalist Quits Then Blows The Whistle On How Mainstream Media Deceives The Public) and the Western medical establishment (Dr Jeff Barke: “What If Quarantining The Healthy Doesn’t Actually Save Lives?”, Dr. Peter Gotzsche On Coronavirus: “A Pandemic Of Panic, More Than Anything Else”), but it is particularly prescient at this time in history for law enforcement officials to stand up to tyranny and oppression of the authority, because without the complicity of law enforcement, our authority would instantly lose their ability to enforce any decrees that are against the will of the people.
The Takeaway
I have long thought about the plans in place for a dystopian totalitarian security state in the image of George Orwell’s 1984, and the one thought that always gave me solace was that there would hopefully be enough awakened and principled people in law enforcement that would not be willing to carry out orders that would infringe on the rights of their fellow human beings. With courageous messages such as the one shared by Greg Anderson, which hopefully will be reiterated by others in law enforcement who have told him that they support his position, my faith is strengthened.
What is important for each of us, however, especially if we want to honor the bravery of people like Greg Anderson, is to examine ourselves and ready ourselves to stand up for our principles any time they are infringed upon, even if this costs us our job or more. If we are together on this, it will not be long before the obsolete control mechanism we have been living under all our lives is disabled for good.
This article was first published on Collective Evolution.