it s now been reported by the shreveport times and that local reporting has been picked up nationally by talking points memo. the sheriff s department there says operation exodus is designed to build a local paramilitary force to deal with the threat of, you know, threats and stuff. in the words of the shreveport times , quote, the bossier sheriff s office is launching a program called operation exodus, a policing plan for an end of the world scenario involving a mostly white group of ex-police volunteers and a 50 caliber machine gun inspired in part from the book of exodus in the bible. the .50-caliber machine gun is for real, mounted on something the sheriff s office calls the war wagon. i so wish we had a picture of the bossier county sheriff s war wagon with the .50-caliber mounted machine gun. we do not have a picture of that. we do have these awesome shots
the world scenario involving a mostly white group of ex-police volunteers and a 50 caliber machine gun inspired in part from the book of exodus in the bible. the .50-caliber machine gun is for real, mounted on something the sheriff s office calls the war wagon. i so wish we had a picture of the bossier county sheriff s war wagon with the .50-caliber mounted machine gun. we do have these awesome shots of this 1955 chevy/monster truck thingy that is also called the war wagon but i don t think that s what they re putting the gun on. i think it s a different war wagon. the way operation exodus is going in bossier parish is that the sheriff came up with this idea. he put out the press release and then the sheriff proactively contacted people who lived in bossier parish who he wanted to join this little militia. and the sheriff chose 200 people, 195 of the 200 are white men, the sheriff is providing
these people with shotguns and with batons and with riot shields. the sheriff has already started training them as you can see in hand-to-hand combat. and then there s the war wagon with the .50-caliber machine gun. sheriff dean explains the need for this militia as follows. as evidenced by recent terror threats it s apparent home grown terrorists are in our midst. with the easy accessibility of the internet, it is quite possible that these local and international terrorists can form a national or multiple location attack on our nation at any given moment. and no matter whether we are a direct target or not, fear and panic will still permeate our community. control will have to be regained to ensure the safety of our residents. that s where operation exodus comes into play. see the 195 white guys in town who are just given guns by the sheriff? they re supposed to reduce your fear. same with the .50 caliber thingy on the war wagon thingy. reducing the fear. the schreveport times asked
truck. so it s unclear how that would help take on most terrorist attacks. but i guess they want to be ready for any eventuality. and is there anybody that says this is just a crazy waste of money to be spending money on a war wagon and all this equipment for a remote parish like this to fight terrorists? well, actually, they say they already had the war wagon which sort of raises a whole bunch of other questions about what they felt they needed before this plan. the other thing is what people are sort of raising eyebrows about is that it s called operation exodus which is from the book of exodus where the israelites had to wander for days in the desert and needed to be self-sufficient. so there s and they say we need to be self-sufficient in just the same way. so there s almost a kind of survivalist ethic going on. in fact, this has been talked about in the last day or so on survivalist message boards and kind of applauded by some of those types. frightening, frightening story,
was no longer such a concern. what they re doing is, they say, training volunteers in hand-to-hand combat techniques. it s not quite clear whether the idea is for them to take on the terrorists directly in the event of an attack or whether the idea is to protect against looters and rioters and the chaos that an attack would cause. but they say they just want to be prepared. and zach, in your reporting in this town, you say that it s mostly retired police officers. about 200 of them. they re armed with shotguns, riot shields and a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on what the mayor is calling a war wagon. exactly how are they supposed to be using this war wagon? well, they stressed that, you know, the war wagon would only come into play in the most extreme circumstances and also that the war wagon would never be used to target their own citizens. presumably it would just be used to take on the terrorists. if you look at pictures of similar armored vehicles, it s kind of like a huge mo