California police officer fired over ties to far-right extremist group Proud Boys

A California police officer associated with the far-right extremist group Proud Boys has been fired, officials announced Friday.

Rick Fitzgerald, then an officer with the Fresno Police Department, allegedly participated in a Proud Boys counter-demonstration on March 14 outside a theater being sold to a church that protesters said was hostile to the LGBTQ community and marriage equality.

Fitzgerald was placed on leave the following day, and his firing was made public Friday by Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer and police Chief Paco Balderrama, following an investigation.

"It is clear to me there were egregious violations of department policy," Dyer said in a statement. "I am pleased that Officer Fitzgerald will no longer be serving as a police officer with the City of Fresno."

Balderrama, citing the Southern Poverty Law Center, called the Proud Boys a "hate group" and said in a statement, "I stand by and reassert my prior comments in strongly disapproving of any police officer affiliating with hate groups."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-police-officer-fired-over-ties-proud-boys-extremist-group-n1263706

Quite scary that this far-right pro-Trump extremist group, which has been accused of being largely behind the Capitol insurrection and actually planning that attack long before Trump's speech on the same day, has managed to infiltrate law enforcement.

Good. Living in a red border state soon teaches you that a lot of LE and a lot of people have similar ideologies to the PB. Looking at local social media, the ones who shout about supporting Back The Blue also have what are to me, very repugnant ideas on people who are not white, straight and “ Christian”.

And don’t forget about about the military aspect. I suppose being married to a veteran that was most disturbing of all. And lots of them were turned down by the military but they still have this wet dream about being GI Joe.

A lot of folks who want to be cops or who worship them have strong authoritarian leanings. It's almost a prerequisite for the job, and in many departments it is to advance..

I would make the worst cop ever. I'd let 95% of people go and bury the bodies of a few of them.

Maddog wrote:A lot of folks who want to be cops or who worship them have strong authoritarian leanings. It's almost a prerequisite for the job, and in many departments it is to advance..

I would make the worst cop ever. I'd let 95% of people go and bury the bodies of a few of them.  

That’s true and it’s led to a whole bunch of them crossing the line. It’s why I think their training needs to be overhauled and include aspects such as mental health. The background checks also need to be way more thorough, but it’s hard for small towns to pay for decent, modern training and a lot of them still work on the good ole boys network.

What I did notice is that most of the ex-military members participating in the January 6 insurrection who have been caught so far, was that they were mostly lower ranks. And a lot didn’t serve for a long time. Makes you wonder a bit about whether they were persuaded to leave with honorable discharge to get rid of a problem.

After seeing Police Academy I knew I could never ever be LE!

Maddog wrote:A lot of folks who want to be cops or who worship them have strong authoritarian leanings. It's almost a prerequisite for the job, and in many departments it is to advance..

I would make the worst cop ever. I'd let 95% of people go and bury the bodies of a few of them.  

Very true. Libertarianism is antithetical to any political authoritarianism, and the police are often the front lines of such authority. https://www.britannica.com/event/Ruby-Ridge Lots of libertarians oppose police and police actions.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:A lot of folks who want to be cops or who worship them have strong authoritarian leanings. It's almost a prerequisite for the job, and in many departments it is to advance..

I would make the worst cop ever. I'd let 95% of people go and bury the bodies of a few of them.  

Very true.  Libertarianism is antithetical to any political authoritarianism, and the police are often the front lines of such authority.  https://www.britannica.com/event/Ruby-Ridge  Lots of libertarians oppose police and police actions.

Can't have more government without more enforcers.

Won't be less government with more cops.


Most people can't grasp those concepts. It's one reason why people can't tell the Boogaloos from the Proud Boys.

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Very true. Libertarianism is antithetical to any political authoritarianism, and the police are often the front lines of such authority. https://www.britannica.com/event/Ruby-Ridge Lots of libertarians oppose police and police actions.

Can't have more government without more enforcers.

Won't be less government with more cops.


Most people can't grasp those concepts. It's one reason why people can't tell the Boogaloos from the Proud Boys.

Most people don't understand the term 'liberal', a word derived from the Latin term, libertas. It means freedom, liberty, independence and unrestrained—as during the Renaissance period, protestant religions wanted release from the monolithic grip of the Roman religion.

Politics followed religion, as European monarchies fell to democracies, and the term became the root word for many political movements. (E.g., the French slogan: Liberté, égalité, fraternité.)

Because that transition took place in the 17th & 18th-centuries, many liberal ideas are today actually conservative ideas: e.g., libertarianism. We’ve moved on…races are no longer property, and government is now needed to protect the people from unscrupulous private enterprises.

We are in that recovery (remedial) period right now.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

Can't have more government without more enforcers.

Won't be less government with more cops.  


Most people can't grasp those concepts. It's one reason why people can't tell the Boogaloos from the Proud Boys.  

Most people don't understand the term 'liberal', a word derived from the Latin term, libertas.  It means freedom, liberty, independence and unrestrained—as during the Renaissance period, protestant religions wanted release from the monolithic grip of the Roman religion.

Politics followed religion, as European monarchies fell to democracies, and the term became the root word for many political movements.  (E.g., the French slogan: Liberté, égalité, fraternité.)

Because that transition took place in the 17th & 18th-centuries, many liberal ideas are today actually conservative ideas: e.g., libertarianism.  We’ve moved on…races are no longer property, and government is now needed to protect the people from unscrupulous private enterprises.

We are in that recovery (remedial) period right now.

Yes, classic liberals and libertarians are quite similar.

However, libertarians have different beliefs from anarchy, to anarcho-capitalism to minarchy.

But most libertarians (especially those in the Libertarians party) are quite comfortable with believing no one can be property and a set of courts and police are needed to protect people. Libertarians understand that people can be victims and there needs to be a remedy and punishment..

Straight from the Party's page.

Libertarians believe that the label of “crime” should be limited to actions of force or fraud against another individual or group. We believe that such crimes should be prosecuted and punished by our justice system but that actions that don’t involve force or fraud should not be criminalized or penalized in the first place.

Maddog wrote:Straight from the Party's page.  

Libertarians believe that the label of “crime” should be limited to actions of force or fraud against another individual or group. We believe that such crimes should be prosecuted and punished by our justice system but that actions that don’t involve force or fraud should not be criminalized or penalized in the first place.

So there are no crimes of negligence? Driving drunk and accidentally killing someone shouldn't be a crime since there was no force or fraud?

You’re both totally going down a different path to the original topic.

Make a thread about it.

Ben Reilly wrote:

A California police officer associated with the far-right extremist group Proud Boys has been fired, officials announced Friday.

Rick Fitzgerald, then an officer with the Fresno Police Department, allegedly participated in a Proud Boys counter-demonstration on March 14 outside a theater being sold to a church that protesters said was hostile to the LGBTQ community and marriage equality.

Fitzgerald was placed on leave the following day, and his firing was made public Friday by Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer and police Chief Paco Balderrama, following an investigation.

"It is clear to me there were egregious violations of department policy," Dyer said in a statement. "I am pleased that Officer Fitzgerald will no longer be serving as a police officer with the City of Fresno."

Balderrama, citing the Southern Poverty Law Center, called the Proud Boys a "hate group" and said in a statement, "I stand by and reassert my prior comments in strongly disapproving of any police officer affiliating with hate groups."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-police-officer-fired-over-ties-proud-boys-extremist-group-n1263706

Quite scary that this far-right pro-Trump extremist group, which has been accused of being largely behind the Capitol insurrection and actually planning that attack long before Trump's speech on the same day, has managed to infiltrate law enforcement.

wiki has them down as white nationalists

Isn't Enrique Tarrio a black dude?

I just checked the wikipedia article and it doesn't call them white nationalists, as far as I can see. From what I can tell, they're a violent, far-right organization that is officially not racist but whose members often show up at racist events.

They claim to be protecting Western civilization (as they define it, of course) from commies and socialists (ignoring that Westerners invented communism and socialism).

Above and beyond all else, they believe in using violence to achieve their goals, making them a terrorist organization.

Ben Reilly wrote:I just checked the wikipedia article and it doesn't call them white nationalists, as far as I can see. From what I can tell, they're a violent, far-right organization that is officially not racist but whose members often show up at racist events.

They claim to be protecting Western civilization (as they define it, of course) from commies and socialists (ignoring that Westerners invented communism and socialism).

Above and beyond all else, they believe in using violence to achieve their goals, making them a terrorist organization.

perhaps you should look at some of the interviews given

journalist you say?

**as far as I can tell**

ok Ben

Ben Reilly wrote:I just checked the wikipedia article and it doesn't call them white nationalists, as far as I can see. From what I can tell, they're a violent, far-right organization that is officially not racist but whose members often show up at racist events.

They claim to be protecting Western civilization (as they define it, of course) from commies and socialists (ignoring that Westerners invented communism and socialism).

Above and beyond all else, they believe in using violence to achieve their goals, making them a terrorist organization.

the west was responsible for nazis as well, hardly makes it a good thing

I haven't the time or inclination to learn everything there is to know about the Proud Boys, and until I can say I know for sure, I prefer to use phrases like "best I can tell." I do that to be fair to them and to not pretend to be an expert on them when I'm not.

All I care about in this case is that at least one police officer, out on the streets in a uniform with a gun strapped to his hip, sympathizes with a group that conspired to overthrow the U.S. government. That's a bad thing, if you ask me!

Maddog wrote:Libertarians believe that the label of “crime” should be limited to actions of force or fraud against another individual or group. We believe that such crimes should be prosecuted and punished by our justice system but that actions that don’t involve force or fraud should not be criminalized or penalized in the first place.

A 'force-or-fraud-only' standard would prohibit the government from directing traffic on Broadway and 5th Avenue. People get killed while merely driving, and there is neither force, nor fraud in the activity.

If government can't direct traffic absent force or fraud, how would libertarianism remedy that traffic jam?

Ben Reilly wrote:

Maddog wrote:Straight from the Party's page.  

Libertarians believe that the label of “crime” should be limited to actions of force or fraud against another individual or group. We believe that such crimes should be prosecuted and punished by our justice system but that actions that don’t involve force or fraud should not be criminalized or penalized in the first place.

So there are no crimes of negligence? Driving drunk and accidentally killing someone shouldn't be a crime since there was no force or fraud?

Yes, there's more. Do you want 20 paragraph quotes that no one reads.

You could go to the site and read it yourself.

I'll post the whole part of the platform below.

1.7 Crime and Justice

Government force must be limited to the protection of the rights of individuals to life, liberty, and property, and governments must never be permitted to violate these rights. Laws should be limited in their application to violations of the rights of others through force or fraud, or to deliberate actions that place others involuntarily at significant risk of harm. Therefore, we favor the repeal of all laws creating “crimes” without victims, such as gambling, the use of drugs for medicinal or recreational purposes, and consensual transactions involving sexual services. We support restitution to the victim to the fullest degree possible at the expense of the criminal or the negligent wrongdoer. The constitutional rights of the criminally accused, including due process, a speedy trial, legal counsel, trial by jury, and the legal presumption of innocence until proven guilty, must be preserved. We assert the common-law right of juries to judge not only the facts but also the justice of the law. We oppose the prosecutorial practice of “over-charging” in criminal prosecutions so as to avoid jury trials by intimidating defendants into accepting plea bargains.

So, no fixing the traffic jam on 5th & Broadway?

This is why libertarianism in its purest form is too simplistic -- it says (in many cases, rightly) that someone should only be punished when their actions harm someone else.

But it omits the fact that there are actions which predictably hurt people, and by policing them, we can prevent anyone from being harmed in the first place. Actions like polluting a water supply, firing a gun in a public place (without justification), and even speeding aren't crimes under the no-victim-no-crime rule, but society is better off with them being classed as crimes.

Ben Reilly wrote:This is why libertarianism in its purest form is too simplistic -- it says (in many cases, rightly) that someone should only be punished when their actions harm someone else.

But it omits the fact that there are actions which predictably hurt people, and by policing them, we can prevent anyone from being harmed in the first place. Actions like polluting a water supply, firing a gun in a public place (without justification), and even speeding aren't crimes under the no-victim-no-crime rule, but society is better off with them being classed as crimes.

"or to deliberate actions that place others involuntarily at significant risk of harm"

So really, what's the difference between libertarianism and liberal democracy? That we have a Department of Education, say, which you don't understand the need for, so we should abolish?

Because if you don't understand why we need it, we don't need it?