With protests, sometimes violent, spreading around the country and harsh police crackdowns in response, the whole nation is on high alert.
On Sunday, May 31, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey imposed an 8 p.m. curfew statewide, with heavy protests and riots having been reported in some of the state’s larger cities.
So far, nothing has happened in the Verde Valley, and local law enforcement are not strictly enforcing the curfew. But that has not stopped worries about looters coming to the normally quiet, rural area.
“I don’t know if this is true or not, but my room mate told me that there is a Protest for Cottonwood and they are going to attack Walmart as well. Has anyone else heard anything about this?” reads a post from Tuesday, June 2, on a local bulletin board group on Facebook. “I’m not trying to start anything its [sic] just a rumor I heard and I was wanting to know if anyone else had heard anything.”
There was no protest on Tuesday in Cottonwood. There was no attack on the Walmart either. Reports that the Walmart had boarded up its windows to block looters were also erroneous.
“We did have officers in the area of Walmart yesterday based on information we received saying potentially violent protesters would be at this location at that time,” Sgt. Chad Sinn of the Cottonwood Police Department wrote in an email on Wednesday, June 3. “It was completely precautionary and there was ultimately no activity.”
“It appears several of our agencies in Northern AZ have noticed social media posts suggesting this. It has been all deliberate disinformation but agencies still look into every generated post suggesting threats of violence.”
The Walmart rumor was not the only one floating around. On Wednesday, Sedona Police staked out the parking lots to Harkins Cinema, based on another rumor about potential violence. They did not find any.
Sedona Vice Mayor John Martinez said that he had had the rumor emailed to him by a friend, and had checked it out but found just the normal parking lot.
“I said, you know, I’m going to swing by Harkins to see what’s there,” Martinez said. Nothing was there, so I decided to go home.”
“The referenced internet rumors regarding violent groups descending upon Sedona are not substantiated,” Sedona Police Chief Charles Husted wrote in an email. “What we have confirmed is that there are socially conscious teens and adults in our region who have organized peaceful rallies with the intent to share their message with others.”
A screenshot of a tweet from an account called “ANTIFA America” has been making the rounds on Facebook and other social media sites with the message:
The reason that tweet is being spread as a screenshot without any link to the original tweet is that Twitter deleted it on Monday and suspended the @ANTIFA_US account, not just for inciting violence, but also for violating its policies on platform manipulation and spam policy by creating a fake account impersonating another.
“This account violated our platform manipulation and spam policy, specifically the creation of fake accounts,” a Twitter spokesperson wrote in an email. “We took action after the account sent a Tweet inciting violence and broke the Twitter Rules.”
The Twitter spokesperson continued that the account had been linked to the fringe group Identity Evropa, and that Twitter had taken action previously on fake accounts from the group before, usually related to “hateful conduct, principally focused on issues of race, religion, and sexual orientation.”
“Identity Evropa is a white nationalist group that participated in the Unite the Right white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, Va.,” Jared Holt, an investigative reporter at Right Wing Watch who researches fringe groups, wrote in an email. “The group started calling itself “American Identity Movement” after anti-fascists infiltrated and published chat logs from the group, which lead to many members and key organizers being publicly identified as bigots. The group has repeatedly inflated the kind of threats that anti-fascists pose to hate groups like theirs in hopes that Republican-aligned media and political figures will see their struggles as a common cause.”
An FBI document obtained by The Nation magazine states that “based on CHS [confidential human source, aka informants] canvassing, open source/social media partner engagement, and liaison, FBI WFO has no intelligence indicating antifa involvement/presence.”
Though there have been individuals videotaped wearing all black and destroying property in major cities, which are similar to tactics anti-fascist activists have used in the past, there has not been any direct connection found between the riots and antifa. Other anarchist and leftwing groups besides Antifa have dressed that way and destroyed property similarly in other contexts.
So far, the vast majority of the property destruction has been confined to major cities, and usually coincides with a large-scale protest related to police killings of black individuals including George Floyd, Breanna Taylor and Dion Johnson. There have not been reports of looting in small towns unrelated to a protest.
“Anti-fascist activists do not have central leadership and operate independently on local and hyper-local scales,” Holt said. “It is unlikely that such groups are targeting random communities, and even less likely they are organizing transportation into areas to cause trouble. Additionally, anti-fascist protesters often appear in direct opposition to forces and groups they believe to be fascist, bigoted, or violent — not randomized communities.”
While the Verde Valley has remained quiet during the time of upheaval throughout the country, local law enforcement continue to monitor these rumors and respond to them as a precaution just in case.
“Social media posts suggesting violent or destructive intent have and will continue to be taken very seriously and each investigated to the fullest extent,” the Cottonwood Police Department wrote in a press release. “Please be aware there has been a deliberate disinformation effort locally and throughout the country designed to generate fear and anxiety. Don’t fall prey to it.”
A group of Sedona high school students and local teens, led by recent Sedona Red Rock High School graduate, organized a Black Lives Matter rally on the afternoon of Thursday, June 4, on three of the four corners of State Route 89A and Coffee Pot Drive / Sunset Drive.
“I think it’s important, especially in a community like ours, to raise awareness because I feel like everyone chooses to ignore the problem that they’re not apart of. And raising awareness is the best way to solve a problem that’s not only in people’s minds but in a community as a whole,” the Sedona organizer said. “Even though people say standing out here is useless, I don’t think it is because, like I said, it really does bring the awareness to other people and it’s more important to come together instead of standing apart.”
Another local rally is planned for 9 a.m. to noon at the same corner. In announcing the rally, the organizer wrote, “It would be wonderful to show some coverage of a peaceful demonstration. We invited the police as well and also wanted to let them know so they don’t feel ambushed.” The rally is also associated with a Facebook event listing the same details.
Jon Hecht can be reached at 282-7795 or email jhecht@larsonnewspapers.com
