Police officers enact violence and condone hate. Both on and off duty. And now one has been caught online.
An anonymous news tip unmasked Colorado Springs Sgt. Keith Wrede’s hateful trolling. Wrede used a fake name online as an invisibility cloak to spout murderous speech. Unfortunately, Colorado Springs Police Department Chief Vince Niski dismissed this hate as an isolated incident.
On June 30th, Wrede was watching a KRDO live-stream on social media at home. The local ABC affiliate was covering Black Lives Matter demonstrators who had stopped on highway I-25.
Under the fake name Steven Eric, Sgt. Wrede posted “KILL THEM ALL” and “KILL EM ALL” in the comments section. The news agency reported an anonymous tip and screenshots of the incendiary comments to CSPD.
A memo from Deputy Chief Pat Rigdon also confirmed that Wrede posted, “Solid move BLM way to make your point. I hope you are proud you damn Terrorist.”
Comments like these are dangerous. It condones killing demonstrators who are demanding the protection of Black lives under police hands. Words like these are also deadly when there’s a rise of people in cars driving through crowds often injuring or even killing protestors.
In an internal investigation posted on the department’s cases of interest website, Wrede agreed that his comments could imply that CSPD officers wish to kill members of the community. And when asked if he felt his comments could incite people to commit acts of violence against the protestors he said, “unfortunately, yes.”
According to the transcript of the interview with Wrede, he tried to excuse the comments every way. From a judgment slip, to work stress, anti-terrorism training, and even the heavy-metal band Metallica. At first, he claimed “Kill Em All’ was in reference to a Metallica song. When pressed, he later clarified that it was the title of an album and that he misspoke.
Wrede claims the “KILL THEM ALL” comments weren’t driven by racial hate and that he is not a racist. He said his comments were instead a reaction to “the violence of the criminality of what’s been happening,” in reference to local and national racial injustice protests, including an incident where he says a Colorado Springs police officer was shot at.
At first, Wrede’s online comments might read trivial. But coming from an off duty officer they incite terror. Imagine what officers say offline, in private with buddies or in squad cars. Imagine what they actually believe.
In the interview with CSPD Commander Scott Whittington, Wrede compares the actions of racial justice protests in the U.S. to terrorism by ISIS and Al-Qaeda. He listed the toppling of statues, false Gods, literature censorship, and imposing political beliefs as similarities.
“It just clicked as to why are we calling this ‘protests’ here but overseas we’re calling it terrorism?” Wrede said.
Police departments have dumped taxpayer money into anti-terrorism training for decades. In 2010, Srgt. Wrede moved into an intelligence unit and received extensive terrorism training.
“The department sent me through a lot of training; spent a lot of money on Keith Wrede to ensure that I could recognize terrorism and we did some work with the FBI and stuff,” Wrede said.
Are officers being training to view protesters who expose systemic racism as terrorists? If they are, then they don’t see racial justice advocates as patriots or defenders of America. They see actual domestic terrorist threats.
And still many social justice activists and police reformists continue to hold the complexities of police officers. To recognize officers as people who experience PTSD after life-threatening events. To humanize them as people with compromised mental health.
“But we expect warriors to be resilient and part of resiliency is denial which didn’t work out for me very well,” Wrede said about what led to his outburst.
Denial is not a protective factor, it does not build resiliency. Warriors don’t make online murderous threats under a cloak of secrecy.
Wrede apologized more about the inconvenience he caused his higher-ups than about the harm he caused. Behavior change doesn’t come as a directive from behind a blue shield under the blue code.
Is a 40-hour unpaid vacation enough? Not at all. Will the unconscious bias training he will attend in October help change the views that drove him to write “Kill Em All” in the first place? I highly doubt it.
Was Wrede used by CSPD as a media opportunity for performative accountability? Yes, but only because he was exposed. Will he be used across police departments as a case study on how not to get caught? Absolutely.
Mimi Madrid is a Denver-raised writer who has worked in non-profits serving youth, LGBTQ, and Latinx communities.
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