Active duty police in major U.S. cities appear on purported Oath Keepers rosters

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A demonstrator wears a badge for the extremist group the Oath Keepers on a protective vest during a protest outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5, 2021.





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Stewart Rhodes, a former army paratrooper, founded the Oath Keepers in 2009. The group targets law enforcement and military personnel for recruitment.





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Men wearing Oath Keepers insignia and military tactical gear attend the «Stop the Steal» rally on Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C. Later that day Trump supporters, including more than 20 people who appear to be members of the Oath Keepers, breached the U.S. Capitol.





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A LinkedIn profile for a Phillip Singto in the Greater Chicago Area lists experience as a firearms instructor at the Chicago Police Academy, and mentions «Oathkeepers» under the accomplishments section.





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NPR attempted to reach Singto for comment, but did not receive any reply.

Another CPD member who agreed only to speak to NPR on the condition that he not be named acknowledged joining the Oath Keepers more than a decade ago, but said he let his membership lapse after four or five years.

«It’s not a terrorist group,» he said, adding that he had heard about the Oath Keepers from others on the police force. At the time, he said, he was among a handful of officers who joined because they felt that Chicago’s ban on handguns, which the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately struck down, was unconstitutional. «Officers can’t take away someone’s gun rights because they live in Chicago,» he said.

Despite telling NPR that he doesn’t engage in social media, the CPD member shared personal details that matched to a Facebook page, including his name, military service and residences in both Chicago and another specifically named state. That page included several photos uploaded in March of 2015 that included imagery to suggest affiliation with the Oath Keepers.





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A Facebook profile that matched identifying details of a Chicago Police Department uniformed employee included this picture, which suggests ties to the Oath Keepers, as well as another extremist group, the Three Percenters. The employee said he does not have Facebook. A day after he spoke with NPR, this photo and others that displayed Oath Keepers iconography had been removed from the profile.





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Critics argue the leader of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Alex Villanueva, has failed to root out extremism in the ranks.





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«If an individual member of Oath Keepers disagrees with a Supreme Court ruling, Oath Keepers believe that they are entitled to not comply with that Supreme Court ruling because, as Oath Keepers would say, an unjust law is no law at all,» said Sam Jackson, assistant professor in the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cyber Security at the University at Albany. «That’s really problematic to me and really, I think undercuts our understanding of the rule of law and ideas about the universal application of law.»

During its 2021 legislative session, lawmakers in Washington state passed legislation that would require pre-hire background checks of all peace and corrections officers that include inquiry into ties to extremist organizations. It would also permit the state to deny, suspend or revoke certification to officers who are affiliated with extremist groups.

However, Rahr says there will likely be debate over which groups qualify as «extremist.» And, Washington’s step toward regulating this issue appears to make it an outlier among states.

«Although this has become a more prevalent conversation in jurisdictions across the country, many still do not specifically prohibit membership in extremist groups,» said Cameron McEllhiney, director of training at The National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. «They often get around the issue by relying on policies that prohibit behavior that would be considered detrimental to the department.»

For Rahr, however, departments that fail to tackle this issue risk losing public trust.

«Cognitive science is very, very clear that personal beliefs impact perception, and your perception impacts your judgment. And so if an officer has a deeply held belief that is contrary to fair and equitable policing, that’s going to create a problem,» she said. «I think best practices would be to not hire [or] not allow certification of people who are actively involved in those groups.»