FBI monitors event decrying pandemic mandates organized by controversial candidate
Published 4:30 pm Thursday, January 27, 2022
- A group demonstrating against wearing masks rallies as students walk by at Redmond High School on Thursday.
The FBI monitored local members of the far-right People’s Rights group as they planned for what has become an ongoing 10-day protest against pandemic rules outside of Redmond High School.
The bureau’s concern, expressed in an update to Redmond Police on Jan. 19, prompted Chief Devin Lewis to inform Redmond School District Superintendent Charan Cline that officers would be present at the school, according to documents obtained by The Bulletin. The FBI told police that the protest group is expected to grow to as many as 200 participants next week.
In an interview, Lewis said police are not concerned about the protest nor the people involved, noting that they have not yet broken any laws. The FBI would not provide further comment.
“The FBI does not comment on what may or may not be an investigative matter,” said FBI spokesperson Beth Anne Steele. “However, we regularly exchange information with local, state, and federal partners concerning potential threats and public safety matters, especially when there are possible threats in a school setting.”
Both Lewis, and the FBI, acknowledged the group’s First Amendment rights. But there is a line they can’t cross, Cline said Tuesday.
“People have a right to protest in America. But they don’t have a right to disrupt school operations,” he said. “So we’ve asked them to stay off our campuses, because that’s not OK.”
Scott Stuart, a Deschutes County Commission candidate and Redmond resident who sent vaguely threatening emails to the Redmond School District in recent months, organized the protest, he said in an interview Wednesday.
“It was my idea,” Stuart said, laughing. “I’m having fun.”
Stuart said the group will gather at the Nolan Town Center from Jan. 24-Feb. 4 and give students literature that they claim shows that pandemic mandates are lawless. The group will also hand out gift cards for free lunches at local fast food establishments to entice students into rebelling against things like masking and vaccines.
Stuart, who sparked community concern last year after wielding a Confederate flag in a local Fourth of July parade, described the gift cards as a counter to state-run vaccine incentives meant to encourage students to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.
The protest has only involved small groups of people daily. On Wednesday, they went home early because it was too cold, Stuart said.
And the protest has had little to no impact on students, except for making some students late to class due to long lunch lines at McDonald’s, said Redmond High School Principal Audrey Haugan.
“The kids just seem most interested in the gift cards they’re getting over there,” Haugan said. “I don’t know what their messaging has been verbally to our kids. But all the kids have come back and said they got a free lunch.”
Haugan said it has seemed to her that there has been an increased police presence around the school and nearby town center this week, but Lewis said that’s not true.
Haugan said she doesn’t mind protests. Her only concern is if the group provides misinformation about the constitution, student rights or mask requirements, she said.
Redmond Police are not concerned about Stuart’s comments, Lewis, the chief said. “We hear lots of things,” Lewis said.
But Redmond City Councilor Clifford Evelyn said he is concerned about Stuart and the protest.
In the emails, obtained by The Bulletin and published this week, Stuart said he is “praying God will allow the public gallows to return” for Gov. Kate Brown and others who create pandemic rules. He also sent vaguely threatening messages to the district’s school board members and Cline, describing a “day of reckoning” for public officials if pandemic rules are not removed.
Evelyn, a former commander of the Clark County Sheriff’s Office in Washington, said Stuart’s messaging raises “red flags.” While Stuart said earlier this week that he wouldn’t personally inflict harm upon a school board member, emphasizing a goal of “peaceful noncompliance,” Evelyn said Stuart’s comments run the risk of inciting violence.
“Someone with a mental illness could sit back and take (Stuart’s comments) as a signal to, ‘We need to do something about this, and we need to do something bad,’” he said. “And we don’t want to take that gamble.”
As a former law enforcement officer who served on boards focused on issues related to mental illness, Evelyn said “when people like Mr. Stuart say the things that he says, it’s very simple to spark somebody in the wrong direction or cause a problem.”
“When we start dragging kids into it, that becomes more problematic,” Evelyn said. “We don’t want some young teenager to get so pressured by what he believes this man is saying that he takes up arms and goes to a school and does something harmful to our children.”
Stuart’s email to Redmond educators also drew concern from state and local officials earlier this week. Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel said Stuart’s messages “should disqualify him from serving as an elected official” but were not crimes because they were not directly threatening. A spokesperson for the governor said that although Brown encourages free speech, “it is disheartening when disagreements are expressed as threats — especially when coming from a candidate for political office.”
People’s Rights is an extremist group founded in 2020 by Ammon Bundy, an activist who was the leader of the 2016 armed takeover and standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The group pushes back against what it calls government overreach, and decries pandemic restrictions.