Earlier this month, Texas’ law enforcement accreditation agency rejected a police training given in San Angelo by the notorious anti-Muslim activist John Guandolo. The daylong course “paint[ed] an entire religion with an overly broad brush” and “provided no training value for law enforcement attendees,” wrote Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) Director Kim Vickers in a pair of letters announcing his decision. But the Observer obtained an audio recording of the May 4 training, and found that Guandolo’s message for police that day was a tad more extreme than Vickers’ tame language let on.
An ex-FBI agent now living near Dallas, Guandolo is the type of guy who tweets out pictures of brown-skinned TSA agents with beards, calling them “terrorists.” Yet, somehow, he’s built a cottage industry peddling law enforcement trainings around the country via a company called Understanding the Threat. (Spoiler: The threat is Muslims).
Guandolo uses the words “jihadi circus” to describe Austin, Dallas and Houston.
Twenty-seven students — mostly police officers and sheriff’s deputies — gathered for Guandolo’s course on May 4 in a San Angelo Baptist church, according to a roster obtained from TCOLE through a public information request. There, Guandolo expounded upon, among other things, how to interpret 14th-century Islamic law, identify a Jihadi job applicant and stymie the Muslim Brotherhood’s conspiracy to topple America.
Read the rest at TexasObserver.org.
