Skeptic Project

[Al Philippus]
Well, I think that there were various approaches, for example. At first I said no several weeks ago, matter of fact, a couple months ago. But no was never no. And no was never no. En runs were run around various community leaders, I had some where I--

[Alex Jones]
Excuse me sir, you're saying that they ignore the police chief and under our constitution you're the same as the sheriff and you run the city or the county. You're telling me that Delta Force was ignoring your order?

[Al Philippus]
Well I won't say they ignored it, but in a roundabout way, yes, because what they would do once I said no, they went to various individuals in the community to bring pressure to me to get me to change my mind. For example, there was a community leader, who I have a great deal of respect for and we have a very good relationship, that they went to. I get a call from him and he says, "Chief, there's some people in here, they're in town and they," part of their role here they didn't say who it was, "they need to meet with the mayor and the police chief." Well of course this gentleman, I've worked with him on a number of projects, I said sure, have 'em give me a call. And I'd already said no. Well then I find out it's the same group. So they apparently identified somebody that I know that's very high in the community [EN: rich] to make an approach to me and get me to change my mind. Well then when we said no, then some elected officals were contacted to bring pressure to [something]. And then offers were made to give money, cash money, to elected officials' charities if they could get us to change our minds. I mean, you know, as one of my deputy chiefs says, "In some circles that's called bribery."

[Alex Jones - VO]
Well it is called bribery, but more importantly, it's called manipulation of the constitutional system and the takeover of local police departments.

[Alex Jones]
You talked about a memo from Delta Force.

[Al Philippus]
Yeah, because what happened is various elected officials were being contacted. I have 10 city council members, a mayor and I just wanted to alert them as to what was happening. Uh, that these-these situations, were-were occurring, that they may be contacted by these individuals and that in the best interest of public safety, that's what I continue to fall back on, we didn't feel that it was in the best interests of the citizens of San Antonio to do that type of thing. [Lapse] Uh, all I can say is that, you know, no just never seemed to be no. And even after they told us we don't need you, that we're still going to do our training exercises at other locations in and around the San Antonio area, but we we're allowed to do them here. Now I'm still getting contacted by various officials, they never would say, take no for an answer.

[Alex Jones]
So they weren't respecting your jurisdiction?

[Al Philippus]
They were not respecting our jurisdiction, uh...I don't think they respected our decision uh, to go into predominantly minority areas of the city where we had vacant warehouses and buildings and try to do those exercises at those locations in the middle of the night--

[Alex Jones]
What type of exercises, oh I'm sorry, in the middle of the night?

[Al Philippus]
In the middle of the night. Um...you know, sometime between 9pm and midnight. You know, I mean, people become frightened. We drove a lot of our decision making on experiences that happened in a lot of other cities. We are very concerned with some things that have happened over there. We didn't get any real good clear answers.

[Alex Jones]
So they were being, uh, secretive about it?

[Al Philippus]
Very secretive.

[Alex Jones]
And you kind of, the city and the mayor and yourself as the police chief, you felt that it was a little odd that they wouldn't trust ya'll? I mean ya'll are the authorities here.

[Al Philippus]
A little odd. And once I made contact with my peers in some of the other major cities and they shared with me some of their experiences over there the decision was really very easy. My interest as police chief is the citizens of the city...

[Alex Jones]
Yes sir.

[Al Philippus]
...period. And I was not about to jeopardize their safety under the exercise of this magnitude under any circumstance.

[Alex Jones - VO]
Well you can't say it any better than that. This isn't some wild conspiracy theorist, this is Al Philippus head chief of police in San Antonio, Texas. Oh, and the mayor too, Howard Peak. He said that it's dangerous and that they're dishonest.

[Al Philippus]
I know that they wanted to use some explosives for entry into some of these buildings, some of the so-called ceramic bullets which would be fired into little traps um...which were supposed to catch those to disintegrate supposedly on contact. But I know that in once city that one of those bullets got astray, you know, going through a window and down, almost into a restaurant. So, you know, things can go wrong.

[Alex Jones]
What city was that?

[Al Philippus]
I believe that it was in Miami.

[Alex Jones]
That's incredible. So, basically right now, as it stand and until they actually confer with you all better and or change their plans, they're not really welcome to train here in San Antonio?

[Al Philippus]
We are not going to support any of their operations. They may do some things at the various military bases here in San Antonio but that's under their jurisdiction. We will not support any operations in city limits.

[Alex Jones]
We really count on law enforcement officials locally like ya'll to protect the people and uphold the law and again, I just want to commend you for recognizing some of the behavior of the Delta Force and expelling them.

[Al Philippus]
Well I appreciate that. Again, the decision really was not that difficult...we have the interests of the citizens of San Antonio. You know this military city, we have a tremendous amount of respect for the--

[Alex Jones]
Oh yeah.

[Al Philippus]
For what they do. But I do not have any respect for the tactics that were used by the advance team coming in here.

[Alex Jones]
You saying that they were disrespectful?

[Al Philippus]
Oh...they were courteous and friendly to us, to our faces, but again, when you make a decision you try to get information to go around to try to put influence on you from pressure groups and individuals, either elected or in the community.

[Alex Jones - VO]
The interview you've just saw was conducted in mid-May of 1998. Delta Force did visit San Antonio, later the next year, during Operation Last Dance held February 8th through February 20th. They also smashed into Kingsville, Port Aransas, Alice, Texas, Corpus Christi. That's right ladies and gentlemen, into other towns. This is absolutely out of control. we're about to go through this story in sequential order. In some cases, in especially the case of Port Aransas, the local authorities were not even warned before massive military training, if you can call it that, was engaged in, right here in America. It is clear psychological warfare against the police, the public and everyone else in this nation, conditioning us to accept a militarized police state. Basic terrorism, I'm sad to say that about our military. But I've forgot, it's bill Clinton's military, isn't it?

We can only imagine what's coming in the future with other administrations. This is an evil precedent that has been set. On the night of February 8th, 1999, right after my radio show, I got the word that Delta Force had smashed into the first of six towns. Kingsville, Texas. We got in the car and drove through the night to the south Texas coast right in the middle of Texas oil country. It was incredibly surreal, shades of Blade Runner.

[Alex Jones]
Boy, we can still smell the fire. You fixing this area where it burned through? Hey, how ya doing, I'm Alex Jones from Austin, Texas, I got a radio show and a little TV show. What's your name?

[Jerry McQueen]
Jerry McQueen.

[Alex Jones]
Jerry McQueen.

[Jerry McQueen]
Yes, sir.

[Alex Jones]
So you're fixing the fire damage here?

[Jerry McQueen]
Boarding up the windows and doors.

[Alex Jones]
So you're boarding up the windows and doors?

[Jerry McQueen]
Yes sir.

[Alex Jones]
From army special operations commands work?

[Jerry McQueen]
Yes sir. Securing it, so that way no vandalism or anything.

[Alex Jones]
No van--you're securing it so no vandalism.

[Jerry McQueen]
Well they still tear things up.

[Alex Jones]
Oh I understand. No, no, we appreciate what you're doing. Just a few more questions if you have the time, I see you're busy. Did you actually see army special operations Delta Force?

[Jerry McQueen]
I seen some of it, that was it.

[Alex Jones]
What color were their uniforms?

[Jerry McQueen]
I don't recall, it was dark during the whole, from a distance.

[Alex Jones]
From a distance you couldn't really make out their black uniforms closely.

[Jerry McQueen]
Yeah. It's kinda hard.

[Alex Jones]
Uh...all different types of helicopters or just mainly one type?

[Jerry McQueen]
Mainly one type--

[Alex Jones]
You said black hawk?

[Jerry McQueen]
I'm not sure. I don't--

[Alex Jones]
Larger helicopters?

[Jerry McQueen]
Medium sized, I'd say.

[Alex Jones]
Medium sized? Um...were the police working with them in these exercises?

[Jerry McQueen]
They had streets blocked off.

[Alex Jones]
Basically this is a brick building so the flammable things burned?

[Jerry McQueen]
Yes. Just like wood and things like that, I guess.

[Alex Jones]
So basically this building is burnt out on the inside?

[Jerry McQueen]
Yeah, basically.

[Alex Jones]
Yeah.

[Jerry McQueen]
So it's just the things that are char coated [?] on the inside.

[Alex Jones]
Did the military co--did the military come around here afterwards and clean up all the shell casings and things?

[Jerry McQueen]
Um...pretty sure they did.

[Alex Jones]
Did you hear weapons fire?

[Jerry McQueen]
Yes, we heard machine guns, or we heard weapons.

[Alex Jones]
You heard machine guns and explosions?

[Jerry McQueen]
Yeah, there's explosions.

[Alex Jones]
Could you see the explosions or just hear them?

[Jerry McQueen]
You can just hear 'em.

[Alex Jones]
Can you, uh, I know--

[Jerry McQueen]
I gotta get back to work here.

[Alex Jones]
Oh, yes sir. Thanks, sir. Thanks for your time.

[Alex Jones]
Keith, you go around inside while I keep 'em diverted and get us some of the fire damage footage.

[Alex Jones - VO] Well you're looking at the upper floor, and our cameraman's a little bit nervous, as you can see, of the Kingsville police department's detective's building. Supposedly deserted. We'll go downstairs in just a little while and show you the damage there, then we'll go interview some folks around the town from just average citizens to officials. Again, why are they practicing taking over police stations? In Kingsville they did warn some of the officials. In Port Aransas, they did not. Again, we outta just think about that for a second. Why are they engaging in this behavior to condition the police, as well as the general citizenry? Completely burnt out on the second floor of the Kingsville police department detective's building.