THUGS HIDING BEHIND AND MISUSING THE SECOND AMENDMENT

Threats follow protest arrests at Big Daddy Zane’s Bar

By Michael Merlo

Odessa American
May 6, 2O20

ODESSA, Texas -- Ector County’s top lawman on Wednesday said his office received threatening messages and a voicemail that someone is going to “come shoot up the town” following a protest that ended in multiple arrests.

After organizer’s were arrested Monday for having “AR-15 type weapons” on a reportedly premises where alcohol is sold, Ector County Sheriff Mike Griffis said that the Sheriff’s Office noted a rise in threatening messages.

Griffis said that one of the threats was a voicemail left at the Ector County Courthouse, “saying that they’re gonna come shoot up the town,” he said.

In August of last year a gunman drove around Odessa randomly shooting and killing seven people and wounding 25 others.

Griffis said a threatening message also was left at the Commissioner’s Court office.

“There’s rumors of people wanting to kill me and none of this have been substantiated. I’m sure some of it is actual,” he said adding that on Tuesday a social media post released his home address and that of his ex-wife.

Griffis said that if ECSO can substantiate the threats, they will file charges.

“That’s ridiculous,” he said.

Wednesday morning, Dallas area resident Philip Archibald, 29, one of the protestors who was not arrested Monday because he wasn’t carrying a gun, said via Facebook Live he was hoping to hold a protest at Anytime Fitness in Odessa, the Ector County Sheriff’s Office and at Griffis’ residence for what he said would be, “a peaceful protest.”

He said although his group protests with weapons they never intend to use the weapons. Griffis said in a previous phone interview that all the weapons seized on Monday during the arrests were loaded.

Griffis said that if protesters have guns and, “are on the sidewalk, that’s a public area and nothing can be done about it. If they come on private property, that’s another story. They cannot take guns on the Sheriff’s Office grounds. We have a secure jail facility there and they’re not gonna take guns down there,” he said.

Griffis said that he has received hate emails and all sorts of calls, “and again this has zero to do with the Second Amendment. It has to do with this group of individuals trying to intimidate law enforcement and keep them from enforcing the Governor’s Order.”

That order forbids bars from opening in the wake of COVID-19. The Monday protest was at the West Odessa bar Big Daddy Zane’s. Eight people, including the bar owner, were arrested. The bar owner, Gabrielle Ellison, was charged with violating the executive order, one for interfering, and others were charged with carrying weapons on a property where alcohol is sold.

Griffis said that the incident Monday with armed organizers arrested could have gone very differently. He said that if she had opened without the group’s tactics, then, “We’d probably have wrote her a ticket and went on.”

Griffis said that he takes the threats very seriously and, “If I am approached or whatever, I will take appropriate action,” he said.

Wednesday afternoon, Archibald and Ellison were among about 20 who showed up at the Ector County Sheriff’s Office protest. Some of those in attendance were men who were arrested on Monday.

“We’re willing to stand up for the First Amendment whether we’re using the Second Amendment or not,” Archibald said during the unarmed protest.

During the protest, members the Ector County Sheriff’s Office stood on top of the building while media interviewed Archibald, an online fitness trainer, who said that he had attended Anytime Fitness in Odessa earlier, then the Sheriff’s Office and then to Big Daddy Zane’s.

After that, he said they were going to protest outside the Sheriff’s house without weapons.

Archibald said that he did not agree with any threats but then said people were not going too far with the threats.

“I have no control over that. That’s people being angry about what he did and he deserves that.”

Archibald said that he started his own group after some of the “admins” of the Open Texas group didn’t like the publicity they were getting in Ector County and that he is working with other Second Amendment groups. He said the name of his group is, “Freedom Initiative of Texas.”

He said that he had no idea where the group was going next, but that he might go to Shepherd, Texas and, “help out a tattoo shop over there.”

Gov. Abbott has not given the OK for tattoo shops or bars to re-open.

Ellison, 47, said that she never thought the situation was going to turn out the way that it did.

“I honestly thought that our Sheriff was gonna stand up and support us,” she said.

She said that David Amad, a gun rights activist and the vice president of Open Carry Texas, “is coming down with a big ol’ group,” she said.

Ellison read a message from him that said, “The Sheriff will respect our rights and they won’t arrest us.”

She said she could not give out the date of when that would be, but that it would be peaceful.

As far as talking with the Sheriff Griffis, Ellison said that she hasn’t had the opportunity to talk to him, But she “would take it in a heartbeat.”

She said that she was against violence and also would not be attending Archibald’s protest at the Sheriff’s home.

Joshua Watt, 31, of Midland and Jesse Semrad, 36, of Tyler were both armed organizers who were arrested on Monday. They said that they weren’t a part of Archibald’s group and met them for the first time on Monday, but that they wanted to support a business owner who was struggling and wanted to help protect her right to open her business.

“It doesn’t matter if you like guns or don’t like guns,” Watt said, “You have rights that you do like and all those rights need to be protected.”

Semrad and Watt said they would not attend other protests at the bar or at the Sheriff’s house.

They said Archibald set up a GoFundMe for legal fees and they wanted to make sure that those funds were going to the people who had to go to jail, “and if it’s not, then we’ll start our own separately to make sure it is for that reason,” Semrad said.

As of Wednesday, the GOFUNDME has raised $3,458 of the $100,000 goal.