Self-Declared ‘Vaccine Police’ Says He’ll ‘Lawfully’ Arrest Louisiana Governor

The conspiracy theorist behind an anti-vaxx group referred to as the “Vaccine Police” has promised to conduct a citizen’s arrest of Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards for refusing to halt vaccinations of kids in opposition to the coronavirus.

As the Daily Beast first reported, Christopher Key, the fake officer in query, went on right-wing radio host Clay Clark’s present on Wednesday to inform listeners, “I am the vaccine police… We have shut down pharmacists. We have shut down boards of education. And we will be arresting the governor of Louisiana on February the 7th if he does not stand down and not vaccinate the children of Louisiana.”

“We will do this legally, we will do this lawfully, we will do this out of love,” Key added, as a result of “right now they are trying to start a civil war, Clay, and they are coming for our children… This is not a vaccine. This is a bioweapon.”

“I 100% agree with you,” Clark responded.

Edwards, a Democrat, recently announced that the covid-19 vaccine could be added to the checklist of necessary inoculations for Ok-12 college students in Louisiana, becoming a member of photographs defending in opposition to diseases like tetanus, polio, measles, meningitis, and whooping cough. The choice predictably resulted in backlash from conservative state legislators, who with the remainder of the mainline Republican Party have banded collectively in an alliance of ideological and political convenience with anti-vaxxers.

Nearly 800,000 coronavirus infections have been reported all through the state because the begin of the pandemic, in response to Louisiana Department of Health information, and simply shy of 15,000 individuals have died. Only 50% of Louisiana’s population is totally vaccinated. The state well being division discovered that unvaccinated people at the moment account for 69% of latest infections, 82% of deaths, and 85% of hospitalizations.

Conspiracy theorists in the U.S. and Canada have lately grow to be obsessive about the thought of citizen’s arrests as a manner of coping with perceived traitors, notably when it comes to coronavirus policies they don’t like. In 2020, anti-vaxxers camped out round Parliament of Canada in Ottowa, aiming to “arrest” any unprotected legislators they might get their fingers on. Incidents within the U.S. have included threats in opposition to a local health department in Michigan, an arrest in Arizona after three males showed up on a school campus with zip ties, and arrests of 14 males who deliberate to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in October 2020 (with a sympathetic sheriff floating the citizen’s arrest defense).

Citizen’s arrests clearly don’t work this fashion, no matter no matter authorized babble is obtainable as much as justify unlawful detentions. State legal guidelines range, however typically restrict the follow to momentary detention of an individual witnessed or moderately suspected of committing against the law. It is extraordinarily ill-advised in almost all situations. Anyone conducting such an “arrest” within the U.S. might doubtlessly face penalties starting from false arrest lawsuits to kidnapping fees, particularly if no crime truly occurred. Of course, any try to detain Edwards within the first place would require Key to get previous the governor’s bodyguards, the Louisiana State Police Protective Services Unit.

Key, who’s from Alabama, is a type of sports supplements peddler turned touring anti-vaxx sideshow below his “Vaccine Police” moniker and travels from metropolis to metropolis whereas live-streaming. Despite his fondness for declaring himself to be the police, he falls someplace on the size of authorized authority beneath (the former) Officer Big Mac, who might not less than plausibly sort out the Hamburglar. Key wears a fancy dress apparently supposed to resemble a police official, similar to a golf shirt with the phrases “VACCINE POLICE” emblazoned on his left breast and a badge on a lanyard. In some photographs uploaded to Facebook, Key is proven brandishing semi-automatic rifles. His reference to shutting down pharmacists seems to narrate to an incident earlier this yr wherein Key briefly inconvenienced employees at a Walmart pharmacy counter.

According to the Washington Post, Keys and a number of other followers arrived at a Walmart pharmacy in Springfield, Missouri, in August, threatening pharmacy employees that vaccinations are “crimes against humanity” and “if they do not stand down immediately, then they could be executed. They could be hung in this state.”

“If you allow one more shot in one more person’s body, you yourself will be executed in violation of the Nuremberg Code,” Key mentioned throughout a livestream as he singled out a Walmart worker, the Post reported. “We don’t want that to happen to any of you guys at all. We love you guys. We want to keep you safe.”

Key cleverly switched his ways to pretending to truly be there for a covid-19 vaccine as soon as police arrived, in response to the Springfield News-Leader, however was advised to go away the premises. Everything he mentioned concerning the Nuremberg Code, a set of analysis ethics ideas laid out by a U.S. courtroom in the course of the post-WWII trial of 23 German docs who committed medical atrocities in the course of the Nazi period, is totally irrelevant as a result of covid-19 vaccinations are not medical experimentation.

On his web site, Key describes himself as unemployed and takes private credit score for supposedly defeating a masks mandate at a faculty district in Alabama. Earlier this yr, the National School Boards Association talked about Key in a letter to Joe Biden asking for federal help to research and put a halt to violent rhetoric and threats in opposition to college board members debating coronavirus insurance policies.

“I was recently fired from my job of six years for being a patriot and standing against a tyrannical school board in Alabama,” Key wrote. “Because of these efforts, the mask mandate was lifted, and kids will not have to provide proof of inoculation to return to in-person learning in the fall.”

Neither Key nor the Louisiana State Police instantly returned a request for remark from Gizmodo, however we’ll replace this put up if we hear again.