A Sheriff for Some
Far from being “a sheriff for all the people,” Cochise County Sheriff Dannels has ties to Christian nationalists, purveyors of hate and conspiracy theory
Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels bills himself as “a sheriff for all the people.” However, records obtained by Cochise Regional News cast doubt on this claim, showing that Dannels has gone far out of his way to cozy up to Christian nationalists, far-right “patriot” groups, elections denying conspiracy theorists, and individuals with close ties to various extremist militias.
Far from being inclusive of the rights of “all the people,” this strange milieu Dannels has inserted himself into holds at its center a patchwork of ideologies that hold non-European immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community, and non-Christians (particularly Muslims) in extreme contempt.
Part 1: Rapacki-- “these people bring nothing of value with them.”
On June 8, 2021, a document was sent to Cochise County Sheriff's Office (CCSO) command personnel bearing the alarming header:
"Medical Time Bomb -- Illegals and Refugees flowing into the United States."
The document, which professed to be an "intelligence briefing" of a "confidential" nature, for "restricted distribution," looked, at least superficially, like the kinds of intelligence "situational awareness" alerts, advisories, and briefings that have become common in the American law enforcement and counter-terrorism world since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
However, despite the pro forma resemblance to an official intelligence or law enforcement product, this "briefing" was not. Rather, the document was written by Lyle Rapacki, on the letterhead of "Sentinel Intelligence Services,” a private Arizona limited liability company owned by Rapacki.
The warnings contained therein were dire-- but, before we get into that, let's take a minute to consider the source.
Rapacki, who claims to be a “private sector intelligence, behavioral analysis and threat assessment specialist,” founded Sentinel in 2009 and claims to have been providing “select” members of the Arizona Legislature with “closed-door intelligence briefings” on border security and “threats to Arizona sovereignty” since 2010.
Rapacki often refers to himself as “Dr. Lyle,” owing to his claim that he holds a doctorate degree “specializing in the treatment of psychological disorders” from the “Clayton College of Natural Medicine.”
CRN could find no trace of a “Clayton College of Natural Medicine.” The Clayton College of Natural Health, however, was an unaccredited online correspondence college, now defunct.
Rapacki claims past membership in FBI Infragard (a public-private intelligence partnership administered by the FBI), the Association of Former Intelligence Officers Arizona chapter, the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals Arizona chapter, and various other intelligence-related organizations.
According to records of Rapacki email correspondence obtained by CRN, Rapacki is a trafficker in conspiracy theories relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 presidential election, satanic 'globalist' plots to eradicate American sovereignty (variously involving Bill Gates, the United Nations, George Soros, the Muslim Brotherhood, and various other “demonic” actors), and so on.
Perhaps most importantly, Rapacki believes the United States was founded as a Christian nation whose laws must be in conformity with Christian beliefs-- an ideology that fits some definitions of “Christian nationalism.”
He bills himself as an expert in Satanism and a “watchman” for the “Remnant Church,” whose duty it is to blow the “Shofar of Warning” as to the demonic forces at the gate.
Rapacki did not respond to questions from CRN, asking whether he considers himself a Christian nationalist. Nevertheless, we can quote some of Rapacki's own writing on Christian theocratic dominion over the nation:
“America is a covenant nation-- the only surviving nation on earth whose origins and determination are found in the papers and decrees of the Founding Fathers who established a country 'to the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.' A Covenant Nation is one that recognizes that God and His purposes are supreme over the nation, that the highest role a nation can play is to reflect God's righteousness in national policy, but also in domestic service.”
[Note: the “founding fathers” quote given by Rapacki is a quote from the Mayflower Compact of 1620. Many of the authors and signatories of this document were Puritans-- the people who, in 1692, gave us the Salem Witch Trials. Many of the Founding Fathers of the United States (Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Monroe, Madison) were practicing Diests, who favored human reason over theocratic/scriptural rule.]
Rapacki has not been hampered by these fringe beliefs. To the contrary, he seems to have gained considerable influence in recent years.
In 2021, at the time the “Medical Time Bomb” Sentinel Intelligence “briefing” was shared with CCSO command personnel, Rapacki had been playing a key role in the Arizona Senate's audit of the 2020 residential election results. Prior to that, Rapacki had played a key role in Arizona Legislative hearings in which Donald Trump's attorney, Rudy Guiliani, made false allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
[Note: Guiliani has since been indicted in multiple prosecutions related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election, has been disbarred, and has been subjected to civil judgement for defamation related to such claims. The Arizona Senate's audit of the 2020 election found no evidence of fraud.]
Apropos Rapacki's involvement in various attempts to undermine and challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona, it is worth noting that, according to email records obtained by CRN, Rapacki's email distribution list contains contacts for Trump advisor Boris Epshteyn. Epshteyn was recently indicted in this state, alongside former Cochise County Republican Committee chair Robert Montgomery, in relation to the Trump “fake electors” plot. Contacts for Sheriff Dannels (a Republican), a number of state and federal lawmakers (including LD-14 Representative Gail Griffin, a Republican), and former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn (previously convicted of lying to the FBI in relation to undisclosed contacts with Russia) also appear in the same Rapacki email distribution lists.
Flynn is an extremely influential figure in the American far-right, and is a proponent of both the Q Anon conspiracy theory and Christian nationalism.
According to tax records, in 2021, America's Future, Inc., a private non-profit corporation chaired by Flynn, provided nearly one million dollars to Cyber Ninjas, Inc., the Florida-based private company hired by the Arizona Senate to conduct the audit of the 2020 election.
Further, Rapacki has ties to Phil Waldron and Mark Finchem. Through 2020 and 2021, Waldron worked closely with Rapacki, then-Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, Guiliani, Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, and then-Arizona State Representative Mark Finchem (among others-- all Republicans) to challenge the Arizona results of the 2020 presidential election.
Finchem co-founded the Election Fairness Institute/Pathway Research and Education (EFI) with former Arizona state representative David Stevens, in 2018. Other EFI directors include prominent elections deniers and a 'field organizer' of the John Birch Society.
Stevens (a Republican) is, and was at the time he co-founded EFI with Finchem, Cochise County Recorder.
Given the Cochise County focus of this reporting, it is worth noting that EFI incorporation records show that Finchem and Stevens retained the services of attorney Timothy La Sota as the organization's incorporator and registered agent.
La Sota would go on to represent failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and failed Arizona attorney general candidate Abe Hamadeh (both Republicans) in their efforts to challenge the state's 2022 elections results.
Finchem also ran, unsuccessfully, as the Republican candidate for Arizona Secretary of State in the 2022 election. Finchem, like Lake and Hamadeh, also unsuccessfully challenged the results of the 2022 election through litigation.
In 2023, La Sota represented Finchem in an appeal stemming from a unsuccessful attempt on Finchem's part to sue a Democratic Arizona lawmaker who had sought an official inquiry into Finchem's potential involvement in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In early 2023, longtime Cochise County Elections Director Lisa Marra (a Republican) resigned. Marra had been subject to harassment, largely due to her opposition to an unlawful refusal on the part of county supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby (both Republicans) to certify the 2022 election results, as well as a related attempt on the part of Judd, Crosby, and Recorder Stevens to conduct hand counts of all ballots cast. [Note: Crosby and Judd have since been indicted in relation to their refusal to certify the 2022 election results.]
Following Marra's departure, the Board of Supervisors approved an agreement with the Recorder's Office, transferring elections duties to Stevens (Judd and Crosby voting for, and the board's lone Democrat, Ann English, voting against). Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (a Democrat) then sued the Board of Supervisors and Recorder Stevens, arguing the transfer of duties of Elections Director to the Office of the Recorder was illegal.
In defense of their attempt to hand elections duties to Stevens, the county hired La Sota.
Corporate records from this period list Stevens, Finchem, La Sota, along with other prominent elections deniers, as principals of the Elections Fairness Institute.
Rapacki and Finchem's relationship, however, long predates Arizona's recent spates of elections-related mayhem.
A 2015 press release issued by the Coalition of Western States (COWS) lists Finchem as COWS “Arizona coordinator.” Rapacki was COWS “vice chairman.” The chairman of the group was militant Christian nationalist Matt Shea.
From 2014 through 2016, COWS and their members played roles in various armed standoffs with the federal government, including those involving the Bundy ranching family in Nevada and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.
It was in this context-- with Rapacki seemingly at the center of, or in close proximity to, every recent far-right cause celebre-- that CCSO command personnel received Rapacki's “Medical Time Bomb” anti-immigrant 'intelligence brief' on June 8, 2021.
According to Rapacki, the document was based on a “closed-door intelligence briefing” he had provided to members of the Arizona Senate on August 17, 2016.
The briefing began:
"While the rhetoric regarding illegal crossings flowing into America and the concomitant influx of Middle Eastern 'Refugees' into targeted states rages, the intelligence contained in this Briefing Summary transcends the debates, issues of political correctness, and politics in general.”
Rapacki then delved into claims that "illegals" carrying "scurvy, measles, chicken-pox, acute explosive diarrhea with third-world bacterial agents, and unknown bacteria and parasites attempting to resist antibiotics, as well as pernicious and new forms of lice and worms" were being deliberately funneled into Republican-led states by the administration of then-President Barack Obama (a Democrat).
The document further claimed that information relating to the diseases and parasites allegedly carried by these immigrants (particularly the unaccompanied children among them) was being deliberately concealed from affected state governments by the federal government.
In essence, the document charged-- without substantiation-- that the Obama administration was using human beings (refugees seeking shelter from violence and persecution in the Middle East) as agents of biological warfare against Republican American citizens.
Rapacki continued:
"The Federal Government has now increased the speed and volume of third-world populations into the United States; interestingly, especially into politically conservative states. The calculated work of the Feds has led to Muslims by the thousands from mostly terribly underdeveloped and deteriorating Muslim countries, including those Islamic Nations hostile to the United States, now arriving. The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest has presented official figures depicting a massive spike in Green Cards for Middle Easterners; most notably, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, and Iran. [...] These numbers do not reflect the numbers of illegals and Middle Easterners successfully entering America from our unsecure southern Border. There are unknown numbers of third-world humanity stemming from Haiti, Central America, and South America.
"The influx of humanity that is being discarded by these third-world Muslim countries is astounding, and fearful. These people bring nothing of value with them; no skills, no education, no work ethic or even moral framework. In point of fact, the preponderant majority of these people are hardened criminals, many purposefully released from prisons, and warriors who have only known civil war and strife by opposing gangs and warlords. Their health conditions are terrifying which will demand a response to stem the epidemic." [Emphasis mine.]
Though sent to CCSO command personnel in June of 2021, the “briefing” was dated September 9, 2016 and was addressed to then-Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump, and Ben Carson. Carson, a medical doctor, had previously been a 2016 Republican presidential candidate. At the time Rapacki drafted the document, Carson was acting as an advisor to Trump's campaign.
Trump had issued a press release in December 2015 stating his intent to completely "shut down" the entry of Muslims into the United States, and rhetoric demonizing immigrants and Muslims had been central to the Trump campaign.
At the time of the document's authorship, the Syrian civil war was well into its fifth year. Syrians fleeing the violence of both Russian-backed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), along with populations of other Middle Eastern nations facing violence from ISIS and other Islamic extremist groups, were seeking refuge in the United States, Europe, and other more stable nations.
Nativist fears of these refugees were harnessed in service of rising political tides of right-wing nationalism in Western democracies such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and the United States.
In the United States, Trump had entered the American political arena in 2011 by espousing the false “birther” conspiracy theory, which held that President Barack Hussein Obama was not born in the United States. Trump consistently played on voters' fears of immigrants from Muslim-majority nations throughout the 2016 election cycle.
According to public statements made by both Rapacki and Dannels, the two men have known each other since about 2011, and Rapacki has said that his “intel” is informed through his relationships with men like Dannels.
Part 2: deeply questionable intelligence and hate-- inside the fever dream echo chamber
Cochise Regional News obtained this Rapacki "intelligence briefing" as part of records produced by the Cochise County Sheriff's Office in response to a public records request seeking (in part) all documents and communications from, and pertaining to, Rapacki in possession of Sheriff Dannels and other CCSO command personnel.
It should be noted that many of the records of email communications delivered by CCSO in response this public records request contained incomplete email metadata fields-- particularly metadata which would divulge to whom within CCSO's command structure certain emails had been sent.
This was the case with records detailing the June 8, 2021 delivery of this Rapacki brief to CCSO command personnel; the record produced by CCSO simply stated that the brief had been sent from a sender identified as "Ron Thompson," but records contained no information as to whom within CCSO command it had been sent.
When asked to identify the CCSO email account from which the Rapacki brief had been produced, CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas stated that she could not, and that she could only specify that the email had been sent to someone (or possibly multiple someones)-- possibly Dannels, or possibly someone else-- within CCSO's command structure.
[Note: CRN provided CCSO Pubic Information Officer Capas and Dannels with a copy of Rapacki's “Medical Time Bomb” document and asked whether the Sheriff agrees with its contents. Capas and Dannels declined to comment.]
Nevertheless, records produced by CCSO show that "Ron Thompson" had sent multiple emails to Dannels, Rapacki, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, former Arizona Oath Keepers vice president and current Yavapai County Oath Keepers leader Jim Arroyo, as well as others affiliated Oath Keepers in southern Arizona, on multiple occasions.
The Oath Keepers are a far-right extremist group founded by Stewart Rhodes. Members of the group's leadership, including Rhodes, have been convicted of seditious conspiracy and other crimes related to the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol in which supporters of outgoing President Trump attempted to stop the U.S. Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election (which Trump lost).
According to Rapacki, he is a "charter member" (founding member) of the Oath Keepers.
Both Dannels and Lamb, who is currently running for U.S. Senate, have spoken at events of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), of which Rapacki also claims "charter" membership.
CSPOA was founded by former Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack, and has ties to the Oath Keepers-- in fact, Rhodes was featured as keynote speaker at a 2019 CSPOA event which also featured Dannels as a speaker.
Sheriff Dannels declined to comment on his relationships with either Rapacki or "Ron Thompson."
Though CCSO Public Information Officer Capas told CRN she does not know who Thompson is, it is clear that he may be a little more than a random wingnut who is fond of sending Dannels unsolicited anti-immigrant diatribes scribed by Rapacki.
For example, according to CCSO email records obtained by CRN, on October 14, 2020, Thompson sent Dannels, Rapacki, Lamb, Arroyo, and others an email containing "OSINT" ("open source intelligence") describing the "shit show" which would soon be wrought on the United States by the 'radical left.'
The "OSINT" cited by Thompson was an article written by right-wing conspiracy theorist Mike Adams (also known as "The Health Ranger"), posted to Adams' Naturalnews.com website the day earlier.
[Full disclosure: I worked briefly as a reporter for Adams' "Newstarget.com" in 2006. At that time Adams was based in Tucson and the more extreme beliefs that now dominate his publication efforts were not evident.]
In his article, which was based largely on a Breitbart.com article, Adams claimed that "battle plans" had been posted by a "radical left-wing group" that intended to "unleash mass chaos and shoot Trump supporters in the streets" in the event Trump were to win the upcoming November 2020 presidential election.
Breitbart is a far-right publication whose co-founder and editor-in-chief, Steve Bannon, decamped in 2016 in order to serve as "chief executive officer" of the Trump presidential campaign. Bannon also served as a senior advisor to the subsequent Trump presidential administration.
The Breitbart article linked to a document entitled "Stopping the Coup: the Disruption Guide for 2020," which had apparently been publicly posted by leftist activist group, the War Resistors League.
The document's stated intent was to help activists counter election disruption which many on the political left feared would be conducted by those on the political right (such as voter intimidation by armed "poll watchers" and false declarations of victory on the part of Trump and his allies-- all of which would occur during and after the 2020 election). The manual did not call for chaos, violence, or the shooting of Trump supporters in the streets.
Nevertheless, emails obtained by CRN show that, following Thompson's "OSINT" email of October 14, 2020, on November 1 Rapacki sent out a "Sentinel Intelligence Services" briefing detailing the "captured anarchist manual" and claims of an imminent leftist attack on select targets in Washington, D.C.
In this "briefing"-- which Rapacki emblazoned with bright red text alerts, warning that its contents were "FOUO" and "LES" ["For Official Use Only" and "Law Enforcement Sensitive"]-- Rapacki claimed that he was indebted to a mysterious "intelligence specialist" with whom he had enjoyed email correspondence.
"The intelligence specialist who sent me the attached captured report wrote me a personal communication thanking me for a consistently good job, and bringing dimensions into play not heretofore considered. Included with the communication was the attached 38-page manual of the anarchists with the comment I was at liberty to forward to trusted allies [...]"
According to email records obtained by CRN, Rapacki apparently attached the War Resistors League "Stopping the Coup" manual to this “FOUO/LES” intelligence briefing, along with the October 14 email "Ron Thompson" had sent to Rapacki, Dannels, Lamb, Yavapai Oath Keepers' Arroyo, and a few other individuals associated with southern Arizona Oath Keepers and right-wing politics, in which Thompson shared Adams' October 13 Naturalnews.com article.
“Mike [Adams] isn't usually too far out there with his assessments,” Thompson wrote in the October 14 email.
Such is the source of Rapacki's “intelligence.”
In October 2022, the League of Women Voters filed a federal lawsuit against Yavapai County Oath Keepers leader Arroyo, the Yavapai County Preparedness Team (YCPT, an offshoot of Yavapai County Oath Keepers, incorporated by Arroyo in 2019), Lions for Liberty (the political arm of YCPT), and other related defendants, many of which resided in Yavapai County.
Ironically, given the claims of the Rapacki/Thompson/Adams radical left shit show “briefing” of November 2020, the League of Women Voters suit alleged that the defendants, through their practice of heavily-armed patrols of ballot drop boxes, dissemination of elections-related disinformation, and even doxxing of some voters during the 2022 elections cycle, had launched “schemes to surveil, harass, and intimidate voters at drop boxes to deter them, and those who are lawfully assisting voters, from exercising the right to vote.”
The League of Women Voters complaint alleged that the Yavapai Oath Keepers' actions constituted unlawful voter intimidation in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.
The “Ron Thompson” Rapacki/Oath Keepers/Dannels correspondence is only one example. Email records obtained by CRN show that Dannels receives a stream of far-right-conspiracy-theory-themed correspondence.
Records indicate that a regular correspondent of Dannels' is a man named Bruce Piepho. According to to email records, Piepho publishes an email newsletter, which he regularly sends to Dannels. The Piepho emails to Dannels are a veritable litany of anti-Islamic rhetoric, antisemitic tropes, anti-LGBTQ sentiment, and conspiracy theories ranging from claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, to assertions that the COVID-19 pandemic is a part of a vast “globalist” genocidal conspiracy. Piepho consistently serves up these theories couched in Biblical references and written prayer.
For example: on January 7, 2022, Piepho forwarded an email from Carl Goldberg to several recipients, including Sheriff Dannels, Legislative District 14 Representative Gail Griffin, Cochise County Recorder David Stevens, Cochise County Superior Court Clerk Amy Hunley, and then-Cochise County Republican Committee Chair (now indicted Trump “fake elector”) Montgomery.
The email was titled: “Watch out for Muslims running for public office-- and oppose them!!!” Contained in it was a list of candidates of Muslim faith who were running for various offices nationwide. Speaking to this, Piepho expressed his wish that voters in states with “Islam politicians” would “wake up.”
According to Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Goldberg is an Arizona-based anti-Islam activist and member of the Arizona chapter of the anti-Islamic hate group, Act! for America. According to published announcements, he frequently speaks at events on the perils of “Islamic ideology” and Muslim immigration to the United States.
According to SPLC, at a 2017 Act! for America rally in Phoenix, Goldberg stated that Islam is a “totalitarian and imperialist ideology” similar to communism or Nazism, and accused then-Arizona U.S. Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain of being “on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
But, Piepho's ire in communications with the Sheriff is not restricted to Muslims. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Piepho sent a number of emails to Dannels, which, in a nutshell, seemed to indicate that COVID-19 vaccines were part of a “globalist” conspiracy to harm or kill people, that a U.S. Military coup may be necessary, and that we may be living out “biblical end times.”
In support of this thesis, Piepho regularly attached several documents to his emails. These often consisted of articles written by the likes of Rapacki, Goldberg, Dr. Joseph Mercola (a leading purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation), and various far-right Christian publications.
Several other articles supplied to Dannels by Piepho were published by “Video Rebel's Blog.” This blog posits numerous conspiracy theories in which Jewish “globalist” bankers run the world. Video Rebel's Blog also asserts that the Nazi murder of six million Jews, along with a number of gypsies, homosexuals, and other 'undesirables,' never occurred (this is referred to as the “Holohoax” by Video Rebel's author).
Seemingly to avoid leaving any marginalized group out of his conspiratorial correspondence with Dannels, Piepho got in some good digs at the LGBTQ community as well.
In an email sent to Dannels in early 2021, Piepho wrote:
“We are at a pivotal crossroads. There is a crisis at the Southern Border. Congress seems to only discuss Trump impeachment. Most Americans do not go to church. The name of Jesus or referring to God is not politically correct. […] The real make or break fight is between political correctness, LGBTQ, sex transformations surgery based on orientation, satanism in the United Nations and the list goes on and on.”
This was followed by a Christian tract through which Piepho expressed his belief that LGBTQ persons should not be allowed any position of authority within the Christian church.
Neither Sheriff Dannels nor CCSO Public Information Officer Capas responded to written questions from CRN inquiring about the nature of Dannels' relationship with Piepho.
Nevertheless, it does appear as though “sheriff for all the people” Dannels and Piepho do have some form of relationship. On September 12, 2021, Dannels responded to one of Piepho's emails pertaining to the globalist COVID-19 conspiracy with the following email, evidently referring to an event involving the Sheriff and a religious group Piepho is part of:
“Good morning Bruce! I just wanted to share my appreciation to your prayer group for the invite and spiritual messages! In a time where our country needs a plethora of prayers, it truly means a lot to my office and the dedicated men and women!! Thank you again, Mark.”
The email did not elaborate further, and Dannels clearly prefers not to answer CRN's questions regarding his relationship with Piepho.
In any event, this is the far-right, factually-lacking, and hate-filled echo chamber Cochise County Sheriff Dannels appears to be immersed in, and part of.
In light of these facts, consider this:
Dannels has served as a member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Advisory Council and regularly testifies on matters of border security and immigration before Congressional committees tasked with crafting federal legislation. In 2021 (the time of much of the correspondence we have discussed) Dannels was serving as president of the Arizona Sheriffs Association. He also serves as chair of the National Sheriffs Association's (NSA) Border Security Committee, and as vice president of the Western States Sheriffs Association (WSSA). Dannels also serves in a leadership role of the Southwest Border Sheriffs Coalition (SWBSC).
NSA, WSSA, and SWBSC are influential law enforcement organizations. NSA, in particular, has significant lobbying presence.
Dannels has been shown-- by my own reporting-- to use his bully pulpit to make questionable and misleading claims about border-related crime in Cochise County, including in testimony to the U.S. Congress.
Part 3: Dannels goes to Yavapai County-- a very special place in the heart of right-wing chaos and disruption
Setting aside CCSO's refusal to confirm or deny whether Sheriff Dannels had been among CCSO command personnel to receive Rapacki's anti-Middle-Eastern-immigrant "Medical Time Bomb" tract on June 8, 2021, records indicate that Dannels had received plenty of other correspondence from Rapacki by that time-- all of which should have served to make Rapacki's views very clear to the Sheriff. And, according to public statements made by both Rapacki and Dannels, the two men have known each other since about 2011.
Apparently, Dannels liked what he saw in Rapacki and his associates. Records obtained by CRN show that, by the time Rapacki's Middle-Eastern-immigrants-are-diseased-criminals "briefing" was delivered to CCSO command, Dannels had accepted an invitation to serve as keynote speaker at an upcoming event of the Yavapai Patriots.
According to Arizona Corporation Commission records, Yavapai Patriots, LLC was incorporated by Rapacki, a resident of Yavapai County, on March 26, 2021. [Note: Rapacki/Sentinel Intelligence Services had been signing certain correspondence under the banner of “Yavapai Patriots” and conducting social media for the group for at least a year prior to its formal incorporation.]
A mission statement posted by the group to their website at some point in 2021 suggested that the group mirrored Rapacki's Christian nationalist values and conspiracist leanings, in that they advocated for “Judeo-Christian values,” and emphasized “legitimate” elections, border security and support for law enforcement.
Rapacki and then-Yavapai Patriots chair Mona Patton did not respond to queries from CRN concerning the group's beliefs or purpose.
Email records obtained by CRN show that, around March 24, 2021, Dannels had been invited to join the group as keynote speaker, on issues of immigration and border security, during an event to be held at the Hassayampa Inn in Prescott (Yavapai County) on July 17.
Records of email correspondence between Dannels and Yavapai Patriots chair Patton demonstrate that Dannels gladly accepted the invitation to the group's speaking engagement. Dannels evidently viewed speaking to Rapacki's group as such an honor that he declined the honorarium the group had offered to pay him, opting instead to foot the bill himself for travel and lodging, for both himself and his wife, at the event.
According to Arizona Secretary of State records, Yavapai Patriots registered as a political action committee (PAC) on February 23, 2021. Rapacki would serve as the PAC's single largest contributor.
Records indicate that the Yavapai Patriots PAC, with Rapacki serving as its single largest donor, paid for July 17 event at which Dannels served as keynote speaker.
Apparently, the Dannels keynote event was a big success.
“What an awesome event we held in Prescott because of you!!!,” Patton wrote Dannels on July 18. “You were wonderful and packed so much valuable information into a short amount of time. Everyone's attention was captured and they were attentive to every word you spoke. Our many thanks to both you and Nickie [Dannels' wife] for your long drive to join us. Please let us know if there is ever a way that we can ever repay you.”
Dannels responded: “I truly appreciated the invite and opportunity to spend some time with your organizations and yes, community. Nickie and I truly enjoyed it.”
According to email records obtained by CRN, some of Dannels' fan mail stemming from his Yavapai Patriots speaking engagement had a darker, more seditious, tone.
“Sheriff, I attended the Yavapai Patriots meeting in Prescott today. Thank you for sticking with the Constitution and America First. I wish everyone held similar beliefs,” wrote an individual named Bruce Moeller to Dannels on July 17.
“There are too many who fail to honor their oath of office, and frankly, there ought to be a simple remedy to remove those shills. Any ideas on how? I believe that our constitutional republic depends on removing traitors to the principles of freedom and the rights of the individual over the increasing power of a centralized and growing federal government.
“I went to law school, and have a deep affection for what this country represents. We're under attack daily, and the enemy is unrelenting. Thank you for your remarks today.”
Dannels responded:
“Good evening Bruce. Truly appreciate the feedback and supporting words regarding our country! We need to all stand united, thank you!! Glad you enjoyed the presentation, it was my honor to address you all!!”
Where the “traitors” and “enemy” referenced in the Moeller email are concerned, it should be noted that Dannels had provided Yavapai Patriots with an informational “packet” prior to the July 17 event. The packet contained multiple documents that alleged that some in the Biden administration and federal law enforcement were in violation of their oaths of office, relative to border security (at least one such document had been authored by Dannels himself, in his capacity as president of the Arizona Sheriff's Association).
CRN's public records requests to CCSO turned up no written remarks prepared by Dannels for the Yavapai Patriots event, and the Sheriff declined to comment on his relationship to the group. Patton and Rapacki also did not respond to written questions from CRN concerning this event or Dannels' speech.
However, it is not likely that the tone or tenor of the event at which Dannels spoke on matters of immigration and border security varied from the exclusionary tone of Rapacki's Middle-Eastern-immigrants-are-diseased-criminals "briefing."
Indeed, Rapacki and Dannels appear to have a close relationship (even exchanging warm Christmas emails), to be cut from a similar cloth, and travel in the same exclusionary circles.
For example: Rapacki claims to have previously taught criminal justice at Wayland Baptist University. According to biographical information provided by Dannels to Patton ahead of the July 2021 Yavapai Patriots event, Dannels was then a current teacher at Wayland Baptist University.
Wayland is a hard-right religious institution of higher education affiliated with the Southern Baptist Church. The university strictly prohibits homosexuality among its student body, as “contrary to God's purpose, and thus sinful.”
As stated in Wayland's “Policies and Procedures Manual,” students who engage in “homosexual relations or activities” may face disciplinary action, including expulsion.
Email records detailing Rapacki communications with Dannels (much of which are comprised of Sentinel Intelligence “briefings,” articles by Rapacki, and various Rapacki rants) suggest that the exclusionary views seemingly held by the men may extend beyond non-European immigrants and homosexuals.
Rapacki writings contained in emails sent to Dannels and CCSO command personnel contain frequent references to “diabolical” attacks underway against the United States by the United Nations, Islam, Marxism, and the shadowy globalist cabal/New World Order-- all of which seek to erase the borders of the United States and flood it with a fearful tide of non-white humanity.
Where this vast conspiracy is concerned, it should be noted that, according to email records, Rapacki makes mention of the “globalist manipulator and villain George Soros.”
According to Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Intelligence Project Senior Researcher and Analyst Joseph Wiinikka-Lydon, Soros has become something of a lynchpin in understanding modern antisemitism.
George Soros is a Jewish Hungarian-born billionaire hedge fund manager whose family survived Nazi occupation of Hungary during the Second World War. Due to his decades of support to progressive causes and the Democratic Party, Soros has become something of a boogieman to the political right.
“'Globalists' is a dogwhistle for 'Jews',” said Wiinikka-Lydon.
Framing Jews as an international threat to sovereign nations is an old trope, tracing back centuries, he said. “It's this awful antisemitic story, that Jews don't have their own homeland, so they're not actually loyal to the countries that they're in.”
Such mistrusted individuals, said Wiinikka-Lydon, have served a galvanizing purpose for nationalists through history. “Germany is for Germans, France is for the French,” and so on, said Wiinikka-Lydon.
The white nationalist/supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory is one in which malignant forces, often Jews, work to open the borders of a nation to non-white immigrants (including, or especially, Muslims) in order to rob white Christians of their dominance.
Sentiments of this sort appear in Rapacki's various writings-- from the allegations that the Obama administration deliberately flooded Republican-dominated states with diseased Muslim criminals and various non-white immigrant scourges, to “globalist manipulator and villain George Soros'” role in the plot to “permanently erase American sovereignty and eliminate the founding principles by which our Nation, under God, was so conceived.”
[Note: the words “under God” were not added to the American Pledge of Allegiance until 1954. The words were added amid the fervor of the Cold War and high anti-communist sentiment. Soviet communism, particularly under the rule of Joseph Stalin, opposed religion.]
Since border security and immigration are Dannels' stock-in-trade and were the subjects he was asked to discuss with Rapacki's Yavapai Patriots, it is also worth noting that Rapacki's vision of a fearful influx of disease-ridden criminal Middle Easterners bears striking resemblance to the infamous anti-immigrant book “The Camp of Saints” by Jean Raspail.
In short, the work of fiction depicts the destruction of Western civilization at the hands of mass non-white migration. Some of the diseased immigrants depicted in the book ate their own feces.
Trump administration senior advisor and immigration policy architect Stephen Miller has cited the book, as have Bannon and white nationalist former Iowa congressman Steve King (whom has met with Dannels to discuss border policy).
“Camp of Saints” is distributed in the United States by anti-immigrant activist John Tanton's Social Contract Press. This distribution was initially financed by Cordelia May Scaife, heiress to the Mellon-Scaife banking dynasty. Scaife was one of the primary funders (to the tune of many tens of millions of dollars) of Tanton's influential anti-immigration network, which includes the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and the Immigration Law Reform Institute (IRLI).
Dannels and several of his compatriots in Cochise County have ties to the Tanton network. [Read about it here and here.]
Rapacki did not respond to written questions from CRN concerning his familiarity, if any, with “Camp of Saints,” or his current views on Middle Eastern immigrants and refugees.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations-Arizona (CAIR-AZ) is an organization that works to counter anti-Islamic hate and protect the civil rights of Muslims in Arizona. CAIR-AZ Executive Director Azza Abuseif told CRN that when she reviewed Rapacki's “Medical Time Bomb” “briefing,” the only word that occurred to her was “disgusting.”
“The people described in this document are monsters. They're not immigrants or refugees. These are monsters,” said Abuseif, herself the daughter of a Sudanese immigrant who fled an attempted theocratic coup in that country during the 1980s.
“Everybody deserves basic human rights-- no matter your faith, your background, your sex, your ethnicity, the color of your skin. There is nothing that can justify anything in this document-- because you are dehumanizing a whole community [...] you're dehumanizing other humans. What makes [Rapacki] better than these immigrants and refugees? This country was built by immigrants.”
[Full disclosure: I am, myself, the son of a Middle Eastern immigrant who fled Iran following the 1979 theocratic Islamic Revolution in that county.]
The fact that Cochise County Sheriff Dannels only deepened his ties with Rapacki after CCSO command had received Rapacki's Middle-Eastern-immigrants-are-diseased-criminals document should be cause for significant concern, said Abuseif.
“Public figures like Dannels play a crucial role in shaping public opinion and policies,” said Abuseif. She went on to say that she believes Dannels is misusing that influence, catering to the far-right. “You should be protecting the communities. You should be dismantling false narratives. You should stop the misinformation and disinformation.”
Unfortunately, said Abuseif, “we have people in power who are not de-escalating-- they're just instilling fear in peoples' hearts. […] There are many like Dannels. He's not the only one, there are many.”
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks of the Islamic extremist terror group al-Qaeda, American domestic law enforcement infrastructure saw a vast restructuring. Through federal legislation like the Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act, law enforcement agencies (from federal to state and local) were focused on terrorism prevention. In practice, this often meant the surveillance and infiltration of American Muslim communities, immigrant communities, and mosques.
Arguably, the more than two decades intervening have seen the cultivation of bias within the American 'counter-terrorism' law enforcement community-- segments of which have clearly aligned themselves with the anti-Islam, anti-immigrant, anti-civil rights sentiments of our political far-right.
Abuseif told CRN that Islamophobia within law enforcement is more prevalent than ever. “It's getting worse,” she said.
“This article by Rapacki is a prime example […] Even if it was written in 2016, it's now 2023 and we're [CAIR-AZ] still getting Islamophobic calls. It's like we have not learned a thing. This is not what this country was supposedly built on. People flee here for a better life […] When people go places in fear for their lives, they are for a better life. To dehumanize that is unreal.”
CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas and Sheriff Dannels declined to respond to requests for comment from CRN, asking whether Dannels agrees with the description of Middle Eastern immigrants contained in Rapacki's “Medical Time Bomb” briefing.
[Note: CRN interviewed Abuseif in October 2023, not long after the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel. Where the attack and resultant war between Israel and Hamas is concerned, Abuseif said CAIR-AZ condemns the violence and suffering perpetrated against “both our Jewish brothers and sisters and our Muslim brothers and sisters-- [against] all humans.”]
According to SPLC Intelligence Project Senior Researcher Wiinikka-Lydon, hatred and mistrust of Jews, in particular, received a shot in the arm in the early twentieth century through the publication of anti-Jew propaganda such as “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and “The International Jew”-- both of which were published and widely circulated by Henry Ford, and both of which served as seminal works for the German NAZI party.
During Ford's time, and the time of the German Nazi Reich, the malignant “International Jew” was typified by hatred and suspicion of the Rothschilds, a wealthy European Jewish banking family active in Germany, Austria, Vienna, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom in the nineteen and early twentieth centuries. To this day, phrases such as 'globalist banker cabal,' 'international bankers' cartel,' 'globalists,' etc. are dogwhistles harkening back to the Rothschilds.
According to Wiinikka-Lydon, conspiracy theories involving 'globalist' elites often also contain some nexus to perceived related “Marxist” or “Communist” threats (one need look no further than the writings of people like Lyle Rapacki to find examples of this). To be sure, this is contradictory-- given that bankers are the paragon of capitalism and Marxists are the antithesis of capitalism-- but it makes sense in an antisemitic context, given that many leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia were (like the much more fortunate Rothschilds, who did not live in Russia) Jewish.
“And there was good reason for that: Jews were at the very bottom of the totem pole in Tsarist Russia,” said Wiinikka-Lydon. Tsarist Russia saw several waves of anti-Jewish pogroms, and Jews were often relegated to the poorest social and economic standing. So, when a rebellion of the nation's underclass came in the form of the 1917 revolution, there were Jews among them.
German Nazi propaganda used both caricatures of the wealthy International Jew and the Marxist Jew (Karl Marx himself was of German Jewish descent) to substantial effect. The result was the holocaust.
Today, Soros checks all the boxes: he is Jewish, he is wealthy, he has lived in multiple nations, and he has supported progressive causes around the world with the ostensible intent to elevate the less privileged.
“Soros is then the stand-in-- kind of the Boogie Man-- for the international Jewish alliance that is trying to take over and destroy the United States and Western Civilization-- I mean, it's that profound, it's like this existential threat,” said Wiinikka-Lydon, speaking to the utility of the contemporary far-right's scapegoating of Soros.
[Full disclosure: I have reported for a non-profit news organization that received grant funding from Soros' Open Society Institute. CRN receives no funding from Soros or any other organization.]
Forty years ago, Sam Caron helped to found Temple Kol Hamidbar in Sierra Vista. He currently serves as president of the synagogue's board.
Caron is familiar with the trough-lines that bind centuries of antisemitism with our present moment; his grandmother fled the pogroms of Tsarist Russia, and his family eventually made a home in Detroit.
Caron told CRN that the Detroit of his youth was segregated along religious and ethnic lines: “If you were Christian, you lived in the best neighborhood. If you were Jewish, you were in a lower neighborhood. If you were Black, you were in the slums.”
Caron said Jews could not get good jobs at the Ford manufacturing plant-- and on Christmas, when kids went out to see the city's lights on display, the Jewish kids knew to steer clear of Ford's house.
Today, Caron said, he is troubled to see these old divides, including antisemitism, on the rise. He told CRN that he is troubled to learn of Dannels' ties to Christian nationalists like Rapacki.
Christian nationalism, he said, is “just another flavor” of the kind of hate that thrived among men like Ford and Hitler.
“You know when you see wrong, and it's good to speak out-- but people are afraid to speak out because of the consequences,” said Caron. “We're a small county, but that [the office of sheriff] is an important role in the community. The fact that probably half or more of the population is going in that direction [to the political far-right] … that's, that's real scary.”
CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas and Sheriff Dannels declined to respond to requests for comment from CRN, asking whether Dannels agrees with Rapacki's Christian nationalist and other extreme beliefs.
Beyond its antisemitic roots, the term “Globalist” has taken on a deeper meaning, said Wiinikka-Lydon, being something of an umbrella term for grievance (take your pick) in this age of often disparate conspiracy theories.
“When somebody gets up and says, 'ah, it's the globalists,' they may have in their mind 'international Jewry,' that old term-- but then the people in the audience can be like, 'yeah, the globalists!,' and they'll kind of infer, or fill in the blanks, the groups that they feel they have grievance against.”
Such are the manifold threads of paranoia running through the rhetoric of people like Rapacki-- where at once, you may be attacked on all sides by a vast and seemingly misaligned coalition of enemies: a Jewish “globalist” billionaire supervillain, Marxist Muslims, 'open-borders' Democrats, the United Nations and it's evil “Agenda 21” plot-- all united under the banner of Satan.
Rapacki did not respond to written questions from CRN regarding his beliefs concerning the alleged global 'diabolical'/'satanic' New World Order conspiracy, nor did he respond to written questions from CRN regarding his views on Soros, Jews, Muslims, or Middle Eastern immigrants.
“When we talk about the extreme Right now, these groups, they're awash in conspiracy, and it's not intellectually coherent-- and that actually works to their advantage,” said Wiinikka-Lydon. “It's almost like what Trump is doing, and what they've done in Silicon Valley. It just disrupts everything-- even how people can just sit and reason together. It just cuts out that ability to be a neighbor with anybody else. It just disrupts all of that.”
Rapacki is a man who seems to inhabit a special place in the nucleus of contemporary American chaos and disruption-- and it appears that his group, the Yavapai Patriots, fell victim to that very chaos and disruption shortly after Dannels' keynote appearance at their Hassayampa Inn event in July 2021.
At some point following the event, likely in early 2022, Yavapai Patriots chair Mona Patton (with whom Dannels had corresponded at length prior to, and following, his speaking engagement) posted the following statement to the group's website [note: at the time of the posting, the group had apparently changed its name to “Yavapai Rising”]:
“Yavapai Rising has been silent for the past two months and I have an explanation for you.
“An attempt against my life was made and a friend of mine who was with me was shot in the head. He suffered a fractured skull, severe concussion, had bleeding and swelling on his brain. My friend spent one week in intensive care and two weeks in rehabilitation. He is still healing from that injury. It was a horrendous experience for both of us. By the grace of God, we are both blessed to be alive.
“During the weeks following the incident, three members of the Yavapai Rising Advisory Board decided to attempt a coup. As I was extremely distressed and distracted, they felt that it was a perfect moment to seize control of the organization and oust me as Chair. They failed to remove me.
“1 Peter 5:8 'Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.'
“After much agonizing and extensive prayer the standing Board of Yavapai Rising has decided to discontinue monthly meetings and disband the organization. This has been a difficult decision to make and there are many regrets as our work is not done.
“God Bless you and keep you safe from harm!”
Patton did not respond to CRN's requests for comment concerning this incident.
Rapacki did not respond to CRN's request for comment concerning this incident.
Part 4: COWS and the Christian Nationalist holy civil war
Just as Christian nationalism is (in broad strokes) the belief that the United States was founded as a Christian nation that will forever exist as a nation under Christian dominion, white nationalism is the belief that America was founded as a nation for white people, to be forever dominated by white people.
“White Christian nationalism” is the overlapping of these two extreme and anti-democratic beliefs.
The majority of American Christians and white citizens are neither Christian nationalists or white nationalists. Nevertheless, as tides of far-right anti-democratic sentiment have risen, these beliefs have gained currency.
White Christian nationalism, as we know it today, shares lineage with the modern American “patriot movement.”
Like the words “under god” in our Pledge of Allegiance, the modern American patriot movement tracks back to the Red Scare of the 1950s and the foundation of the John Birch Society.
The John Birch Society, founded in 1958, organized around the conspiratorial belief that a globalist communist conspiracy had infiltrated every facet of the American government. The group's founder, Robert Welch, even accused then-president Dwight Eisenhower of being a part of this global communist plot-- despite the fact that Eisenhower and his vice president, Richard Nixon, were ardent anti-communists.
True to its reactionary impetus, the John Birch Society sought to safeguard and enshrine American capitalism and Christianity. Communism is inherently antithetical to capitalism, and religion was oppressed in the communist Soviet Union.
The group was also an early progenitor of the now-ubiquitous conspiracy theory that holds that the United Nations is intent on erasing the borders (and sovereignty) of every nation in order to implement a malignant “New World Order.”
At its peak, the group had around 100,000 members, spread through chapters nationwide. Members of this movement promoted certain candidates in local elections, sought the removal of officeholders whose beliefs did not align with their own, and sought to ban books from schools.
Though the John Birch Society publicly disavowed antisemitism, it is widely accepted that many of the group's largely white Christian membership held less-than-tolerant beliefs, and the group publicly opposed racial integration throughout the civil rights era of the 1960s.
The Society's belief that a vast globalist communist conspiracy had infiltrated and was controlling the federal government often overlapped with “globalist” Jew/communist paranoias of white supremacist groups like the Christian Identity movement (which holds that white Europeans, not Jews, are the true 'chosen people' of the Abrahamic god).
A proponent of these “Christian Identity” beliefs in the early twentieth century was Michigan newspaper, The Dearborn Independent (also known as The Ford International Weekly), owned by antisemite and Nazi sympathizer Henry Ford.
The white supremacist beliefs of the Christian Identity movement were further codified, in the 1940s, through the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian by California pastor, Ku Klux Klansman, and founder of the antisemitic Christian Defense League, Wesley Smith.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the beliefs of the John Birch Society and active field organizing of the Christian Identity movement began to coalesce around economic crises confronting agricultural communities in the western United States.
This resulted in the “posse comitatus” and “sovereign citizen” movements, which saw an increase in militant activity-- particularly in the Pacific Northwest-- aimed at the federal government and its perceived puppet masters among “globalists,” “international Jewry”/bankers, the United Nations, New World Order, etc. Those active in such activities often saw themselves as righteous 'patriots' standing against unjust tyranny.
Aryan Nations, an outgrowth of the Christian Identity and posse comitatus movements, would go on to conduct a campaign of murder, robbery, and terrorism throughout the United States during the 1980s and 90s.
“Birchers,” as the John Birch Society's adherents were called, were often seen as fringe figures in the American political landscape, and seemed to largely disappear from sight as the decades rolled on, the communist scare cooled, and the Soviet Union crumbled.
In the 1990s, however, there were signs that a violent white power militia movement was on the rise in the United States.
In 1992, federal agents killed the Weaver family at Ruby Ridge in Boundary County, Idaho. The agents had been attempting to arrest the father, Aryan Nations associate Randy Weaver, for selling a sawed-off shotgun to a federal agent posing as a member of Aryan Nations.
In 1993, federal agents laid siege to, and ultimately destroyed, a compound occupied by a Christian sect known as the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Federal agents killed 82 members of the group on April 19, 1993.
On April 19, 1995, Timmothy McVeigh, a white supremacist with ties to various far-right militia groups, and Terry Nichols, an adherent of the sovereign citizen movement, also with ties to far-right militias, bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Field offices of the FBI and a day care center were situated in the Murrah Building. 168 people were killed. McVeigh claimed the bombing to be revenge for the federal government's actions at Ruby Ridge and Waco.
At the time, this kind of homegrown white supremacist right-wing terrorism was not at the forefront of the American psyche-- which apparently preferred to imagine enemies from with-out, rather than within.
In the immediate aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, travelers of Middle Eastern origin were detained at a number of airports. Islamic extremist terror group al-Qaida had conducted its bombing of the World Trade Center in February of 1993.
The election of Barack Hussein Obama to the office of president in 2008 saw a resurgence in “Bircher”-type rhetoric and reinvigoration of the American patriot movement.
Following the 2008 election, whispers and proclamations that the nation's first Black president was a secret Islamic Marxist worked their way through the reactionary tide of the Tea Party movement.
“Patriot” militia groups like the Oath Keepers and Three-Percenters (so named for their false belief that only three percent of the American colonial population took up arms to overthrow British rule during the American Revolution) sprang up throughout the nation.
The Oath Keepers, founded by now-convicted January 6 seditionist Stewart Rhodes in 2009, purport to consist of current and former law enforcement and military personnel, and was named after the oath that service members make to “defend the Constitution of the United states against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” [Emphasis mine.]
Both the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters have a long history of anti-Muslim bigotry. These groups, whose members often held, as central tenants, their Christian faith and their fear of Obama as a Trojan Horse of the globalist Islamic Marxist New World Order conspiracy, often found common cause and formed ties with anti-Islam hate groups like Act! For America (founded in 2007).
A number of anti-Islam hate groups, like Act!, had grown out of heightened anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment following the al-Qaida terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
As previously mentioned, Rapacki has a longstanding relationship with militant Christian nationalist Matt Shea. The Coalition of Western States (COWS) was founded in 2014. Shea served as the group's chair, and Rapacki as its vice chair.
At the time of COWS' founding, Shea had been serving as a Republican member of the Washington State House of Representatives, since 2009.
Shea is also the organizer of the Spokane chapter of anti-Muslim hate group, Act! For America, and has ties to the white supremacist Christian Identity movement.
COWS grew out of Shea's participation in an armed standoff that occurred in Bunkerville, Nevada in April of 2014.
In this conflict, Shea and Washington State Liberty for All III% (LFA III%) militia leader Anthony Bosworth helped to coalesce the Oath Keepers and a group of around 1,500 members of the nation's growing “patriot”/militia/sovereign citizens movements in an armed standoff against federal agents in Clark County, Nevada. At issue was illegal cattle grazing conducted by the Bundy ranching family on public lands managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management.
A 2015 press release issued by COWS claimed that the group was comprised of more than 50 state legislators and community organizers throughout the western United States, who were “dedicated to stopping federal overreach.”
The press release identified eleven individuals who served as COWS' leadership, alongside chairman Shea and vice chairman Rapacki.
According to the document, Washington LFA III% leader Bosworth had been appointed COWS' northwest “grassroots coordinator.”
The document also listed then-Arizona State Representative Mark Finchem as COWS “Arizona coordinator.”
As previously discussed, Finchem has close ties to Cochise County Recorder and former Arizona state representative David Stevens. In 2018, Finchem and Stevens founded the Election Fairness Institute/Pathway Research and Education (EFI). EFI directors include prominent elections deniers and a 'field organizer' of the John Birch Society.
In addition to Rapacki and Finchem, other Arizona personnel listed on the 2015 COWS press release included then-Greenlee County Supervisor Robert Corbell as COWS' “county elected coordinator.”
LFA III% Arizona leader and White Mountain Militia member Cope Reynolds was listed as COWS' “grassroots coordinator.” Reynolds is currently running as a Republican candidate for sheriff in Apache County.
COWS documentation lists former Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack as the group's “peace officer coordinator.” Mack also served as an early board member of the Oath Keepers and was involved with both that organization and COWS during his participation various armed standoffs.
Mack also has ties to the John Birch Society. He announced an ultimately unsuccessful bid for Congress at a Texas Bircher event in 2011.
In 2010, Mack launched the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA). The organization incorrectly asserts that only county sheriffs hold the authority to determine which laws are constitutional and, therefore, enforceable.
In the vision of the 'constitutional sheriff,' county lawmen are miniature emperors of mini nation-states-- the ultimate arbiters of what government and citizens may, or may not, do-- regardless of what is written in statute, the Bill of Rights, or judicial case law.
In 2022, Mack handed nominal leadership of CSPOA to Sam Bushman, owner of far-right Liberty News Radio. According to other reporting, Bushman and his talk radio company have documented ties to neo-Confederates and white supremacists.
CSPOA currently claims membership of several thousand active law enforcement personnel nationwide.
Both Dannels and Rapacki have ties to Mack.
Dannels was a featured speaker at a 2019 CSPOA event, which also featured Oath Keepers founder (and now-convicted January 6 seditionist) Stewart Rhodes as keynote speaker.
In addition to serving as COWS vice chair alongside COWS “peace officer coordinator” Mack, Rapacki claims to be a founding member of the Oath Keepers, and claims founding membership in CSPOA.
From 2014 through 2016, COWS and their members played roles in various armed standoffs with the federal government, including those involving the Bundy ranching family in Nevada and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.
The occupation and armed standoff with federal authorities at the Malheur National Wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon's Harney County took place over 41 days in January and February of 2016.
In 2012, Harney County ranchers Dwight and Steve Hammond had been convicted of several charges relating to acts of arson they had committed on federal lands in the early 2000's (one of these fires had apparently been set with the intent to conceal the Hammond's illegal slaughter of a herd of deer on federal land).
Following the Hammonds' convictions, the case became a rallying cry for the Bundys, who had become far-right activist celebrities following the 2014 Bunkerville standoff, and various far-right 'patriot'/militia groups.
Though the Hammonds eschewed attention and offers of support from these factions, the various groups laid siege to the wildlife refuge in early 2016. COWS was among them.
COWS, LFA III%, and the various other groups engaging in the standoff at Malheur, demanded that the federal government turn federally-managed lands over to local control.
Though, on the surface, these various confrontations seemed to be stands against federal overreach and protests in favor of individual liberty, there was something more substantive-- and sinister-- beneath the surface.
In 2018, a document authored and distributed by COWS Chairman and Washington State Representative Shea was provided to Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich by a concerned citizen.
The document was titled “The Biblical Basis for War.” In it, Shea provided a detailed roadmap, complete with purported Christian theological basis, for civil war-- the purpose of which would be to replace American secular democracy with Christian theocracy.
“The document Mr. Shea wrote is not a Sunday school project or an academic study,” Knezovich told the Spokane Spokesman-Review. “It is a 'how to' manual consistent with the ideology and operating philosophy of the Christian Identity/Aryan Nations movement and the Redoubt movement of the 1990s.”
The American Redoubt movement is one that seeks to forge a separatist white Christian theological nation in the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain regions. It has seen substantial resurgence in recent years.
Portions of the Pacific Northwest-- particularly eastern Washington State, eastern Oregon, and Idaho-- have served as the nucleus of the American Redoubt and Christian Identity movements (including Aryan Nations and other related violent hate groups) since at least 1974.
In that year, Richard Butler, a devotee of Christian Identity evangelist Wesley Smith, purchased land in Hayden Lake, Idaho with the intent of building his own “Christian Posse Comitatus” compound. This soon morphed into Butler's own Church of Jesus Christ Christian, which soon gave birth to Aryan Nations-- which was meant to serve as the church's political arm.
Aryan Nations is an unabashedly violent white supremacist terrorist organization.
Butler was an early advocate of the Northwest Territorial Imperative, an envisioned white ethnostate that served as forerunner to the current American Redoubt movement.
Knezovich found Shea's call to war sufficiently disturbing to forward it on to the FBI.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of Shea's “Biblical Basis for War” document was his cavalier approach to violence. In the document, Shea asserted that “assassination to remove tyrants is just, not murder.”
Shea went on to say that the enemy in his holy war “must surrender on terms of justice and righteousness” or face dire consequences. To Shea's mind “terms of justice and righteousness” meant that abortion, same-sex marriage, “idolatry or occultism,” and communism, must all be prohibited-- and that the nation “must obey Biblical law.”
“If they yield,” wrote Shea. “[Conquered American citizens] must pay share of work or taxes.”
“If they do not yield -- kill all males.”
By the time the press and public got hold of Shea's “Biblical Basis for War” manifesto, troubling rumblings concerning the Washington state representative had been circulating for some time.
Apparently, the call for holy civil war and the murder of all non-compliant male citizens was a bridge too far for the Washington State House of Representatives, and in July 2019 that legislative body engaged the services of private investigators, Rampart Group LLC, to conduct an investigation into Shea's activities.
In December 2019, Rampart delivered its findings to the Washington State House of Representatives in the form of a 108-page report. The report was based on witness interviews, email communications between Shea and his co-conspirators, and open source intelligence (i.e. social media posts and press reports).
According to the Rampart report, metadata associated with the Shea “Biblical Basis for War” document demonstrated that the file had been created in July 2014, only a few months from the April 2014 Bundy standoff in Nevada that had served as the impetus for Shea's creation of COWS.
Shea has a long standing and close relationship with Anne and Barry Byrd, pastors of Marble Country Community Fellowship. In turn, the Byrds had a close relationship with COWS.
According to encrypted email communications obtained by Rampart Group through the course of their investigation, Shea (suing codename “verumbellator”) and Rapacki (codename “excubitor”), along with other COWS members (including LFA III% leaders Bosworth and Reynolds), engaged in planning relating to the armed standoff at Malheur with Anne and Barry Byrd.
In the 1990s, the Byrds founded Marble Country (a fundamentalist Christian 'intentional community') in eastern Washington's Stevens County.
The Byrds have close ties to the white supremacist Christian Identity movement.
Barry Byrd was one of the 14 signatories of the “Remnant Resolves,” a core document of the Christian Identity movement, written in 1988. Anne Byrd's brother, Brad Bulla, was also a signer of the document.
“Remnant Resolves” stated, among other things, that “aborticide” and “sodomy” are “sins against God,” and that “interracial marriage pollutes the integrity of the family.”
The signers of the document further “resolved” to “promote only virtuous and God-fearing men to positions of authority at all levels of Government both religious and civil.”
Rapacki, like the Byrds, makes frequent mention of the “Remnant Church” in his writings. The “Remnant Church,” as described by Rapacki, is a fundamentalist organization meant to mirror the Christian Church of the first century, anno domini, described in the Bible's Book of Acts.
Shea, for his part, has publicly referenced the Byrds as being his spiritual advisors.
At the time the Byrds founded Marble Country, the town of Marble was virtually a ghost town. The marble mining industry from which the town and general area derived its name had long since dried up.
In 2007, Barry Byrd, along with other leaders of Marble Country and other area landowners, founded the private nonprofit corporation, Marble Community Landowner's Association (MCLA). MCLA was essentially an end-run around any democratic process, which sought to create a fundamentalist theocratic society in Marble.
According to court documents, MCLA bylaws stated that it sought to “bring forth in this place an Intentional Biblical Christian Covenant Community, a Holy Commonwealth, for the benefit of Ourselves and our Posterity.”
As stated in court records, in order to obtain this end, Marble Country Community Fellowship was given a perpetual seat on MCLA (a right not extended to any other member property owner), and MCLA sought to “exercise godly dominion over their common resources and to regulate themselves and their property in a manner that establishes liberty and justice and maintains a spirit of Christian unity within her gates.”
Toward this aim, members of MCLA were required to record religious covenants to their property deeds, and agree to certain limitations pertaining to their use of their property, as well as to limitations on the types of persons they may sell, lease, or rent their property to.
MCLA bylaws also stated that they would have the power to own, lease, and maintain the local water utility, and to decide which parcels of property would be provided with access to this water.
In short, according to court records, Marble property owners who recorded religious covenants to their property deeds would be granted water and other infrastructure services (such as road maintenance). Those who did not were denied access.
[Note: MCLA's discriminatory activities were cut short in 2020 through the intervention of the Washington State Attorney General's Office. Several Marble land owners who did not wish to comply with MCLA's theocratic vision had filed complaints with that office.]
According to the Rampart report, it was in 2016-- a time in which Marble Country's miniature Christian Identity-rooted theocratic MCLA “commonwealth” was in full swing-- that Shea, COWS, and the Byrds, began preparing for full-out religious civil war.
According to the Rampart report, Shea held a private meeting in early August 2016. That meeting took place in the same Spokane office building in which his office as Washington state representative was situated.
According to a confidential witness cited by Rampart, the meeting had at least thirty attendees. Among them were numerous COWS members, both known and unknown to the witness. These included Washington LFA III% leader Bosworth, Idaho State Representative Heather Scott, and Nevada State Assemblywoman Michelle Fiore.
Also present were Marble Country Community Fellowship pastors Anne and Barry Byrd.
Apparently, COWS, the Byrds, and other far-right militant groups, feared that federal reprisals for the Malheur standoff, which had taken place in January and February of that year, were imminent. As such, they reasoned, the time for holy war was upon them.
Rampart Group investigators alleged that in the months leading up to this meeting, Shea and other COWS members-- along with LFA III% leaders, members of various “patriot”/militia/American Redoubt groups, and at least one representative of the John Birch Society-- had taken part in activities the Byrd's Marble Country Community Fellowship compound, meant to promote the call for holy civil war and to train combatants (including youth tactical training).
According to the Rampart report, the August 2016 Spokane meeting had been called by Shea for the purpose of planning for the creation of a “provisional government.”
At the meeting, Shea distributed a number of packets to attendees. These contained the “Biblical Basis for War” manifesto, along with documents detailing survivalist tactics, the use of encrypted communications, the use of various weapons, and a “recipe for Tannerite based explosives.”
The packets also contained another document, titled “Restoration.” This document apparently outlined Shea's vision for the theocratic government that would replace our existing systems of governance following the holy war.
According to the Rampart report, key points of “Restoration” were as follows:
Establishment of a militia-based military; the termination of all local law enforcement; “liaison with gangs who have honor”; the establishment of “patriot banks”; repealing all taxes and all non-criminal laws and regulations; the decentralization of government services, such as education and healthcare; the transfer of public lands to private homesteaders; a final settlement with Indian tribes to become part of the state; a revision of the existing U.S. Constitution to sanctify Jesus Christ; bans on all abortions and euthanasia; and capital punishment for murder, rape, molestation, bestiality, kidnappings, adultery, treason, and sodomy.
Such is the American theocratic Christian state envisioned by Shea, COWS, and the Byrds.
[Note: Rapacki's involvement in COWS during the summer of 2016 is not known; the Rampart Group report makes no mention of him beyond the January 2016 “excubitor” Malheur Shea/Byrd/et al. emails. However, Rampart analysis of metadata associated with the “Biblical Basis for War” manifesto demonstrated that the document had been created around the time of COWS' creation, in July 2014.]
Rapacki did not respond to written questions from CRN pertaining to his involvement in COWS during the summer of 2016, the “Biblical Basis for War” or “Restoration” documents/meetings, or the nature of his relationships with Shea or the Byrds.
To recap: Cochise County Sheriff Dannels has demonstrably close ties to COWS Vice Chairman Lyle Rapacki. According to public statements made by both Rapacki and Dannels, the two men have known each other since about 2011.
Dannels also has demonstrable ties to COWS “peace officer coordinator,” CSPOA founder, and former Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack.
Cochise County Recorder Stevens has close ties to COWS “Arizona coordinator” Mark Finchem.
COWS Southwest “grassroots coordinator” and Arizona LFA III% leader, Cope Reynolds, is currently running for sheriff in Apache County.
Though Rampart Group, in its report to the Washington State House of Representatives, concluded that COWS Chairman Shea had “participated in an act of domestic terrorism against the United States by his actions before and during the armed takeover and standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge,” neither Shea or any of COWS leadership have been criminally charged in connection to this event.
In 2020, Shea chose not to seek another term in the Washington State House of Representatives.
In 2021, Shea incorporated On Fire Ministries & Kingdom Christian Academy in Spokane. He currently serves there as a senior pastor.
Part 5: Dannels, Rapacki, and a White Nationalist child sex crimes offender
Bear in mind that all of this madness involving COWS had already transpired-- and was, in fact, old news-- by the time leadership of the Arizona Senate decided to partner up with Rapacki in the 2021 “audit” of the 2020 election; by the time Cochise County Recorder Stevens decided to found the Election Fairness Institute with Finchem in 2018; by the time Dannels appeared on stage at Mack's CSPOA event in 2019; and by the time Dannels accepted the invite to Rapacki's Yavapai Patriots event in 2021.
It was old news, and it just didn't seem to matter.
Similarly, when, in 2021, Dannels began sitting down for a series of lengthy interviews conducted by Rapacki for his “Arizona Today” “videocast,” the Cochise County Sheriff was seemingly unperturbed by the white nationalist leanings of Rapacki's child-sex-offender publisher.
In 2018, David Stringer, then a Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives representing the Prescott Valley, made multiple headlines as a result of a number of overtly white nationalist public statements.
According to reporting in Phoenix New Times, an unnamed “tipster” in Baltimore, Maryland, happened across some of these news reports, recognized Stringer, contacted New Times and urged them to look into the lawmaker's criminal past in Baltimore.
New Times followed up on the tip and learned that Stringer had been arrested by the Baltimore Police Department and charged with multiple counts relating to sexual abuse of two minor boys in 1983.
[Full disclosure: I have reported for Phoenix New Times.]
In January 2019, New Times published its findings. According to that reporting, Stringer was 35 at the time and his victims were aged 15 and 13. One of the children was reported to be mentally handicapped. The boys alleged that “Mr. Dave” paid them small amounts to engage in acts of felatio and sexual penetration. The abuse reportedly occurred at least ten times over a one-year period.
According to New Times, rather than face trial on the charges (which, in addition to molestation, also included child pornography charges), Stringer accepted a plea deal, entering pleas to at least five charges of sexual misconduct. He was sentenced to five years' supervised probation, community service, and ordered to seek treatment at Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic.
Stringer's sentencing judge later faced allegations of sexual misconduct with minors himself, and committed suicide in 2004.
In 1990, according to New Times, Stringer successfully had his pleas to these charges expunged from his criminal record. He has since denied the charges.
Following New Times' reporting, the Arizona House of Representatives Ethics Committee launched an investigation into both Stringer's white nationalist statements and his 1983 arrest.
In March 2019, rather than complying with a subpoena to provide the committee with records pertaining to the 1983 arrest, Stringer resigned from the Legislature.
It is not known how far back the relationship between Stringer and Rapacki goes, but it is clear that the two men, both residents of Yavapai County, with similar fears of immigration and a multicultural society, have had a close alliance-- and, apparently, the stink of child sex abuse charges was not sufficient to scare 'Watchman of the Remnant Church' Rapacki from Stringer's side.
In 2020, fresh from his ignoble retreat from the Arizona House, Stringer launched a campaign for the office of Yavapai County Attorney.
According to Yavapai County campaign finance records, Stringer's campaign, “Conservatives for Stinger” (which was financed almost entirely by Stringer), employed the services of “event/meeting coordinator” Lyle Rapacki.
Rapacki did not respond to written questions from CRN, asking whether he was aware of the 1983 child sex abuse charges against Stringer, or Stringer's history of white nationalist statements.
Following Stringer's ultimately unsuccessful bid for county attorney, both men turned to other endeavors.
According to Arizona Corporation Commission records, when Rapacki incorporated Yavapai Patriots, LLC in 2021, he gave the address of Specialty Publishing, LLC as his physical address.
According to Arizona Corporation Commission records, Stringer had become the sole member and agent of Specialty Publishing, LLC in April 2020.
The company's primary offering appears to be “prescottenews.com” (Prescott eNews).
Prescott eNews is a far-right publication that, aside from local items (often no more then published press releases) and national/regional reporting reprinted from other publications, offers little original content.
Original content on tap at Prescott eNews consists largely of “videocasts” by the Oath Keepers of Yavapai County, the Yavapai County Preparedness Team (an extension of the Yavapai Oath Keepers, led by Yavapai Oath Keepers leader Jim Arroyo), some creationist and Christian devotional content creators, and Rapacki (whose “videocast” for Stringer was called “Arizona Today with Lyle Rapacki”).
Other than that, it appears Prescott eNews serves as an organ for the dissemination of Stringer's white Christian nationalist views.
For example, in a 2023 opinion piece commemorating the Fourth of July, Stringer wrote the following comments, which closely mirror the 2018 white nationalist remarks that precipitated the end of Stringer's tenure in the Arizona Legislature:
“Although the men who invented the historic American nation declared that 'all men are created equal' they were not themselves a 'diverse' or 'inclusive' group. To a man they were people of Christian faith and European stock.
“Jefferson himself and many other signers of the Declaration of Independence were unapologetic slave owners. In the context of history, there was no hypocrisy between the ideas they professed and the lives they lived. They saw no contradiction between the idea that 'all men are created equal' and the natural and inevitable inequality of mankind in their social station and political status. [Emphasis mine.]
“We need not offer apology or make excuses for their views. They were Bible readers and men of faith. From time immemorial, slavery was an accepted system of labor sanctioned by scripture and tradition. To judge men of the 18th century by today's standards is a form of intellectual dishonesty uninformed by history.
“Although our Founders created a nation based on religious freedom and tolerance, every delegate to the Second Continental Congress was white, male, and Christian. Although ANTIFA [anti-fascist] zealots and anti-white politicians may deplore America's origins, it is a historic fact that the founders of our nation were a homogenous group in language, culture, race and religion.
“Most of our Founders were educated men, better schooled in history than most of us are today. They were not trying to create an 'inclusive' or 'diverse' multicultural society. […]
“They understood that a stable government based on the 'consent of the governed' requires a common culture. They knew that racial and cultural diversity would inevitably lead to resentment, conflict and the loss of social cohesion. It is no accident that America's first immigration law, enacted in 1790, restricted immigration to those of European stock.
“This policy promoted the unity and social cohesion essential to a functioning democracy. A specific racial and cultural identity was foundational to the historic American Nation. Our founders' restrictions on non-white immigration led to the the creation of a relatively homogenous country that, until the 1960's, was roughly ninety percent white. It allowed the United States to remain culturally unified and economically and militarily strong. We became a free and prosperous country and a force for great good in the world.
“That country no longer exists.
“According to the 2020 U.S. Census, Americans of European stock are now less than 60% of the total population. White Americans under the age of 18 are now a racial minority. In Arizona, the K-12 school population is 38% white, down from 40% just a few years ago.
[Note: I have not independently verified Stringer's claims.]
“The American workforce and essential cultural and educational institutions including the media and the U.S. Military are rapidly becoming majority non-white. White Americans are fleeing decaying urban centers and even entire states. The overall racial transformation of the United States, unprecedented in the history of nations, is now irreversible.
“No one really knows what this portends for America's future. But for whites, the evidence to date is not encouraging. Anti-white media and elected officials have proliferated. Cultural debasement, lower standards of living, shorter life spans, urban squalor and violent crime, dysfunctional schools, and government corruption have become entrenched features of American life. […]
“The Great Replacement is now irreversible. We are in the midst not simply of a demographic transformation, but a form of national dissolution.
“The questions before us are as obvious as they are unsearchable. Who did this to us? Where have our leaders been? Why didn't they warn us? [...]”
And so on. Stringer's Fourth of July ethnocentric lament is pretty much the definition of white nationalist ideology.
As previously discussed, the white nationalist/supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory is one in which malignant forces, often Jews, work to open the borders of a nation to non-white immigrants (including, or especially, Muslims) in order to rob white Christians of their dominance.
Sentiments of this sort also appear in Rapacki's various writings-- from the allegations that the Obama administration deliberately flooded Republican-dominated states with diseased Muslim criminals and various non-white immigrant scourges, to “globalist manipulator and villain George Soros'” role in the plot to “permanently erase American sovereignty and eliminate the founding principles by which our Nation, under God, was so conceived.”
In any event, Dannels joined Rapacki for lengthy interviews on border security and immigration on Rapacki's Prescott eNews “Arizona Today” segment at least twice in 2021.
Others featured in Prescott eNews' “Arizona Today with Lyle Rapacki” during this time included fellow COWS leadership alumni Mark Finchem and Richard Mack.
According to email correspondence obtained by CRN, Dannels' “Arizona Today with Lyle Rapacki” interviews, published by blatant white nationalist David Stringer, attracted enthusiastic fans to the Sheriff-- some of whom offered to help CCSO secure the southern border.
For example: on July 28, 2021, an individual named Fred Stickler wrote Dannels, saying he had been inspired to “think of ways to help” after watching Dannels on the Rapacki's show.
“I propose extending the posse concept to what I call a Shadow Posse,” wrote Stickler. “After vetting volunteers, these folks would be assigned a deputy to shadow during their shifts. Another set of eyes, so to speak, that would be watching from a distance to insure that the deputy was protected.
“In addition, the Shadow Posse would assist with illegals crossing the border again, providing another pair of eyes at the scene.
“When I spoke with you at the border rally last month, you mentioned governmental immunity, or words to that effect, for all official members of the posse […] I would love to sit down with you, or someone in the department, to brainstorm this idea.”
[Note: correspondence did not elaborate further on the “border rally” referenced by Stickler.]
According to records obtained by CRN, Dannels seemed intrigued by the “Shadow Posse” idea, responding to Stickler on August 2:
“I appreciate your thoughts and will share them with my team for input/thoughts? Currently, we have been using portions of our volunteers for extra patrols around our rural schools and patrols within the neighborhoods. To date, that's truly been beneficial!! But, with the 'Open Border' concept being played out, the challenges continue! […] As I have preached, the more eyes and ears reporting that our community can share, the more accurate and accountable we can be in stopping this madness. […] I'll be in touch, and let me know your thoughts too.”
At some point in November 2021, Rapacki began publishing his “Arizona Today” segments through “arizona2day.com,” rather than Prescott eNews.
Rapacki did not respond to written questions from CRN regarding his relationship with Stringer, or whether he agrees with Stringer's white nationalist beliefs.
[Note: Stringer is running for the office of Yavapai County Attorney in this year's election. Review of available elections documentation does not show Rapacki involvement in this present campaign.]
CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas and Sheriff Dannels declined to respond to requests for comment from CRN, asking whether Dannels was aware of Stringer's past sexual misconduct charges, white nationalist beliefs, or ownership of Prescott eNews.
CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas and Sheriff Dannels declined to respond to requests for comment from CRN, asking whether Dannels is sympathetic to Stringer's white nationalist beliefs.
CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas and Sheriff Dannels declined to respond to requests for comment from CRN, asking whether Dannels is sympathetic to Rapacki's Christian nationalist beliefs.
Dannels' refusals to comment aside, it is clear that our Cochise County Sheriff has used his considerable influence within law enforcement circles to further legitimize Rapacki.
From November 2021 through September 2022, Dannels joined Rapacki on his “Arizona Today” show at least more five times, discussing matters of border security and immigration.
The final segment featuring Dannels was filmed by Rapacki in September 2022 at the annual fall meeting of the Southwest Border Sheriffs Coalition (SWBSC), a law enforcement association consisting of sheriffs serving counties throughout the border Southwest.
According to records obtained by CRN the SWBSC meeting, held in Sierra Vista from September 11 through 13, was hosted by Sheriff Dannels and CCSO.
Email records obtained by CRN disclose that on August 23, 2022, Dannels forwarded notice of the meeting, along with other details, to Rapacki.
It is unclear whether Rapacki was featured as a speaker at the CCSO-hosted event, or whether Dannels was simply using his law enforcement bona fides to help Rapacki network, but in response to the SWBSC meeting invite email from Dannels, Rapacki wrote: “Thank you Mark! Use the attached as you choose.”
Attached to the email was a document titled “Introductory Remarks.”
The document, written under the letterhead of “Sentinel Intelligence Services, LLC,” contained biographical information meant to introduce Lyle Rapacki, “Ph.D.” to some audience.
Rapacki did not respond to written questions from CRN regarding his involvement in this event.
Dannels' and CCSO's border-related rhetoric during this period of time was not dissimilar from the Rapacki Middle-Eastern-immigrants-as-diseased-criminals “intelligence briefing” shared with CCSO command in June 2021.
In a December 30, 2021 interview with Rapacki, Dannels stated that Cochise County was seeing a surge in undocumented border crossers from “countries of interest,” as well as aggressive “bad people” who successfully evade both his deputies and Border Patrol officers.
“They're not coming here to build the American Dream. They're coming here to exploit our country in a negative way. The national media, this administration-- to include President Biden-- continues to turn... it's willful neglect. It's orchestrated, and what they want to talk about is the children in the moms' arms-- that's what the national media wants to show the American public,” said Dannels.
“What's so sad about this, Lyle, is that it's almost like we forgot that 9/11 ever existed,” added Dannels. “The worst thing that could happen is that [we] forget 9/11-- and I'm not trying to stretch emotions or be drama on that-- but if we don't start securing our borders, I guarantee you some really bad things are going to happen, because not everybody likes the United States of America. We have those countries of interest that do not like us-- and now, what a prime opportunity to come in and harm us.”
Rapacki chimed in:
“So, I would not be theatrical or sensational if I said that in the next six months to twelve months, we may see-- it's really plausible-- we may see some really serious conflicts or clashes internally. I'm not even talking about the border right now-- let's leave that alone. […] But based on the soft intelligence I've received, that I receive weekly, we've got enough bad guys-- serious bad guys […] very serious criminals and terrorists already in this nation.”
As the interview wore on, Rapacki prompted Dannels to speak more on the perceived international terror threat.
“Lyle, you can't have more than 164 countries-- which is the last known number I had, and that was a couple of months ago-- and not be having countries of interest, countries of concern, to America, breaching our back door-- the Southwest border. We're having that, we know that,” said Dannels.
“I've had Iraqis in my county-- I'll give you a story. I've had Iraqis in my county, walking through our county. And we address them-- we seen 'em on our cameras and we address them. What they've told us is 'we're just lost.' Folks, that ain't lost-- and if you buy into that [chuckles], stand by. That is intentional. They are here for a reason-- and it is not a good reason, and that goes for all the others.”
Dannels went on to state that Mexican cartels are paid top dollar to smuggle persons from “countries of interest” into the United States.
“We know that because we debrief them, we talk to them, we gather this intel,” said Dannels.
Less than two weeks following this Rapacki/Dannels interview, during a January 11, 2022 joint meeting of CCSO and the National Sheriffs Association, CCSO Sergeant Tim Williams said that “males between the ages of 16 and 35, which I call military age males, dressed head to toe in camouflage,” were passing through Cochise County.
Williams is head of the Southeastern Arizona Border Region Enforcement (SABRE) unit. Dannels is chair of the National Sheriffs Association's Border Security Committee.
By the time the September 2022 CCSO-hosted Southwest Border Sheriffs Coalition meeting in Sierra Vista rolled around, it seemed Cochise County was under total siege by such menacing “military age males.”
“We heard from Cochise County Sheriff Mark J. Dannels and his deputies, most born in the area with decades of valuable experience in the complex terrain of southern Arizona,” wrote Chuck DeVore of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, in a piece detailing the SWBSC meeting for Fox News. “In Cochise County alone, some 300 military age men in full camouflage, most wearing booties with shag carpet soles to hide their tracks, head north daily.” [Emphasis mine-- in case you don't have a calculator handy, that comes to 109,500 camouflaged “military-age men” sneaking through Cochise County per year.]
In August 2023, CRN submitted a public record request to CCSO, seeking all records pertaining to apprehensions of undocumented border crossers from the “countries of interest” referenced by Dannels in the Rapacki interview. The records request sought all records, of any kind, in possession of CCSO pertaining, in any way, to such apprehensions that had occurred from January 1, 2019 to August 1, 2023.
In response to this public records request, CCSO public Information Officer Carol Capas told CRN that the Sheriff's Office had no responsive records. No records of “intel” derived from debriefing such apprehended persons, no records/footage of mysterious lost Iraqis. Nothing.
CRN asked Capas and Dannels which countries are the “countries of interest” referenced by Dannels in the Rapacki interview. Capas and Dannels declined to comment.
CRN submitted written questions to Capas and Dannels, asking if any persons apprehended in Cochise County from “countries of interest” had been found to be terrorists, foreign combatants, or carriers of new and exotic strains of disease. CRN also requested that CCSO provide names, dates, locations, and the names of agencies involved, pertinent to such apprehensions. Capas and Dannels did not respond.
CRN asked both Capas and Dannels whether CCSO personnel had, in fact, claimed during the September 2022 SWBC meeting that 300 “military-age men in full camouflage” were passing through Cochise County “daily.” Neither Capas or Dannels responded.
CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas and Sheriff Dannels declined to respond to requests for comment from CRN pertaining to Dannels' relationship with Rapacki.
Dannels is currently running, unopposed, for his fourth term as sheriff of Cochise County.