Crazy Phelps Family Get Protected.?

Question

How does Shirley Phelps and her disgusting family get protected by local police? Do they pay for it? I've searched everywhere and can't figure it out... I hope they have to pay and its not just service offered! They picketed my friends funeral who died in Iraq... with our local police standing around them.

Answer 1

i hope so!!!

shirley n her weird smile scares the daylights out of me....i feel like shes gona kid nap me in the middle of the night n take me to her secret cult n i dont even live in the US....scary ***** lol  

Answer 2

They are being protected for 'their own good'...  They do have the right of free speech but they've carried it far beyond what anyone with good taste would have done...  Look at it this way...they do not seem to be able to 'help themselves'...and they are 'their own and their causes worst enemy'...they continually give 'Christianity' a bad name (can you imagine Jesus, the Christ, being in any of their shoes...not me)...their hatred and ignorance enables them to 'do it to themselves'...and, finally, the police aren't so much protecting 'them' as they are  protecting us from letting our disgust get the better of us...the police are doing 'US' the favour, not them...

Answer 3

The police have a duty to protect all people, not just the ones who aren't offensive.  Just like they have to protect the KKK when they protest or picket.  As long as they aren't doing anything illegal, they're due protection just like you and I.

EDIT:  And they are both lawyers, but I do know that Fred Phelps was disbarred...but I don't think Shirley was.  Although vile and disgusting in their beliefs, they are very smart cookies and are the worst case scenario of what our founding fathers created the Bill of Rights for.  And for the record, I heard that Fred is actually suffering from some sort of dementia now.(although I'm quite certain we already knew he was demented haha)

Answer 4

They need police protection??  Why, isn't their God capable of looking after them?

Answer 5

The police are there to keep the general peace, since those Phelps nutjobs are rather incendiary.  That means protecting the Phelps family from protesters AND preventing the protesters from the Phelps nutjobs getting out of control.

The police are not there as anyone's personal bodyguards.

Answer 6

I think what pays off for them is that Fred and Shirley are both lawyers (although I believe one or both of them are disbarred), and they definitely know all the "loopholes" in the design of the law to use it to their advantage.

One case in point is that they stand a certain distance from the funerals they picket, because the law apparently allows them to do that. And of course, for speaking their vile and atrocious statements, they invoke both the First and Fifth Amendments. This is a case where knowledge has been used to serve a twisted, spiteful end.

Even if they are disgusting creatures devoid of humanity, the police have a duty to protect all citizens as needed/requested, lest any harm should befall on them. They probably played that angle (people would be liable to beat them to a pulp) and since they insist on their right to freedom of speech (used most offensively), then they seem to be acting "within their rights" and the police will not be able to refuse them, in a legal sense.

That's why lawyers have the reputation they have - sleazy and willing to do and twist anything for their purposes.

Answer 7

They get police protection because so many people want to kill them. The fact that they have the nerve to picket a funeral! So disrespectful and hateful. She looks like a wicked witch in a story book doesn't she?  If I were you I'd be thinking up some ways....got any good radical buddies in the local PD? If she and her drones did that to me....I wouldn't rest until...well you know.

Answer 8

The police are there to keep order.  That's their job, regardless of how the officers may personally feel about the people they're protecting.  The Phelps family *has* to have police protection because most people are disgusted and repulsed by their beliefs and actions, and if the cops weren't there, they'd almost certainly get attacked by an angry mob, and their presence would probably start a riot.

As long as the Phelpses haven't *actually* committed any criminal acts, they're as entitled as anyone to their First Amendment right to free speech and assembly, no matter how abhorrent their speech is -- and they're as entitled as anyone else to police protection.  They're cunning enough to know just how far they can go with their "protests" and still stay within the law.