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  • 2020-07-07 (xsd:date)
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  • LAPD ‘14188’ Badge Number Controversy – Truth or Fiction? (en)
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  • LAPD ‘14188’ Badge Number Controversy Claim An official Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) badge page used badge number 14188 as its example (later deleted). Rating True Like this fact check? Reporting On July 3 2020, Twitter user Hayes Davenport shared a screenshot of a purported Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) example badge web page, featuring a badge with the number 14188: Unfortunate sample badge number choice in my opinion pic.twitter.com/AWmj1Gh2rV — Hayes Davenport (@hayesdavenport) July 3, 2020 Davenport remarked Unfortunate sample badge number choice in my opinion, but did not initially explain the significance of the image further. In a subsequent tweet, Davenport linked to the page: https://t.co/J0ZkLkEYJl — Hayes Davenport (@hayesdavenport) July 3, 2020 Florida is where wokes go to die... Please enable JavaScript Florida is where wokes go to die Badge Number 14188, and 1488 as a Dogwhistle The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) includes 1488 or 14/88 in its Hate Symbols Database. A short entry about the numbers as white supremacist code explains: 1488 is a combination of two popular white supremacist numeric symbols. The first symbol is 14, which is shorthand for the 14 Words slogan: We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children. The second is 88, which stands for Heil Hitler (H being the 8th letter of the alphabet). Together, the numbers form a general endorsement of white supremacy and its beliefs. As such, they are ubiquitous within the white supremacist movement – as graffiti, in graphics and tattoos, even in screen names and e-mail addresses, such as [email protected] Some white supremacists will even price racist merchandise, such as t-shirts or compact discs, for $14.88. The symbol is most commonly written as 1488 or 14/88, but variations such as 14-88 or 8814 are also common. We referenced that source in a June 29 2020 fact-check about a Trump store commemorative baseball, which was priced at $88 : The Trump Store’s $88 Baseball A symbol with a similar history was spotted on shop.donaldjtrump.com (although without a reference to 1488 or 14/88): Is This ‘America First’ Trump 2020 Shirt Real? In September 2018, the number 1488 was spotted in a controversial Department of Health and Human Services apparent admission that it had lost track of 1,488 children (a number that was later revealed to be so wildly inaccurate as to be meaningless): 1488, huh? 1488 lost children, from the camps? 1488 of 'em, you say. 1488. I see. https://t.co/rHdPlUzoCd — Cody Johnston (@drmistercody) September 20, 2018 On February 15 2018, another reference appeared from DHS. This time, it was a fourteen-word-long title on a bizarre Department of Homeland Security memo that also bore a remarkable similarity to the neo-Nazi Fourteen Words trope that the number 14 references in such signaling. As the Anti-Defamation League pointed out: 14 Words is a reference to the most popular white supremacist slogan in the world: We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children. The slogan was coined by David Lane, a member of the white supremacist terrorist group known as The Order (Lane died in prison in 2007). The term reflects the primary white supremacist worldview in the late 20th and early 21st centuries: that unless immediate action is taken, the white race is doomed to extinction by an alleged rising tide of color purportedly controlled and manipulated by Jews. Because of its widespread popularity, white supremacists reference this slogan constantly, in its full form as well as in abbreviated versions such as 14 Words, Fourteen Words, or simply the number 14. The Fourteen Words, again, is as follows: We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children The DHS memo’s fourteen-word title read: We Must Secure The Border And Build The Wall To Make America Safe Again At the time, Twitter users questioned whether the length of the title juxtaposed with the phrase we must secure was possibly accidental: This is an actual story on an official government website with a 14-word headline starting with we must secure. This is not an accident. There are actual Nazis-who-call-themselves-Nazis at DHS. https://t.co/Q01TRRpNaI — Laurie Voss (@seldo) June 28, 2018 An example of the use of 14/88 or 1488 as code can be seen here: Who Runs ‘Journalist Excellence Worldwide’? LAPDonline.org’s ‘14188 Badge’ Page Dates Back to At Least 2006 As of July 6 2020, the link Davenport supplied led to this empty page . However, an archive of the page as it was displayed on July 3 2020 proved that the image accurately reflected the content of the page at the time of Davenport’s post: Moreover, the earliest archived version of the page we found was saved on May 8 2006: Before July 2020 brought press scrutiny, the example remained unchanged for more than a decade; it was published no later than May 2006. 14/88 or 1488 Isn’t New The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Extremist Files’ entry for white nationalist David Lane attributes the authorship of 14 words to him, and begins: A member of the terrorist group The Order, which was responsible for the 1984 assassination of Jewish radio host Alan Berg and many other crimes, Lane became even more of a movement icon after penning what rapidly became the best-known slogan of the U.S. white supremacist movement, the so-called 14 Words (We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children.). Sentenced to a total of 190 years for his crimes as a member of The Order, Lane spent his time in prison industriously pumping out racist tracts and other propaganda. After his death, a number of small memorial rallies were held in the United States and several European nations. In a section titled Background, the SPLC explains: David Lane was the Renaissance man of late 20th-century white nationalism. But the conspirator, writer, publisher, and theologian is best known on the radical right for coining the 14 Words, a very popular white supremacist slogan: We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children. Also popular is Lane’s 88 Precepts, a list of statements on what he calls natural law. (Among neo-Nazis, because H is the eighth letter of the alphabet, 88 stands for Heil Hitler.) Lane was known for big proclamations. In his first trial, he told the court: I do not recognize a government whose single aim is to exterminate my race. ... I have given all that I have and all that I am to awake the people from their sleep of death. The SPLC noted that Lane was imprisoned on charges related to the assassination of Berg in 1984. While in jail, Lane wrote many things — among them those fourteen words. In 1995, his wife created the 14 Word Press — indicating the code was well-established and in use in 2006: In prison, Lane wrote furiously, producing many articles for extremist journals with the overriding theme of racial survival. It was there that he authored the 14 Words and 88 Precepts. Always anxious to move beyond rhetoric, Lane wrote the article Strategy, in which he called for a group of white families to relocate to a remote country. There, they could breed Aryan children and take over the local political system, creating a haven where the white race could prosper. His numerous writings relentlessly targeted the Jews, Christianity, and law enforcement, which he considered the most brutal and unthinking segment of the population. To create an official outlet for his popular writings, Lane and wife Katja Lane, whom he married while in prison in 1994, established the 14 Word Press in 1995, dedicated to promotion of Lane’s racist ideology ... Katja Lane ran the 14 Word Press, along with friend Ron McVan, out of her home in St. Maries, Idaho, for several years. But in 2001, she announced that she was handing over responsibility for the press to Steve Wiegand of Micetrap Distribution, a New Jersey-based hate-music producer. The press has since gone defunct. Lane’s entry concludes: Today, the doctrines of David Lane live on, embedded in the ideology of many white supremacist groups and called up regularly by the popular hate symbol 14-88 (where 14 stands for the 14 words and 88 stands for Heil Hitler, as noted above). Summary On July 3 2020, Hayes Davenport drew attention to a LAPDonline.org page (LAPD Badge Description), and the unexplained choice of the number 14188 for the example badge. As of July 6 2020, the link provided by Davenport led to an empty page. Although appearances of the numbers 14, 88, and 1488 have escalated in recent years, the LAPDonline.org page was published no later than May 2006. At that time, the code was already common among white supremacists and white nationalists. Article Sources + 1488 The Trump Store’s $88 Baseball Is This ‘America First’ Trump 2020 Shirt Real? Federal agency says it lost track of 1,488 migrant children We Must Secure The Border And Build The Wall To Make America Safe Again Who Runs ‘Journalist Excellence Worldwide’? home / inside the lapd / history of the lapd LAPD Badge Description (14188) LAPD Badge Description (14188) David Lane Posted in Fact Checks , Viral Content Tagged 14 88 , 14 words , 1488 , 88 , david lane , dogwhistles , fourteen words origin , LAPD , LAPD badge 14188 , LAPDonline , nazis , neo-nazis , viral tweets , white supremacists (en)
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