Cedar City • Faced with increased scrutiny, a ham radio group that is part of Iron County’s emergency response has canceled a meeting at which they were slated to listen to the head of Oath Keepers USA.
Dennis West, lead coordinator of the Rainbow Canyons Amateur Radio Club Emergency Communications Group, which receives training and equipment from the county, informed members via email on Monday that the June 20 meeting had been scrubbed due to logistical issues.
The cancellation came the same day The Salt Lake Tribune — acting on a tip — began questioning club members and county officials about the speech invite given to Bobby Kinch, the controversial founder and president of Oath Keepers USA, who lives in the Cedar City area.
Neither West nor Kinch responded to requests for comment.
George Colson, Iron County’s emergency management director who regularly attends Rainbow Canyons meetings and coordinates closely with the group’s leaders, acknowledges knowing about Kinch’s invitation but told The Tribune it was the group’s decision.
Iron County provides an emergency trailer, radio equipment, storage space and training to Rainbow Canyons and relies on its members to assist with communications during natural disasters or major events. In the event of an emergency, Colson explained, the amateur radio operators would work for and report to him.
“In case of a large-scale disaster where … we lost our towers for any reason, I’d still be able to communicate with the world using my ham operators,” Colson said.
Asked further about the extent of his involvement with Kinch, the director balked at answering any further questions.
Shadow president and other conspiracies
Oath Keepers USA is an offshoot of Oath Keepers, which the Southern Poverty Law Center, Anti-Defamation League and other groups that track domestic terrorism have characterized as a far-right extremist, paramilitary hate group.
A retired Las Vegas police detective, Kinch started his group after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, which involved Oath Keepers and resulted in the indictment in 2022 of 11 of its members and the eventual imprisonment of its founder, Stewart Rhodes, for seditious conspiracy.
According to the Oath Keepers USA website, the off-shoot was created to carry on the spirit of the “now-defunct” original organization under new leadership. Kinch’s group maintains on the website that the Jan. 6 attack was a setup meant to entrap Oath Keepers and other patriotic Americans, undermine the election and destroy former President Donald Trump.
“Based on evidence to date, our belief is that there was no insurrection on Jan. 6th …,” Kinch’s group states. “We do feel however, there was a coup d’état perpetrated by individuals rabidly intent on assuming power and keeping it, and this was executed by [former House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi and her ilk.”
(Jacquelyn Martin | AP) People wearing hats and patches indicating they are part of Oath Keepers attend a rally at Freedom Plaza Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021, in Washington. Oath Keepers USA is an offshoot of the now-defunct organization.
Another of Oak Keepers USA’s core beliefs is that President Joe Biden may be the titular head of state, but the country is really being run by a “malevolent shadow president,” former President Barack Obama, who is calling all the shots behind the scenes.
The group’s website states it will not welcome members who advocate overthrowing the government or discriminating against anyone based on race, gender, ethnicity or creed. But as a police detective 11 years ago, Kinch posted diatribes on Facebook that many of his law enforcement colleagues viewed as racist, seditious and alarming, according to the Las Vegas Sun.
Social media meltdowns
“Let’s just get this over! Race war, Civil, Revolution? Bring it! I’m about as fed up as a man (American, Christian, White, Heterosexual) can get!” Kinch posted in 2013, according to the Las Vegas Sun.
In another entry, according to The Sun, Kinch wrote: “It’s obviously coming to a boiling point! I say “F*** IT”! I’m ready now! Sooner or later, I would say sooner than later! Thought I could make a difference, thought it would get better! See the morale [sic] fabric of this country get so trampled I wanna call it! GAME ON! I think we need a cleansing! Just me? What say you?”
Further exacerbating matters, investigators with the police department received a photo purportedly taken of Kinch at a party that showed the detective pointing a handgun at a collectible plate of Obama, which triggered an interview with Secret Service agents who later determined the detective didn’t pose “a credible threat” to the president.
After an internal investigation and months-long suspension, Kinch was eventually reinstated and returned to active duty much to the dismay of some of his colleagues. He retired in 2016 and later resurfaced in southern Utah, where he founded Oath Keepers USA.
Resurfacing and regrouping
Kinch’s problematic past evidently posed few concerns when the Rainbow Canyons radio group and Oath Keepers USA held separate meetings on the same day recently at Cedar City’s Festival Hall and Heritage Theater. Group members say West met with the Oath Keepers following their respective meetings and invited Kinch to address the radio group.
For all their differences, Rainbow Canyons ECOMM member Fred Govedich said the group and Kinch’s organization share some things in common, including radio skills and Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program training that helps volunteers with basic disaster-response skills.
He said Colson has been “supporting” Kinch’s group by helping facilitate CERT and other training, much as he would with any other individual or group. A federal program, CERT training is conducted through the county and is available to the general public.
“We are trying to be fair,” Govedich said. “The club is not endorsing [Oath Keepers USA] in any way and has no connections with them or anything like that.”
Other Rainbow Canyons members say the meeting with Kinch would have allowed them to learn more about Oath Keepers USA and how they might be able to work together to help the county in the event of a natural disaster.
“I’d just like to hear what they have to say,” group member and staunch conservative Ron Shelly said about Kinch. “I’m not anticipating becoming a member of their group any more than I am anticipating becoming a member of Black Lives Matter or Antifa.”
While that meeting did not happen as planned, retired Cedar City communications technician and club member Brad Biedermann argues Kinch should have never been invited to speak because “hate” has no place on amateur radio.
“I commend our amateur radio ECOMM group’s leadership for re-evaluating having the national leader of the Oath Keepers speak to our group,” he said. “Mr. Kinch has a legal right to speak; however, his controversial history and association with a controversial group, in my opinion, does not embrace the spirit of amateur radio ….
“Many of us watching the news can feel the fabric of our nation is being torn apart,” Biedermann continued. “I think amateur radio is a little of the glue that is holding our nation together and I am protective of my 50-plus years in this wonderful hobby.”
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