I never was told the reasons for the high security at the Obama Campaign Headquarters in Coatesville.

In the early fall of 2007 I was greeted by a uniformed security guard when I walked into the Coatesville Obama Headquarters.  There were around the clock security guards posted at the Obama Campaign Headquarters in Coatesville and each staffer had some sort of personal security. I believe that the same thing happened at all the Obama Campaign Headquarters in Chester County and even some nearby counties.

I think this article sheds some light on why the Obama Campaign had high security in the Coatesville area for what was described to me as “a real threat”:

“Threats against Obama's life brought him Secret Service protection in May 2007, by far the earliest on record for a presidential candidate. At least four alleged assassination plots between June and December — by militiamen in Pennsylvania, white supremacists in Denver, skinheads in Tennessee and an active-duty Marine lance corporal at North Carolina's Camp Lejeune — led to arrests and criminal charges before Obama was even sworn in.”

From:

Locked and Loaded: The Secret World of Extreme Militias -TIME CNN

When I lived in the Collegeville, Montgomery County, PA area I learned about the alleged cross “lighting” in a new public assisted housing project. It happened after a football game at Perkiomen Valley High School in the 1990’s. At the same time the Skinhead/KKK in Upper Montgomery County were allegedly having “ceremonies” along the Perkiomen Creek and also harassing neighborhoods in Schwenksville. Some racist and extremist incidents in Northern Montgomery and Southern Berks County appeared in the press at that time.  I have since learned that the alleged “ceremonies” along the Perkiomen are still happening. I just wonder if they “light” both kinds of crosses, the Christian one and the Nazi one.

The latest publicized accounts of domestic terrorists in Chester County were in 2005. Specifically in Parkesburg, where 2 Skinhead/KKK people were successfully prosecuted by Tom Hogan, then an Assistant US Attorney. The most real threat was the pipe bombs that David Wayne Hull and Joshua Sutter built and taught others to build but they also had plans to blow up the Peach Bottom Power Plant. 

The Coatesville Police Department and in particular Coatesville Detective Martin Quinn were instrumental in the arrest and prosecution of Hull and Sutter.

See:

TUESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2010

Extremists and Coatesville

"Here in Coatesville we were forced to explore the nuances of the extreme right because they were so very deeply involved in the political climate in Coatesville."

And:

Local police receive awards

There is a book about domestic terrorists called “The Terrorist Next Door”. Here in Chester County that could be an actuality.