Residents offended by profiling in community

STAUNTON — David Beisner was back at his self-appointed post with a loaded semiautomatic rifle guarding the Armed Forces Career Center on Richmond Avenue Tuesday.

"Trust me, when these guys get adequate protection, I'm out of here," said Beisner, a former agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

Beisner is on the lookout for potential terrorists following the shooting at two military facilities where four Marines and a sailor were killed in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In particular, he said, he is looking for "Middle Eastern men, or young men driving a late model vehicle."

The Rev. Shelby Ochs Owen is offended by Beisner's comments.

"I think Mr. Beisner's response is profoundly misguided," she said. "I guess he would be looking for Jesus himself, because he is a Middle Eastern man."

Owen, the rector at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, said Beisner's actions and words "don't quell my fears, they just ramp them up."

Lumping people together based on religion, color of their skin, or culture is disrespectful, Owen said.

"Not only is it disrespectful to the individual, but the group that is being profiled," she said.

Owen said Beisner's views are not typical of those living here.

"Staunton is made up of all kinds of people, but generally speaking — that is not the image of the kind of people living in this city," she said.

She said it is important to be careful when judging people and not respond to the incident in Tennessee with "gun wielding." Owen said in this particular incident the man who shot the soldiers was of Middle Eastern descent, but he was also dealing with a mental illness.

"Hatred and violence are not the answer," she said. "That leaves us in a very bleak position. That is a primal response to fear, and we need to get beyond that primal response."

Benjamin Roe, executive director of the Heifetz International Music Institute in Staunton, said they have international students between the ages of 13 and 27 who are in the city in order to attend the institute.

"When we are looking at applications for the institute, all we care about is talent," he said. "And we care about the safety and well being of the students here."

Roe said parents want to know their children are safe when they are in Staunton, and profiling comments negatively reflect on the community.

"I can understand the spirit they are doing this out of — the public spiritedness — but I think it might be a little misguided," Roe said.

He would rather have a professional agency protecting recruiting centers than a group of armed citizens, and profiling often has deadly repercussions.

"I think we have seen cases all over the nation of the unfortunate and sometimes disastrous consequences that can emerge in our society," Roe said. "Such as the death of woman in Houston and what happened in Ferguson. It is a never-ending trail and a lot of them seem to stem from profiling over the color of someone's skin and making bad assumptions."

Beisner said this is not a time for people to be politically correct.

"We have gotten to the point so far past reality with political correctness — that's what got these kids killed down in Chattanooga," he said. "I hate to say it that way, but it is the truth. If you speak the truth anymore you are some kind of a crazy."

He says profiling is an unfortunate "truth" in today's world.

"Not just from my perspective," he said. "Everyone who drives by here and waves and honks, they are with me on this."