Whiskey Warrior 556: A Study In Swarm Behavior
BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 12 months ago
Over the weekend some very interesting things happened.
Whiskey Warrior 556 aka Alex Booth’s standoff with the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office has ended peacefully. Booth, 28, is an Afghan war veteran who served in the U.S. Army.
A sheriff’s office spokesperson confirmed to Heavy.com just before 1 a.m. on November 24 that nobody was hurt as Booth surrendered to officers. The standoff took place in the town of Mahopac, just under 60 miles north of New York City, in Westchester County.
Alexander Booth goes by Whiskey_Warrior_556 on Instagram, where he streamed parts of the Putnam County NY police standoff and posted videos and sent messages to his followers.
“The negotiators were very close many times to getting the individual to come out of the residence peacefully and the posts that were on Instagram were just inviting him,” Carmel Police Chief Michael Cazzari told NBC New York. “This is a person in crisis having mental illness and having issues and he didn’t need the people on social media telling him that his rights were being violated.”
The six-hour standoff ended about 9 p.m. on Saturday, November 23. Booth was booked at the Putnam County Correctional Facility at 12:35 a.m. on Sunday, November 24, online records show. He remained in custody Sunday afternoon.
A press release from the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office said that an officer went to the home at 2:19 p.m. on November 23 after a deputy heard what he thought was a gunshot coming from Booth’s home. Nearby homes were evacuated and back-up was called to the scene. At that stage, the sheriff’s office says that Booth became barricaded in his home.
“The officer hearing what he believed to be a gunshot come from the residence requested backup,” the press release said. “When additional officers arrived Mr. Booth was observed in the doorway acting in an agitated state before returning inside his garage apartment and barricading himself. As a safety precaution officers evacuated the neighboring houses and alerted the Putnam County Emergency Response Team and Negotiation Team.”
[ … ]
The Carmel Police Department said that Booth was subsequently arraigned on multiple charges related to incidents connected to a past domestic incident involving his wife. Booth was wanted on a felony warrant issued by Thomas Jacobellis charging him with second-degree burglary, a felony, and several misdemeanors, including criminal trespass, criminal contempt, aggravated harassment and petit larceny. Booth is not facing any charges in relation to the standoff. His arraignment was held at Carmel Town Justice Court.
The press release concludes by saying that no weapons or ammunition were seized from Booth’s home despite “false social media posts to the contrary.” Many on social media believed that Booth was a victim of the Red Flag Law in the state of New York.
It may be useful to watch this video from Mrgunsngear.
My goal isn’t to fisk what happened or why. I really couldn’t care less for the purposes of this post. Perhaps the video is correct and this had nothing to do with red flag laws. Or perhaps it did. In either case, my goal is to make a few related observations.
Most military writers and would-be military scholars talk about “swarm theory” at some point in their career to make themselves look smart. To most writers, a “swarm” is when a lot of fighters show up at once. To a bee keeper, this is nothing like the truth, and most military writers have no idea what they’re talking about.
I’m not a bee keeper, but my son is. He’s seen guard bees pull the wings off of drones and evict them to the ground where the ants eat them. Bees are relentless in their preparation for keeping the hive alive, and a drone does not gather nectar or pollen. Bee colonies are brutal.
What bees are good at, however, is subtle signals between the hive that only they understand, sometimes chemical signals, that alert the colony that something important is going down. It might be swarming behavior if the colony decides that there isn’t enough room for storage of nectar for the winter, but in any case, the entire colony acts in concert if it thinks it needs a larger or different hive. You can spend your own time on a Google or Bing search of “waggle dance.”
It’s difficult to shut this down, although there are strategies for it for a bee keeper just as there are in swarm behavior in humans. What happened in the case of Whiskey Warrior 556 and those who came to his defense is the behavior you might see in a bee colony, at least in one aspect.
Interestingly, Mrgunsngear found that his Instagram and Facebook posts were deleted, perhaps at the behest of the police involved in the incident. Social media went viral with this event, and within hours as many as a hundred people showed up at his home as a warning to the police should he be deprived of his right to keep and bear arms.
Learn from this incident. Swarm theory isn’t just for bees, and understanding how to shut this down (and how to get around defeaters) isn’t just for bees either. Swarm theory isn’t about a whole lot of anything showing up to an event or incident. It’s about communication.
On November 25, 2019 at 7:35 am, George said:
The government and the media to include the social media platforms are one in the same. Facebook, Instagram, Google, Twitter and the rest are government organizations for all intents and purposes.
We don’t know what the facts are yet but the official version of events will probably not be true.
On November 25, 2019 at 8:56 am, Mark Matis said:
Slight correction, George:
They are COMMUNIST organizations, for all intents and purposes.
I have no doubt that we’ll be able to trust the official version just as much as we can trust the report on the Vegas shootings. Or Epstein’s death…
On November 25, 2019 at 11:02 am, Fred said:
“This is a person in crisis having mental illness”
I don’t believe in the witchcraft of divination but supposing that the State does, how do police help somebody with “mental illness”? Every problem is a nail in need of a hammer? Why didn’t the State send some smooth talking, pretty shrink to his house to have a little talk and see if he is a “person in crises”? Why make up a story about hearing shots fired? That’s how I know the official story is fake. The po po should have said routine investigation. Then I would believe the story because if he did indeed have wants and warrants why make up a story about shots fired?
I don’t know anything about swarm theory. I don’t think that the men on Lexington Green were swarming like bees, I think they were acting as free men, same with Bundy Ranch, same for the 100 or so that supposedly showed here.
When swarm theory is applied to a mob of humans, what you are witnessing is a purely reactive state with NO PLAN. Living by swarm theory is a dumb plan, IMHO. The 100 in this case did the right thing, not saying that, but we should learn a deeper lesson from Solzhenitsyn. Set goals, make step by step plans to attain those goals, work toward the knowledge and resource to attain each step. We are not bees. They have a goal; you disarmed or dead or in camps. Swarm theory is not going to cut it.
Thankfully the man is still alive and thank the Lord for small victories BUT…
What did the State learn here? Go after the small fish first, the ones who have no swarm to call upon. They always go after the weak, it’s what predators do and that’s why you haven’t heard a single peep about the 10,000 plus men who have been disarmed so far since Trump first uttered: “I like taking the guns first…”
Can you imagine the uproar if he had a D after his name. I’m pretty sure the 3D chess is against YOU, and you’ve been had in yet another faze of the deep state communist takeover. “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” – Clemens. Its also a sign of evil and Judgement when objective analysis regardless of feelings or in the face of facts, is forsaken.
Random observations, YMMV.
On November 25, 2019 at 11:18 am, Fred said:
And this over at WRSA:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/in-virginia-and-elsewhere-gun-supporters-prepare-to-defy-new-laws/2019/11/23/4a95fcc2-0c86-11ea-bd9d-c628fd48b3a0_story.html
Disregard all lawyerly gobbledygook. Nobody in government at any level is your friend and the NRA must die so that gun owners can unite behind one simple word: NO!
On November 29, 2019 at 10:19 am, Mike said:
@Fred said; “I don’t know anything about swarm theory. I don’t think that the men on Lexington Green were swarming like bees, I think they were acting as free men, same with Bundy Ranch, same for the 100 or so that supposedly showed here.
When swarm theory is applied to a mob of humans, what you are witnessing is a purely reactive state with NO PLAN. Living by swarm theory is a dumb plan, IMHO. The 100 in this case did the right thing, not saying that, but we should learn a deeper lesson from Solzhenitsyn. Set goals, make step by step plans to attain those goals, work toward the knowledge and resource to attain each step. We are not bees. They have a goal; you disarmed or dead or in camps. Swarm theory is not going to cut it.”
The initial engagement on the Lexington Green on 19 April 1775 found the assembled Lexington militia outnumbered by Colonel Smith’s raiding force 700 to 70. The day long series of engagements known as the Battle of Lexington and Concord did indeed witness the swarming effect of militia units from all over New England as the alarm ws spread by express riders. Colonel Smith sent word back to Boston immediately after the Lexington shooting requesting the dispatch of Lord Percy’s 1000 strong relief forrce and he continued on to his primary objective, Concord. By the time the British innundated that town they were heavilly outnumbered by the militia arriving from all points of the compass. They were initially unmolested, (as word of the killings in Lexington had not arrived) but fighting started again when it was mistakenly believed that the British were burning the town. From that point the battle was a running engagement all the way back to Boston where the raiding force was dwindling under fire and was surrounded by increasing numbers of hostile militia with every passing minute. Percy was barely able to save what was left of Smiths column at Lexington, and the combined British force was barely able to get back into Charlestown under the guns of the Frigate Somersett and the remaining Boston Garrison. Militia units were dispatched form towns as far away as Connecticutt and Maine and by nightfall the Bristish in Boston were under siege by a force of 10,000 armed and angry American Whigs. The Essex Regiment (militia) from Cape Ann, a body of over a thousand men arrived a half hour too late to prevent the withdrawl of the British force over the Charlestown Neck to safety because its leadership had debated for some time after the alarm arrived about the moral and legal justifications of responding. General Gage had corresponded to Lord Percy years later that he had done well to get his force back to Boston intact and that if the Essex regiment had been in time to block him it would have been the end of British government in America. Percy himself was quoted at dinner that evening that he had never seen anything to match the intrepidity of the American militia.
A comparable tactical equivilent to this battle in modern times would be the Ranger/SFOD-D raid in Mogadishu in 1993.
The key here was that these men in 1775 lived in strongly bonded communities with established leadership who knew each other at the local level and had a reliable communication system. It is important to know everybody in your AO, friend and foe, so that correct judgements can be made about what is likely to be happening before commiting to any response.
On November 29, 2019 at 10:24 am, Herschel Smith said:
@Mike@Fred,
Swarm theory is all about signals. Signals can be well-crafted, well-known, and well-rehearsed and well-functioning, or they can be broken.
I am not commenting on what the case was here, just throwing it all out there to ponder SIGNALS and what that might mean for the future.
On November 29, 2019 at 11:36 am, Mike said:
@Herschel
I’m in complete agreement. The problem with this incident was that no one knew for certain who this individual was or whether or not his story was likely to be true or not. He was certainly acting strangely, (wearing his old uniform and field gear, popping in and out of the house, etc) I can see where he could very well have been playing us . On the other hand, as Fred pointed out, the Police story does not check out either, Officer heard a gunshot, yet no firearms were present or siezed. I believe there was one informed party advising on social media that this may not be the Red Flag raid that it was being portrayed to be, and he was shouted down by posters who were in no position to know better themselves. The response of a good number of people that close to NYC is encouraging, despite the wisdom of thier responding at all in this case or the competency level displayed once they were there. As you said, anyone deciding to react to future events should ensure that they are acting on good infomation in the first place, which necessitates sound intelligence collection and reliable communication with the trusted source of that intelligence.
On November 29, 2019 at 11:38 am, Fred said:
I agree with you about tactics. Hive theory IS bad strategy because it IS purely reactive, therefor defensive in nature. I stated that I agreed with the 100 who showed up, and I was not objecting to what the “rebels” did at Lexington…BUT…what are the 100 doing now about the 10,000 who have had their weapons confiscated? What is the strategy? Fact is we have none because we have no coherent set of values upon which we agree because we, as evidenced in our words and deeds, have no God worth fighting for. I’m not saying that God isn’t worth fighting for, I’m saying we don’t know Him well enough to care to fight, we see no value in our duty unto Him, if we bother to know Him at all.
I don’t think that there will be an event, or signal, that causes any backlash at all. I don’t think that any meaningful organized defense will be mounted against the communists. Just like Germany, Russia, and elsewhere I don’t think that Americans will fight back in any meaningful way. It’s just not in us. I’m not saying that there won’t be battles or even a war for control of the reins of government, but that will have zero to do with liberty, freedom, and duties unto Holy God, it will be evil vs. evil, and since evil can’t cast out evil, well, forget it, it’s the devils war and his disciples can have it.
Who are the current good guys? Please answer that question, and I will consider whether my blood and treasure is worth expending to fight with them. As of now, I’ve found none born of flesh and water for whose cause I would kill. Any fool can die for his country, and they all do. Years ago I enlisted as just such a fool. The question is; what us worth killing for?
America is under Judgement. It can not save itself from what is coming. God doesn’t need white men, America, or the West, we need Him.