The Daily Wire reported that it got hold of a training manual from the Massachusetts Municipal Police Training Committee, and it listed the pro-parent group Moms for Liberty under the heading of "Freedom and Hate: Speech, Crimes and Groups."
Moms for Liberty was founded in 2021 in response to reopening schools after Covid and to remove sexually explicit books from schools. The purpose of the foundation is to fight for parent’s rights in their children’s school experience.
President Donald Trump even showed support to the group as he was interviewed at the 2024 Joyful Warriors National Summit by Moms of Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice.
Tina Descovich, another co-founder of Moms for Liberty, defends the organization against the hate group claim.
"When you go through both the training manual and the PowerPoint presentation, Moms for Liberty is cited and it's right after neo-Nazis and right after Antifa," says Descovich. "When you look at that, you know one of these things are not like the other, and Moms for Liberty does not belong in this training."
Descovich describes Moms for Liberty as "a group of moms that are concerned about the future of their children, the future of this country, and education" in this country.
"We are not an extremist group," she defends.
Descovich points specifically to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as cause for this terminology. The SPLC labeled Moms for Liberty as an "anti-government extremist" group in a 2022 report. Because of that, the designation was picked up by the training materials from the infamous SPLC so-called "hate map."
Randy Sutton, host of the podcast A Cop's Life, says the good news is that it's probably not in a lot of other states' training manuals.
“There is absolutely no standardization for police training in America, and this is a failing that has never been addressed on a national basis,” Sutton informs.
The reason Moms for Liberty made it into the Massachusetts handbook, he says, is because including designations like this were a priority to the Obama administration.
“Under Obama, there was a committee forum called 21st Century Policing, which began the woke industrialization of policing,” states Sutton, “There was more of an interest in standardizing, but not just training. There was talk about nationalizing the police, which, of course, is the worst idea you could possibly imagine.”
Sutton says that the former president could not complete this plan.
However, not everyone believes that this is limited to Massachusetts police training.
"I would not be surprised if they share it with another state and they pick it up. It's unacceptable, and honestly, who is to blame is the Southern Poverty Law Center," says Descovich.
She adds that Moms for Liberty will carry on with its mission, especially in Massachusetts.
"Some of the local police in Massachusetts have approached our chapter chairs, and they tell them privately 'keep going, we can't speak out publicly but you're doing great work, we have children, we're concerned about them too’," says Descovich. "So, this will not slow Moms for Liberty down."
