Earlier today, 32-year-old Michael Reed drove up onto the grounds of the Arkansas state capitol, into a granite slab, and smack dab into a new Ten Commandments monument, all while broadcasting the incident live on Facebook.
Earlier earlier today, Reed put up a GoFundMe campaign — now removed from the site, archived here — which read just ” I need a new car now #CHECKMATE.” Well, technically, he wasn’t lying.
“Frankly this guy was in a state of mind that he could very well have hurt somebody,” said Republican state Senator Jason Rapert at a news conference after the incident. Rapert was the primary backer of the controversial, privately-funded monument.
“Since i have overcome I totally get to rule over all nations and I’ll be given the bright morning star…. Emperor Michael Reed sounds good lol,” Reed wrote on Facebook a few days ago.
“This is Michael Reed, and I’m a firm believer that salvation is that we not only have faith in Jesus Christ but that we obey the commands of God…” he says in the above video, which was posted right around the time the monument was run over.
“But one thing I do not support is the violation of our Constitutional right to have the freedom that’s guarantees us separation of church and state because no one religion should the government represent. So … back at it again… so if you’re in support of this, you can talk about it using the hashtag checkmate, and also I’m using my own car that I paid for.”
Here are some videos of the incident to enjoy:
This isn’t Reed’s first rodeo. In 2014 he was arrested by the Secret Service for crashing into the Ten Commandments monument at the Oklahoma State Capitol (hey, good to find a niche and stick to it I suppose), urinating on it after he crashed into it, then running into a Federal building to complain about President Obama.
“Some idiot in my home state broke all 10 commandments at the same time. He wasn’t Moses and it wasn’t Mt. Sinai,” tweeted former Arkansas Governor and desperately trying to be relevant pot-stirrer Mike Huckabee.
As far as we can tell, Reed didn’t raise anything toward his $20k GoFundMe goal.
