by Travis Mateer

It’s a bold claim, but Lowell Hochhalter is a bold man. And no, this is not a joke. There are more people than just the founder of the LifeGuard Group who apparently think a combination of training and passion makes them synonymous with being a cop.

The Montana Beer and Wine Distributors Association (MBWDA) claims that, with the help of the LifeGuard Group, they will come close to DOUBLING the police force in Montana. How will they do this? Please watch this six minute video so you can see for yourself the full context of this absurd claim.

The name given to this beer truck army activation scheme is the SENTINEL PROJECT. If that sounds exciting, it might not be too late to catch this amazing movement, led by Lowell Hochhalter, at the Chamber of Commerce’s annual banquet, which just happens to be this evening.

While thinking of a beer truck army combatting human trafficking is patently absurd, I don’t want my snarky approach to this audacious claim to undermine the serious problems with just about everything this project represents.

The full version of the video describing the Sentinel Project, which you can see here, must be watched to appreciate. What will you see? Stereotypical descriptions of trafficking victims, boxes of beer, drone shots of pretty Montana landscapes, drone shots of beer trucks driving across those landscapes, and some exploitive platforming of two victims of trafficking for promotional purposes, to name a few.

Now, I know I can be very critical, especially when there’s a supernova of context that can’t be publicly put forward yet, but there ARE some helpful tidbits from this video I’d like to highlight in the form of quotes.

Here’s Detective Guy Baker:

“If you don’t know what to look for, you could be looking right at something and you truly don’t see it for what it is, right?”

And here’s Lowell Hochhalter:

“Once you know what to look for, you’ll see it…It’s in plain sight…it’s right there.”

Yep, gentlemen. I agree.

And ladies. We of course have ladies along for this ride as well, and by the looks of the two in the picture above, I think they know how to apply makeup.

And that’s important. Not to ME, but to Lowell Hochhalter, who has an interesting quote about Jermain Charlo and makeup that I heard on the Stolen podcast, which I wrote about here. And here’s the quote:

“This isn’t my language, this is the language of a perpetrator: “she’s very marketable. Tall, slender, exotic looking, dark hair, took care of herself. Knew how to apply her makeup. Very marketable.”

There are other excerpts from the Stolen podcast that you just have to hear, but to hear it you have to go to Spotify, because it’s an exclusive Spotify product. That said, let’s try playing a few audio clips for journalistic purposes. Here you go:

Thinking in terms of “products” might be helpful for more than just Detective Guy Baker, who uses that word to describe women in the video. One might even look at the LifeGuard Group itself as a product, one that’s been HEAVILY invested in by the Gianforte Foundation for use by the AG’s office.

Behind the scenes of this post there are some ugly games being played by political forces I would assume would see opportunity here, but those forces are in total disarray and thus unable to challenge a group tied to a political party sitting on a billion dollar state surplus, especially while local discontent continues to simmer over the coming tax hikes.

To the representatives of that political power who have the position to do something, but choose to focus on other, more personal things, here is the dude you are protecting wishing death upon his enemies from the pulpit.

Thanks for reading AND watching!