Are the deputy that shot Hannah Fizer and Pettis County Sheriff Kevin Bond Masons? That was the question I received for a Black Lives Matter activist via Facebook this week. I looked into this personally and I must admit that I was skeptic at first, but the more I look into it the more evidence I find to support the theory. As a former member of a fraternity, I known how these type of organizations operate and I have found evidence online linking members of the Pettis County Sheriff's Office (PCSO) and Sedalia Police Department (SPD) to Masonic Granite Lodge #272. I believe that if Sheriff Kevin Bond and the shooter are Mason that would explain why Bond is protecting the shooter.
Any fraternity that is worth joining protects its own and prioritizes the needs of its members over the rest of society. People join fraternities because they want to be part of a tight knit group of like minded individuals that help each other maximize their potential. Often the pursuit of potential requires members to help other members minimize the consequences of their mistakes. When a member breaks the law and the police start asking questions the well being of the fraternity is prioritized over helping the police.
A good example of fraternity members looking out for themselves happens when a random dude is ejected from a party. Sometime it requires a group of members to beat him up and sometimes the random dude calls the cops. When the police investigate the fraternity members for assault they will be met with the president and other officers all telling the same story. That story will always make it look as if the random dude was the aggressor and the members of the fraternity were defending themselves and their property. In the end, the police weight the story of one battered and bloody guy versus over 50 witnesses against him and side with the 50 witnesses. That is one privilege of joining a fraternity. It is the privileged of knowing that if you screw up that your brothers will have your back and you will probably be just fine.
Masonic Granite Lodge #272 is a chapter of the The Grand Lodge of Missouri (http://momason.org/). The Grand Lodge of Missouri promotes itself as a group of organizations that practice freemasonry (learn more about freemasonry at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry). The Grand Lodge describes masonry as "a setting and context in which men can seek spiritual development, personal growth, self-control, and self-discovery. Rituals teach basic lessons of human duty and responsibility, duty to one's faith, country, community, family and oneself." That duty to one's community is a duty to advance the interests of their fellow masons in the community. They form partnerships that help build businesses and influence the government. Their end goal is to place themselves in the higher echelon of society. Normally freemasonry leads to good things like new businesses, more jobs, and donations that improve the community, but it also leads to friendly relations with law enforcement.
The new headquarters of the SPD features a cornerstone dedicating the building to the Grand Lodge of Missouri. Social media activity indicates that some PCSO and SPD employees might be members of Masonic Granite Lodge #272. Masonic Granite Lodge #272 posted on Facebook that they hosted a lunch honoring first responders (https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=771738476349221&id=708649679324768) saying "Thanks to everyone for helping out with lunch and honoring our 1st Responders." What do they mean by "our 1st Responders?" Do they mean that they are members of the lodge that work in law enforcement, or are they referring to them as "our" because they are first responders in their community? Either way this picture demonstrates a very friendly and close relationship with law enforcement. The lodge also hosted a dinner honoring first responders. After that dinner they posted a picture of their parking lot full of emergency vehicles (https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=771263293063406&id=708649679324768). To an objective outsider this looks like it could be a first responder fraternity or at least a fraternity that is unusually cozy with cops. Normally there is nothing wrong with hosting a dinner for people that you like, but when those people are in charge of enforcing the law it can create a conflict of interest. What happens when a member of the lodge is pulled over by a dinner guest? Will that officer enforce the law just as he normally would, or would he want to find an excuse to let him off easy? Few people can throw a banquet from a jail cell. If the officer pulling over the Mason is also a Mason, then the Mason officer would have a duty to protect his brother first and enforce the law second.
Some might say that the Masons have no written rules requiring them to let their members get away with criminal activity. They might be right about that, but that is not the end of the inquiry. Fraternities foster cronyism like few other things. Their psychology is similar to what you might find in military units, police departments, and gangs. They don't need a written rule to know that their loyalty lies with their brothers. To say otherwise would mean that the Masons are not a fraternity worth joining.
If the officers that stopped Hannah Fizer were Masons then they would have a duty to protect one another should one of them screw up and shoot her. In a situation like that between fraternity brothers they are going to do everything they can to limit the damage inflicted on their brother and the department. When people ask why they have not identified the shooter the answer could be as simple as one brother protecting another as he is obligated to do under his oath to the fraternity. This might sound a little far fetched to most people, but as a former member of different fraternity I don't think it is far fetched at all, but for it to have any traction we need to find out if Kevin Bond is a Mason, who the shooter is, and if that shooter is also a Mason.
I found a picture on the Masonic Granite Lodge #272 Facebook page featuring a number of them in ceremonial garb. One of the people in that picture looks a lot like Kevin Bond (see featured image above this article). I've shown it to some other people and they have reached the same conclusion I have. That conclusion is that this picture could easily be Kevin Bond, but when you zoom in on him it becomes too pixelated to tell for certain, but there is nothing to rule him out. Sedalia is a small town and there probably are not a lot of people that look like Kevin Bond and even fewer in a leadership position that the Masons would want.
Because of this picture and other evidence tying the PCSO and SPD to Masonic Granite Lodge #272 I think that if anyone can figure out which Masons work for PCSO we might be able to narrow down the list of possible shooters (https://copblaster.com/blast/25799/pettis-county-sheriffs-office-staff-roster-sedalia-state-police).
UPDATE: Hannah Fizer's father named deputy Jordan Schutte as his prime suspect two nights ago. Deputy Schutte is the son of Denny Schutte who per his obituary was a member of this lodge https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/22296264/denny-a_-schutte