Send out a fighter jet against protesters?

If this Los Angeles Times story is true -- and it seems responsibly reported by journalists in a real newspaper -- it would seem to me it should be getting more attention:

In March of last year, California National Guard members awaited orders from Sacramento headquarters to make preparations for any civil unrest that might arise from the outbreak of the coronavirus.

 ... The air branch of the Guard was told to place an F-15C fighter jet on an alert status for a possible domestic mission, according to four Guard sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

Those sources said the order didn’t spell out the mission but, given the aircraft’s limitations, they understood it to mean the plane could be deployed to terrify and disperse protesters by flying low over them at window-rattling speeds, with its afterburners streaming columns of flames. Fighter jets have been used occasionally in that manner in combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, they said.

... They said the jet was also placed on an alert status — fueled and ready for takeoff — for possible responses to protests over the murder of George Floyd by a police officer and to any unrest sparked by the Nov. 3 presidential election.

The Times' sources, implicitly members of the Guard who were aware of the alert orders, say the directives came orally or in text messages, rather than through the usual chain of command. They thought even contemplating using an F-15C fighter jet in this way would be "illegal."

“That jet has one mission and one mission alone — to go up and shoot down other airplanes,” said retired Gen. David Bakos.

I should think so. I hope competent journalists are doing some digging into what seems an important and somewhat tangled story. Gov. Gavin is supposed to be in charge of the California Guard -- where was he in this?

H/t Atrios. He didn't know any more either ...