Category: Crime

Triangle [Virginia} man shot and killed by Dale City homeowner in self defense tied to string of armed robberies

A 20-year-old Triangle man who was fatally shot last month by a Dale City woman in what police determined was a justified act of self-defense has been connected to five recent armed robberies at area 7-Eleven stores, police said Monday.

The man, identified as Azhar Laurent Smart, 20, of Triangle, was found by police suffering a gunshot wound at 12:25 a.m. on Thursday, July 22, outside a home in the 4100 block of Hoffman Drive, a residential area off Prince William Parkway near the Sheetz gas station, according to a news release issued at the time.

Smart was shot by a resident of the home who told police he approached her while she was outside walking her dog. Police later determined that Smart was wearing a face mask and was armed with a handgun when he was shot, according to the police news release.

Smart was transported to a nearby hospital, where he died from his wounds, the release said. The Dale City resident who shot Smart was not identified and was not injured, according to police.

On Monday, Aug. 2, police said a subsequent police investigation into the handgun Smart was carrying determined it matched a firearm that was discharged during a July 16 armed robbery at the 7-Eleven on Dale Boulevard in Woodbridge.

During that robbery, the lone suspect fired a round after taking money from the store. No injuries were reported. The shell casing collected at the scene was compared to the weapon recovered at the July 22 homicide and was determined to be a match, 1st Sgt. Jonathan Perok, Prince William County police spokesman, said in an Aug. 2 news release.

Detectives have been investigating the July 16 robbery in connection to four other robberies that occurred at 7-Eleven stores in Woodbridge and Dumfries since late June involving a suspect with the same description, clothing and behaviors observed in all five incidents, Perok said in the Aug. 2 release.

The other robberies occurred at 7-Eleven stores on Fraley Boulevard in Dumfries on July 5, where a shot was also fired, and locations on Cloverdale Road on July 3, Darbydale Avenue on June 29, and Minnieville Road on June 28, Perok said.

“Detectives became increasingly concerned over the robberies escalating after the suspect was found to have discharged a handgun during the two more recent incidents. Forensic examination of the shell casing recovered on July 5 is ongoing,” Perok said.

At the time of the July 22 homicide, the deceased was wearing clothing that was also observed in the reported robberies, Perok said.

“Following the investigations into this robbery series, all known evidence indicates the deceased was responsible for all five incidents,” Perok said.

Detectives are still looking into why Smart was at that particular house on Hoffman Drive on July 22, Perok said.

Federal law-enforcement officials from Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives contributed to the investigation, Perok said.

Man Behaving Erratically Shot, Killed After Entering Pleasant Hill Home

PLEASANT HILL [California] — A man who was behaving erratically was shot and killed Tuesday evening after entering a home, according to Pleasant Hill police.

It happened at about 5:45 p.m. on Shadow Mountain Court near Camelback Road. Several 911 callers reported a suspect was vandalizing parked cars and trying to get inside homes, according to police.

Responding officers, along with the 911 dispatcher heard several gunshots and discovered a male intruder in the living room of a home suffering from a gunshot wound.

The victim was transported to John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek where he succumbed to his injuries.

Authorities have not released the suspect’s name or identified the shooter.

Police said the residents of the home, along with witnesses were cooperating with the investigation. There are no other suspects at this time.

More information may be released later.

Gun Control Isn’t Needed, Criminal Control Is

It seems lately that so many publications with the word “Christian” in the name have been on a gun control push lately. It’s kind of creepy, actually, especially since so many evangelicals identify as pro-Second Amendment.

Frankly, there’s nothing particularly Christian about gun control. Even Christ himself told his followers to arm themselves, for crying out loud. Yet we keep seeing the anti-gun narrative expressed in Christian outlets.

I mention that because, well, it’s nice to see the other side presented.

Continue reading “”

The ‘epidemic’ is not that there are committees of vigilance roaming the streets – a blatant canard since, if true, would likely reduce crime – but that there are criminal street gangs roaming the streets of major metropolitan cities, shooting up each other’s members (as well as a lot of unintended targets) with the membership demographic causing the majority of this; black men, ages 14 to 35.

The ACLU Claims the Second Amendment Is Racist, But Gun Control Has the Real Record on Systemic Oppression
To date, black Americans are more likely than any other group to suffer the adverse impacts of gun control laws.

The ACLU fired shots on Twitter last month, claiming that the Second Amendment is “racist” alongside an article and podcast episode that posed the question “Do Black People Have the Right to Bear Arms?”

The article, written by Ines Santos, claimed that gun violence in America — which she labeled an “epidemic” caused by widespread “vigilante” firearm ownership — negatively impacts black people because of racially discriminatory policing. “What is absent in the intense debates on gun rights in America is the intrinsic anti-blackness of the unequal enforcement of gun laws,” she wrote.

Santos went on to say that racism determined the Second Amendment’s inclusion in the Bill of Rights.

These are hefty charges worth examining. Let’s break down the claims made here and review the history.

Continue reading “”

Just may be me, but I detect a pattern that’s the cause of the problem.
Can you spot it too?

ABC News Launches Weeklong Special on Crime Waves in Democrat-Run Cities

ABC News is running a weeklong special which examines the crime waves engulfing Democrat-run cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and New York.

Although the information is presented as national problem, the title is “One Nation Under Fire,” ABC News’ coverage began by mentioning shootings that occurred in Milwaukee during the celebration resulting from the Milwaukee Bucks wining the NBA finals.

Milwaukee is a Democrat-run city as are a host of others that are featured as exemplars requiring new, harsh gun control restrictions.

The evidence suggests otherwise:

ABC News noted they “dug” down and discovered “violence occurs disproportionately in poorer, urban areas — from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York City.”

Moreover, in looking at the gun violence that occurred around the nation last week, they noted “Illinois…topped the list for most people wounded from firearms at 124.”

Chicago is located in Illinois, and Breitbart News reported 13 were shot Thursday of last week in Mayor Lightfoot’s Chicago, and nearly 30 people were shot on Wednesday.

ABC News also noted in Philadelphia, “the gun-related death toll has already surpassed 300 this year.”  Philadelphia is another Democrat-run city.

ABC News also covered an accidental shooting “in a dark church parking lot in Utah” on the night of July 17/18. This and similar mentions of isolated incidents allowed them to talk of gun violence without isolating the Democrat-run cities.

Little-Known California Gun Control Law A Great Big Failure

One of the lesser known California gun control laws is its Armed and Prohibited Persons system; a statewide database of known prohibited persons who are believed to still have firearms in their possession. The law, which was put on the books about twenty years ago, is supposed to allow law enforcement to go out and take guns from those who aren’t allowed to have them. As the website CalMatters reports, however, that’s not what’s happening. Instead, the law appears to be an unmitigated disaster.

But what seemed at the time like a straight-forward approach to the enforcement of existing gun laws has instead become mired in chronic shortcomings, failing for years to make good on its potential. Successive administrations have vowed to fix the problems, but all have fallen short.

Today, the state is struggling to recover thousands of guns from people who have been ordered to surrender them. At the start of the year, the list compiled by the state Department of Justice had swelled to 24,000 individuals, the most ever. The pandemic only worsened the mounting backlog of cases when some state Justice Department agents were pulled from field enforcement.

“We are lucky to have a system that tells us this information,” said Julia Weber, a former supervising attorney for the state courts’ administration who now works on gun policy issues for the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “But it’s disheartening. It’s a failure of the promise of the system.”

With all of the other failures of gun control, you’d think an anti-gun activist like Julia Weber would be used to the disappointment by now, but apparently not.

While the backlog of prohibited persons has grown to an all-time high, the failures of the system have been apparent for years. As California Rifle & Pistol Association President Chuck Michel outlined in 2019, under then-Attorney General Kamala Harris, the APPS program was plagued with issues.

Continue reading “”

Gainesville Spree Shooter Used Stolen Guns

The media tells us mass shootings are on the rise, that such shootings are happening several times a day. We just can’t keep up with all of these shootings. This, we’re told, is evidence that we need more gun control. However, what about the number of these shooters using stolen guns?

See, I ask because I wrote about a shooting in Tucson over the weekend where the shooter was a felon and couldn’t legally own a firearm. That weapon was most likely a stolen firearm bought off the black market. We don’t know for certain about that yet.

We do know about a shooting in Gainesville, Florida, though.

Shortly after five teens were shot during a party at Gainesville’s American Legion hall June 24, the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office recovered a gun used in the shooting.
It had been stolen in Alachua, yet another filched weapon to be used in the ongoing gun violence committed by teens or young adults.
“These kids can’t go into a gun dealer, put their ID on a table and say ‘I want to buy that gun.’ And felons cannot possess guns. Because of that, they have to get them illegitimately,” Gainesville Police Chief Tony Jones said. “We know several guns were used (in the American Legion shooting). They could be out on the street now.”……..…
Everytown For Gun Safety, a nonprofit gun control advocacy group, reports on its website that theft does play a sizable role. It cites several studies.
“Gun thefts often divert guns into an underground market where people with dangerous histories are easily able to obtain firearms without restriction,” Everytown states. “That is why stolen guns are often recovered at crime scenes, including at the scenes of homicides and other violent crimes.”
Gainesville attorney Robert Rush, who is representing one of the children wounded at the American Legion, said his experience shows that stolen guns are often used in crimes and often get resold or passed around to be used in other crimes — an observation backed up by police.
Rush said he has found data that a stolen gun will be used in a homicide within a year — which has been borne out in cases he has taken on.

In other words, even Everytown agrees that stolen guns represent the lion’s share of the problem. However, as I noted with the Tuscon story on Tuesday, the media uses statistics like those found at the Gun Violence Archive and presents those uncritically, as if they tell the whole story. However, many of those so-called mass shootings aren’t. They’re criminal shootings like this and they use stolen guns.

Meanwhile, some will try and use those statistics to justify more gun control when even Everytown admits that many of these firearms are stolen from lawful and law-abiding gun owners.

Remember that when the subject comes up.

The truth of the matter is that the majority of crimes are committed with firearms that were obtained illegally. That’s why so many of us are skeptical of the idea that gun control will somehow impact criminals rather than us, the law-abiding gun owners and gun buyers. After all, it never has before, so why would it now?

Even when talking about the supposed hundreds of mass shootings reported in the media, gun control didn’t stop many of those, as we can see here.

BLUF:
Gun control proponents may never admit the numerous failures under their policies. But sometimes actions speak louder than words

Cuomo’s Emergency Order on Gun Violence Reveals the Failure of Gun Control

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency over gun violence in the state.

The nation has seen a spike in crime in many places during the pandemic, but New York’s increase in violence has garnered heightened attention from viral videos of sudden sidewalk attacks, brutal subway abuse, and random gunfire in Times Square. New York’s increase in gun crimes does indeed outpace many other states. New York City experienced a 73 percent increase in shooting incidents between May of 2020 and May of 2021. In comparison, Washington DC, which also experienced a spike in gun crimes, reported a 23 percent increase during the first five months of 2021.

And yet, New York has long employed some of the strictest gun laws in the country. In the city, where most of the violence is concentrated, it is virtually impossible for anyone outside of law enforcement to obtain a gun permit—they often can’t even have them in their homes, much less on their person.

Commenting on his executive order, Cuomo said there are currently more people dying in New York by gun violence and crime than of COVID-19. “We went from one epidemic to another epidemic,” he said. “We went from Covid to the epidemic of gun violence and the fear and the death that goes along with it.”

The governor also picked up a familiar talking point that other leaders in strict gun control areas have relied on when facing rampant gun violence. He blamed neighboring states. According to Cuomo, many of the illegal guns in the state are purchased from outside of New York. “I have a vision of a border war because we wasted so much time and money in this nation fighting illegal immigration,” he said. “Illegal immigration is not killing Americans! Illegal guns are killing Americans.”

While not all of the policies under Cuomo’s new plan to combat violence focus on gun control, his executive order indicates these policies will get more than their fair share of resources.

Continue reading “”

Why Is Austin Media Refusing to Release Description of At-Large Austin Shooter? Just Kidding. You Know Why.

Early Saturday morning, a gunman shot and injured at least 19 people outside an Austin, Texas, bar. Rick Moran reported:

Sixth Street in Austin, Texas, was crowded with post-Covid revelers on Friday night when a man described as “black” with a thin build and “dreadlocks” opened fire outside a bar. At least 13 people were taken to the hospital. Of the 13 wounded, 11 were in stable condition with two critical.

On Saturday afternoon, the Austin Police Department updated its website to say that one suspect is in custody, while another is still at large. Earlier in the day, police released this description of the suspect:

The suspect(s) remains at-large. It is unknown if there is one, or multiple suspects involved. There is one suspect described as a black male, with dread locks, wearing a black shirt and a skinny build. The area will be closed for an extended amount of time to process the crime scene. Investigators are collecting and reviewing camera footage and surveillance video.

That description—black, male, dreadlocks—was not only in an official announcement by the APD, but it was all over social media as well on Saturday. But the city’s flagship newspaper, the Austin-American Statesman, is refusing to release the description of the suspect, a dangerous mass shooter who is still on the run, because—you guessed it—it would be racist to do so. The newspaper explained in an Editor’s Note appended to its main story on the shooting:

Editor’s note: Police have only released a vague description of the suspected shooter as of Saturday morning. The Austin American-Statesman is not including the description as it is too vague at this time to be useful in identifying the shooter and such publication could be harmful in perpetuating stereotypes. If more detailed information is released, we will update our reporting.

The description by police was not, by any stretch of the imagination, “vague.” The description, in fact, dramatically reduced the suspect pool in the Austin area, narrowing it down to black males wearing dreadlocks—or 50% of the 15% black population in the city, if you’re doing the math. If you’re a police officer (or a citizen who is on the lookout for an at-large criminal) wouldn’t you want to know that information? Wouldn’t you need that information to make an arrest?

Related:Black Murder Rate Soars Thanks to BLM And Lefty Politicians

And then there’s this bit from the newspaper’s report: “Police said they had zeroed in on two suspects involved in [a] previous dispute and were rapidly working to arrest them.”

In other words, the Statesman knew that the police knew who the suspects were. If police said the suspects were black, why didn’t the newspaper take the APD at its word? I’ll tell you why: the Statesman wants to perpetuate the fictional narrative that dangerous, gun-toting white supremacist rednecks are roaming the city of Austin, hunting black people.

The Statesman would have us believe that everyone in the Austin area was a potential suspect, when, in fact, the newspaper knew that not to be true. (On a related note, the same public safety issues arise when no one knows whether a suspect is a male or a female because assuming someone’s gender might result in hurt feelings.)

Austin is not alone in prioritizing the woke agenda over safety. As PJM’s Kevin Downey Jr. reported last week, San Francisco police released the picture of a suspect who lit a woman on fire on a BART train, but blurred out her face, purportedly to avoid perpetuating racial stereotypes.

Austin and other U.S. cities continue to demonstrate that they care more about being woke than protecting the public from dangerous criminals. That’s why, as PJM’s Bryan Preston has documented, police are retiring or fleeing these cities in droves and murder rates are skyrocketed all over the country.

If I were an Austonian right now I’d be putting my house on the market and getting out before it turns into another Chicago gangland.

Best Suggestion Yet Of What’s Behind Surge In Violence

The surge in violence that started last summer has kept on and has even grown worse this year. While things were nice and quiet during the lockdown, everything kicked up during the riots, and while that particular brand of violence sort of settled down eventually, the rest didn’t. It just kept on and on, spilling over into 2021.

Now, violent crime is soaring and the usual suspects are screaming about how there’s no alternative to gun control.

Except, there is. There always is.

In fact, even if gun control worked (spoiler: it doesn’t), there would still be alternatives. To find them, you have to identify what the problem actually is, though.

A recent op-ed, however, does a better job of explaining what we’re seeing than most of what I’ve seen.

DURING the fourth weekend of May this year, America experienced a surge of gun violence. CNN reported 12 mass shootings from Friday to Sunday across eight states, from New Jersey to Illinois. In response to these violent events, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said ‘certainly there is a gun problem’ in the country. Psaki’s diagnosis is incorrect; the rise in violence is due to what Heather Mac Donald has called ‘the Ferguson effect’.

A black youth, 18-year-old Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri, was  shot dead by a white police officer in 2014. This shooting led to an unsubstantiated charge of racism against the officer by everyone from the press to politicians. The ‘effect’ Mac Donald is referring to is law enforcement pulling back from proactive policing (also known as ‘broken windows policing’) to avoid being labelled racists by the court of public opinion and becoming a news story themselves. Criminals took advantage of this low police presence and have been wreaking havoc all over the country.

The Ferguson effect has also played out in George Floyd’s home city of Minneapolis. Whether or not Floyd’s arresting officer should have been charged with murder or manslaughter is debatable, but accusations of racism on the part of the police at the scene lack evidence. Nonetheless, these charges were slung and broadcast all over the media and, as a result, the Twin City is seeing a homicide rate twice what it was last year.

The author makes a good point.

Continue reading “”

This happens in California; which has the laundry list of every kind of gun control law the gun-grabbers in Washingtoon want for the rest of the country. Well, we can easily conclude that the gun control laws they say will decrease whatever, won’t, so, they want gun control for another reason. Of course we know what this is: People Control, because the old line about them wanting to do things that will wind up making it worthwhile to shoot them, just might be true.

8 killed in San Jose shooting, suspect also dead

A shooting at a rail yard in San Jose, California, early Wednesday left eight people dead, not including the suspect, who was also declared deceased after taking his own life, authorities confirmed.

The suspect was identified as Samuel Cassidy, who was an employee at the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), where the incident took place, according to authorities. No motive is known for the shooting at this time.

Santa Clara County Sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Russell Davis said several explosive devices were found inside a building at the VTA control center. A bomb squad is at the scene and there is no present danger to the community, he said.

An investigation is also underway of an arson fire at what is believed to be the nearby home of the suspect. FBI agents and the San Jose Fire Department were at the second scene. Authorities say the house caught fire before the shooting at the VTA.

In Washington, D.C., principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the White House will continue to stay in close contact with local officials in San Jose, before using the shooting as an opportunity to call for Congress to strengthen background checks.

“The White House is monitoring the situation, and our hearts go out to the victims and their families,” Jean-Pierre said. “We still don’t have all the details, but what is clear, as the president has said, is that we are suffering from an epidemic of gun violence in this country, both in mass shootings and in the lives that are being taken in daily gun violence that doesn’t make national headlines.”

Deputies responded to multiple 911 calls around 6:30 a.m. local time about an “an active shooter” situation unfolding at a VTA facility in the area of 100 W. Younger Ave. and San Pedro Street in San Jose. VTA Chair Gel Hendricks confirmed that the shooting took place outside in the yard, not inside the control center. He said service would be suspended after the incident.

“It’s just very difficult for everyone to be able try to wrap their heads around and understand what has happened,” Hendricks said at a news conference………

The VTA provides bus, light rail and other transit services throughout Santa Clara County, the largest in the Bay Area and home to Silicon Valley.

The shooting took place at a light rail facility that is next door to the sheriff’s department headquarters and across a freeway from the airport. The facility is a transit control center that stores trains and has a maintenance yard. It’s also located just two blocks from county buildings, the main jail and a courthouse.

Not a lot compared to the yammering by media and other political hacks.

What Percent Of Mass Public Shooters Are White Supremacists?

The news media and entertainment television keep pushing the notion that most mass public shootings are done by white supremacists. Who is a white supremacist is actually fairly difficult to determine because many of the classifications are based on solely whether the person visited neo-Nazis or white supremacist website.

The Government Accountability Office has a report identifying white supremacists and neo-Nazis from 2000 through 2016. There were 52 mass public shootings over that period and the GAO identifies four of them who are either white supremacists or neo-Nazis (7.69%). Over the 1998 through May 20, 2021, there were 82 mass public shootings and between 7 and 9 attacks that involved people who were white supremacists, neo-Nazis, visiting neo-Nazis or white supremacist websites, or anti-immigrants (8.5% and 10.97%). One of these racists, Patrick Wood Crusius, who did the El Paso, Texas, mass public shooting, was an environmentalist extremist. He didn’t want immigrants because he thought they would have more children, which would harm the environment.

All this isn’t too surprising given that we have pointed out that 71% of mass public shooters have no identifiable political views.

Our information for all mass public shootings between 1998 and May 20, 2021 is available here.

Mass-Public-Shooting_US_1998-2021Download

Biden Administration Is Flying Illegal Aliens to American Cities in the Middle of the Night

As the illegal immigration crisis on the U.S. southern border with Mexico continues, the Biden Administration is flying unaccompanied minors and family units to cities around the country in the middle of the night. From local WRCBtv in Tennessee:

Chattanooga’s Wilson Air Center is receiving planes carrying migrant children who are being bused to multiple southeastern cities during overnight hours.

Channel 3 obtained video of one of those planes arriving Friday, May 14 shortly before 1:30 a.m.

A second video, shared with Channel 3, shows more children arriving late Saturday night. According to the source who provided the video, a third plane carrying children arrived Friday afternoon. Flight records confirm that a fourth plane arrived early Wednesday morning, May 19.

The video obtained by Channel 3, shows children who appear to be in their early teens carrying matching bags. The children then boarded buses, which were staged on the runway. Two of the four buses seen in the video are owned by Coast to Coast Tours of East Point, Georgia.

The flights are prompting questions from lawmakers on Capitol Hill as the Department of Homeland Security continues to hide how they are dealing with a historic influx of illegal immigration.

Fort Smith shooting leaves two people dead

FORT SMITH, Ark. — Police are investigating a shooting that took place at an apartment complex in the 3500 block of S. 74th Street in Fort Smith Saturday (May 15) morning.

Officers responded to gunshots call at around 7:23 a.m. Once on scene, they found two bodies. One body was found inside the apartment and one outside. The bodies have been identified as 87-year-old Lois Hicks and 26-year-old Zachary Arnold.

Hicks was shot multiple times inside of her apartment by Arnold who was armed with a semi-automatic rifle. Arnold continued to shoot his rifle at neighboring apartments. A resident at the apartments heard the gunshots and got a hunting rifle which he used to shoot and kill Arnold.

Neighbors who witnessed the shooting say Arnold was trying to persuade people to come outside of their apartment buildings.

“He was yelling and screaming, “You guys get out here, come out here, everyone get out of this building right now,” says Janey Peugh, a resident of the apartment complex.

Another resident, Amber Lane, says Lois Hicks and Arnold live in the same building. She says Hicks and another neighbor went outside to console Arnold, but when they saw the gun, they ran back inside their apartments.

“There were two older women, both had come out. One of them had ran back in, and the other one ran back in, but she didn’t close her door, then he walked in and did what he did,” says Lane.

Neighbors say Arnold could open fire on anyone in the apartment building, so they took cover while he continued to shoot into the residences. Some say they are grateful for the one neighbor who stepped in and put an end to the shooting.

“If he didn’t do that, who knows how much worse it could have gotten,” says Lane.

The investigation is still underway and more details will be released when appropriate and at the end of the investigation.

Dixie Property Management released the following statement:

“We are terribly saddened by the incident which happened this morning. We are working diligently with the police in any way we can. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families today.”.

11 days after Kamala Harris says that ‘Only the government should have assault weapons’, an Army trainee hijacks an elementary school bus full of children…….

The 23-year-old suspect was taken into custody.

A Fort Jackson trainee is in custody after allegedly hijacking a South Carolina elementary school bus with 18 children on board while carrying a rifle, authorities said.

The Forest Lake Elementary students and the bus driver are safe, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said at a news conference.

The 23-year-old trainee’s weapon did not have ammunition, Fort Jackson Commander Brig. Gen. Milford H. Beagle Jr. said at a news conference, adding that the children and driver could not have known that.

Lott called this “one of the scariest calls that we could get in law enforcement.”

The incident began around 7 a.m. Thursday when the suspect allegedly hopped a barbed wire fence and fled Fort Jackson, according to Lott and Beagle.

The children had boarded the bus when the armed suspect, Jovan Collazo, got on and allegedly “told the bus driver he didn’t want to hurt him, but he wanted him to drive him to the next town,” Lott said.

The sheriff’s office released surveillance video from inside the school bus showing the suspect pointing a rifle at the bus driver and telling him to drive.

The bus driver started driving and Collazo brought the children to the front of the bus, Lott said.

“The kids started asking lots of questions to the suspect if he was going to hurt them or the bus driver,” Lott said.

“The suspect got a little frustrated,” Lott said, and the driver pulled over.

After six minutes on board with Collazo, the children and the bus driver got off safely, Lott said.

The suspect then drove the bus for a few miles before abandoning it, leaving the rifle inside, Lott said.

Collazo was spotted by deputies and civilians and was arrested without incident, Lott said. He faces charges including kidnapping, Lott said.

Beagle described the trainee, believed to be in his third week at Fort Jackson, as a quiet 23-year-old from New Jersey. He said it appeared the trainee was trying to get home.

“There is nothing that leads us to believe in his counseling, in his screening records coming in, that this had anything to do with harming others, harming himself or anything that links to any type of nefarious activity,” Beagle said. “We do experience several soldiers that over the course of initial stages have that desire, that anxiety, and due to separation from their families, to get home. We think that was truly his intent and nothing beyond that.”

Richland County School Board Chairman James Manning said, “I’ve been on the board now for over 10 years and I have never received a call that scared me as much as the call that I received this morning — that a bus had been hijacked with our students and staff.”

The students were taken to school “where they received support from school employees and counselors and were reunited with their parents/guardians,” the school district said.

Superintendent Baron Davis said in a statement, “Once we were certain all students were accounted for and physically safe, we immediately began deploying social and emotional counseling resources to the school so that our students could begin the process of healing as they are dealing with a traumatic event. We will continue to provide counseling services for the students and their families, our bus driver and employees as long as necessary.”

Lott praised the bus driver who he said “kept his cool” and “kept the situation calm.”

“His main concern was the safety of those kids and he did his job,” Lott said.

MS-13, other gang members exploit migrant wave to cross into US

Members of MS-13 and other gangs are slipping across the southern border, hidden in the waves of thousands of Mexican and Central American migrants who continue to surge into the US.

Border Patrol officials detained five gang members in the last week near frontier crossings at Laredo, TX., said US Border Patrol Agent Chief Matthew Hudak in a tweet Friday.

“They attempt to evade arrest by exploiting the influx of migrants attempting to enter our country,” Hudak tweeted.

Among those caught was a member of MS-13 and two 18th Street gang members, he said.

Both gangs are extremely violent and have origins among Central American immigrant communities in Los Angeles. MS-13, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, tried to establish an east coast stronghold on Long Island, responsible for dozens of murders in Suffolk County beginning in 2016. After an intense crackdown, Suffolk County authorities said they had practically eradicated the gang in the region two years ago.

Continue reading “”

Well, BLM is a Marxist/Communist led revolutionary organization, and their old axiom is that ‘you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet’. Murder to them is just one facet of the deal.

Murder rates soar dramatically in cities after BLM protests with up to 6,000 extra deaths nationwide — massively outweighing the decline in police shootings, researcher finds.

A researcher has found that cities that had Black Lives Matter protests saw a significant decrease in police homicides, but a huge overall increase in murders.

Travis Campbell, an economics PhD candidate at the University of Massachusetts, published his findings in a recent pre-print study ⇐link to paper] examining the impact of BLM protests on police use-of-force incidents.

His analysis, which is still undergoing peer-review, found that cities with BLM protests had 15 to 20 percent fewer police homicides than expected if the protests had not taken place, equating to 300 fewer police killings nationwide over five years.

But, in a revised unpublished version shared with DailyMail.com, Campbell finds that cities with BLM protests also saw a 10 percent increase in murders overall, equaling 1,000 to 6,000 additional murders nationwide.

Continue reading “”

Stephen Broderick is a former Travis County, Texas SD  detective.

 

The shooter’s identity has been made public now.

Brandon Scott Hole Identified as Suspect in Mass Shooting at Indianapolis FedEx Facility

Authorities have identified 19-year-old Brandon Scott Hole as the suspected gunman who opened fire at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis on Thursday, killing eight people and wounding several others before taking his own life.

Two law enforcement officials briefed on the matter provided the identity to the Associated Press on Friday afternoon.

FedEx mass shooter was reportedly ‘known’ to authorities

The gunman in the FedEx shooting spree was previously known to federal and local authorities — and had been flagged up to law enforcement by a concerned family member before the deadly attack, according to a report Friday.

The suspect, who committed suicide after killing eight at the Indiana facility Thursday night, has not been publicly identified by police. But CNN reporter Ana Cabrera said he’s no stranger to law enforcement.

“Authorities were warned about FedEx suspect’s potential for violence in the past, sources say,” Cabrera tweeted. “The suspect in the Indianapolis mass shooting was known to federal and local authorities prior to the attack.”

Citing three law enforcement sources, Cabrera added that a relative reached out to authorities to warn them of the gunman’s “potential for violence.” It is not clear when the warning was issued.

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Deputy Chief Craig McCartt said earlier in the day that investigators “have an idea” who the shooter is but declined to elaborate.

He said the killer died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound as police closed in.

And in other news:

Police shoot man firing indiscriminately at people outside San Antonio airport

Police shot and killed an individual who began firing indiscriminately at people outside San Antonio International Airport in Texas on Thursday, police said.

The person, described as being in his 40s, drove up to Terminal B at about 2:30 p.m. local time and was confronted by a police officer, who had been warned of the vehicle driving the wrong way into the terminal. When confronted by the officer, the man got out of the car and started shooting wildly at the officer, the terminal and behind him, according to San Antonio Police Chief William McManus.

He was shot by police and was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said.

One bystander was injured by shrapnel and another was injured as people fled from the area, police said. Neither injury was considered serious. No officers were injured.

Continue reading “”