Category: Crime

Remember all the “Stop Asian Hate” posturing? That went away when people started pointing out where the violence was coming from.

No prison time for black man who set Asian Berkeley students on fire with homemade blowtorch

Prosecutor funded by George Soros gets criminal sent to ‘diversion program.’

A black man found guilty of setting two Asian University of California Berkeley students on fire will face no jail time as part of a plea deal with a prosecutor who ran on an agenda of ending “mass incarceration.”

Brandon McGlone “was found guilty of lighting UC Berkeley students on fire at a boba shop near the Cal campus in 2020 has been released from custody without prison time or probation after agreeing to participate in a diversion program for veterans,” according to The Berkeley Scanner, which reviewed the court records.

But he reached a plea deal with the Alameda County District Attorney’s office, which is run by Pamela Price, who “has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the progressive billionaire George Soros,” according to The Washington Free Beacon.

The two students were not the first victims of McGlone, who earlier in the day had said he “wanted to light someone on fire” and then proceeded to carry out his wishes.

He first chased one man down the street and tried to light him on fire after spraying him with WD-40. “Another man also ran from McGlone to escape being set on fire after being sprayed with a liquid while waiting in line at Taco Bell Cantina, according to testimony,” the Berkeley Scanner reported.

The paper further reported:

McGlone’s next stop was Feng Cha Tea House, at 2528 Durant Ave., where he found students waiting in line to order food and drinks.

He sprayed two of them with WD-40 and used a lighter to ignite the gas, creating a massive fireball, witnesses said.

The students managed to pat out the flames and escape injury. Members of their group then confronted McGlone and fought with him in the street.

During the fight, according to testimony, McGlone first pulled out a knife and then pulled out a hatchet.

Student senators also cited the incident in 2020 when it passed a resolution that called for mandatory xenophobia training.

Nashville Coverup Escalates: Tennessee’s Governor Must Cancel Special Session.

I was doing my usual Thursday morning stint on Tennessee Star Report radio, when host Michael Patrick Leahy read aloud the latest news from the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) regarding the ongoing controversy concerning the dreadful slayings of six people, three of them 9-year-olds, at the Covenant School that has become something of a national scandal.

The Epoch Times’ Chase Smith has done an admirable job of reporting the content of the police statement, although suffice it to say that Leahy and I both were stunned at the extent of what appeared to us as an enduring and expanding coverup.

The most important parts of the claims by MNPD Assistant Chief Mike Hagar were that the investigation of the fatal shootings by Audrey Hale is still an “active, ongoing criminal investigation and an open matter” that wouldn’t be concluded for “12 months.”

This, although the sole perpetrator, Audrey Hale, is herself dead, shot in the midst of her heinous crimes on March 27, approaching two months ago. (I “misgender” her as “she,” although Hale identified and dressed as a male. Call me old fashioned, but unlike a certain new Supreme Court justice, I understand our sexes to have been determined for the 300,000 years of homo sapiens, and probably before, by the number of immutable X and Y chromosomes in the 30 trillion to 40 trillion cells in our bodies.)

As for the 12 months, in government speak that often expands to 24 or even 36 months and, most likely of all—in the grand tradition of the FBI, which may be calling the shots here anyway—to never.

Meanwhile, without public access to the “manifesto” and other documents, not to mention the most important of all, the toxicology report (I will explain), Gov. Bill Lee will convene a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly on Aug. 21 to, in the official word of TN.gov., “strengthen public safety and preserve constitutional rights.”

Covers its bases, no? Sounds good. But what’s really behind this is an attempt to push through Lee’s version of a so-called red flag law and probably some form of gun control, both of which most of those who voted for him would never subscribe to, and neither of which have ever been shown to be effective.

Indeed, with gun control, as in Chicago, it’s arguably the reverse. The more control, the more corpses.

Continue reading “”

The school wants to protect personnel and building info reported to be in it, so, okay redact stuff like that.

Nashville school tries to block shooter’s manifesto. Why?

The Covenant School in Nashville was the site of a horrific atrocity. That’s not even a matter of debate. Anyone who tries to claim it wasn’t is too delusional to waste your time on. We might have different takes on what happened, but we know and agree that it did.

What we also know is that the killer wrote a manifesto outlining what they planned and why. The public has been clamoring for it. We want to see inside the mind of a mass killer and see if we can figure out what makes people do these kinds of things.

The school, however, is trying to block the release.

Over the weekend, the Covenant Presbyterian Church and associated Covenant School filed a motion to block the public release of the manifesto of the transgender shooter who attacked the school, court documents revealed…

Monday court filings revealed that the Covenant Church requested that the court prevent the documents from being released to the public, citing privacy concerns.

The motion, filed against the Tennessee Firearms Association, and another filed against the Nashville Police Association stated that the manifesto “may include and/or relate to information owned by Covenant Church,” such as “schematics of church facilities and confidential information” regarding employees.

The church claimed the manifesto’s release could “impair or impede its ability to protect its interests and the privacy of its employees.”

A judge is scheduled to hear the church’s motion on Thursday.

I’m one of those who have wanted to read the manifesto. While many of us have suspicions as to the killer’s motives, I want to see for myself what the killer said. I want to know what was going on in that sick and twisted excuse for a mind.

So part of me hopes the manifesto is released.

However, the school in question has concerns, and I can’t dismiss them out of hand. After all, could this manifesto be used as a blueprint for Nashville Part 2? Could this reveal information that would be bad for the students and staff?

Then there’s what isn’t said, which is why another part of me hopes we don’t see the manifesto. That’s the part familiar with the idea of social contagion.

Basically, the premise is that the more we cover these kinds of things, the more they happen. It’s similar to when we see a rash of suicides anywhere. The first one happens, then the coverage and discussion plants the idea in other minds and you see more and more.

There’s a good chance that social contagion accounts for much of what we’ve seen over the last few years.

Releasing the manifesto would increase the coverage of Nashville, thus potentially leading to still more mass shootings elsewhere. Even if Nashville never sees another, there could be actual ramifications for releasing the manifesto that will cost lives.

That said, is there a middle ground?

For example, ignoring the whole social contagion thing–which may or may not be an issue–could a redacted manifesto be released to the public? Remove anything related to security or any mention of specific people related to the school and release the rest so as to alleviate security and privacy concerns, but still share the motivations of this demented monster.

Then we all get something out of this.

I honestly don’t know what the answer is. I just know that we need to figure something out and do it soon.

Teenage gunman, three elderly victims ID’d in New Mexico mass shooting

Three elderly women — including a 97-year-old mother and her daughter — were identified by police Tuesday as the victims killed at the hands of New Mexico teenage gunman Beau Wilson.

The 18-year-old — armed with three guns — fired indiscriminately as he walked through a quarter-mile stretch of the city of Farmington Monday morning, killing Gwendolyn Schofield, her 73-year-old daughter, Melody Ivie, and 79-year-old Shirley Voita, cops said.

Six others, including two police officers, were injured in the shooting before cops killed Wilson.

Police believe the violence was “purely random” and that Wilson did not know any of his victims.

“The amount of violence and brutality that these people faced is unconscionable to me,” Farmington Deputy Police Chief Kyle Dowdy said at a press conference.

“I don’t care what age you are, I don’t care what else is going on in your life, to kill three innocent elderly women that were just absolutely in no position to defend themselves is always going to be a tragedy.”

Officers are still working to determine a motive for Wilson’s mass murder in his own neighborhood near the Four Corners — where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado meet.

Dowdy said the rampage started at 10:56 a.m. and the threat was neutralized just 10 minutes later.

The Farmington High School student sprayed at least 150 bullets, though officers expect the number of casings discovered to rise dramatically as the investigation continues.

Video footage showed Wilson, dressed in black, pacing around the church driveway holding what appeared to be a handgun with an extended, high-capacity magazine before he was killed.

Shirley Voita, Gwendolyn Schofield and Melody Ivie were killed in the

Wilson used three guns during the rampage — one “assault-style rifle” that he legally purchased in November shortly after his 18th birthday and two other guns that belonged to family members.

Though multiple homes were struck by bullets, Wilson was targeting vehicles — all the victims, other than the two injured officers, were struck while driving through the area. Farmington officer Rachel Discenza delivered the fatal shot to Wilson, who exchanged a bullet simultaneously.

Police are still working to uncover a motive, but said Wilson did not know any of his victims.Jon Austria/Albuquerque Journal via Shutterstock

The teenager had a history of minor infractions, Dowdy said, but nothing that “would rise on our radar.” Officers also believe Wilson was suffering from some type of mental health issues.

The shooting is still under investigation, and police expect to continue releasing information and body camera footage in the following days.

Some people have been saying this for years.

Robert F. Kennedy: It Looks Like Almost Every Mass Shooter Is On SSRI Drugs.

The whole show

No need to guess

13-year-old ‘hardened criminal’ on probation shoots cop during gun battle

A 13-year-old boy described by authorities as a “hardened criminal” with “no regard for life” shot a police officer during a foot chase in Florida — and was wounded in the exchange of fire.

The gun battle unfolded after 5 p.m. Wednesday in the city of Lakeland as police officer Jamie Smith, formerly of the NYPD, was responding to a 911 call reporting a drive-by shooting a couple of blocks from Simpson Park.

Smith spotted the white Dodge Avenger mentioned on the call and pursued it in his patrol vehicle until the car stopped and three teens jumped out and took off running.

One of the suspects was seen brandishing a gun, Lakeland Police Chief Sam Taylor said during a press conference.

Continue reading “”

Federal judge upholds constitutionality of law against possessing guns without serial numbers
Judge William Martínez agreed that guns lacking serial numbers are not ‘typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes’

Although a major U.S. Supreme Court decision last year made it easier to strike down gun safety regulations as unconstitutional, a federal judge agreed on Monday that a law banning the possession of guns that lack serial numbers does not run afoul of the Second Amendment.

Within months of his indictment for possessing a firearm with an “obliterated” serial number in Denver, Jonathan Avila moved for dismissal of the criminal charge, arguing the law violated his constitutional right to bear arms.

But in a May 8 order, U.S. District Court Senior Judge William J. Martínez disagreed, noting the Supreme Court has interpreted the Second Amendment as protecting the right to own weapons for the lawful purpose of self-defense.

“Reason and the experience of law enforcement counsel is that obliterating a firearm’s serial number serves another purpose: making the identity of a person who possesses a particular firearm more difficult to determine,” Martínez wrote. “This feature makes firearms with obliterated serial numbers useful for criminal activity.”

Consequently, he determined guns lacking serial numbers are not within the Second Amendment’s protection.

Martínez is one of many federal judges who have had to grapple with the fallout from the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. The court’s conservative majority voided New York’s licensing regime for the public carry of weapons, but also laid down a new legal framework for analyzing the constitutionality of gun regulations broadly.

The government, when defending the constitutionality of a firearm law, “must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” wrote Justice Clarence Thomas for the majority.

He added that if a law addresses a “general societal problem that has persisted since the 18th century,” the lack of a regulation from the 1700s comparable to a modern restriction is “relevant evidence” that current policies are unconstitutional.

Continue reading “”

Massaging The Shooter Narrative

I was actually looking for some different information last night when I came across this article, but after scanning it quickly for what I WAS looking for, I had to save it for a chance to Fisk it later on.

The link goes to a New Orleans TV station WDSU, but the piece is identified in several places as straight out of the Associated Press feed, so I’m not going to crack on the station for this. They are merely the presentation vehicle.

The article is titled “Recent high-profile mass shootings in the United States” and what stopped me in my tracks wasn’t so much the litany of horror. That tears your heart out no matter when or where it happens or to whom or how.

No, what made me pause in the midst of that carnage was the verbiage. There’s a deliberate pattern in the recitation of evil that you can’t avoid, and it makes the underlying intent of the “reporting” all the more suspect for the very obviousness of what’s said and what isn’t.

Multiple innocent lives are gone – all taken by another human being (or beings) in every single case in this supposedly dispassionate register of tragedies. It’s what’s missing that gives one reason to carefully reread and see if you’ve missed something.

I’ll assure you now – you haven’t.

Continue reading “”

The Data and the Silence

A media pretty incurious as to the motives and manifesto of the Nashville shooter have rushed past the Atlanta shooter, who did not use an AR-15 and was black, so that the media can focus on the Hispanic shooter in Texas who loved Nazis. We’re back to white supremacy as the angle with an AR-15.

They never did go back to the motives and story of the 32 people shot at the birthday party in Alabama. We’re going to spend days on the Texas shooter, though. Though Hispanic, we learned there are white and black Hispanics after George Zimmerman. The intersectional dynamics are going to be thoroughly exhausted and explored.

Meanwhile, back in Atlanta, the shooter’s mother said the shooter struggled with mental health, and the VA system forced the shooter off medicine that worked for him and onto another one that did not because the one that worked was addictive. People died. We had to rush to the gun control conversation and moved on so quickly that we could not pause and question the VA.

It’s like the other current in “gun control” stories we often move past quickly. I asked ChatGPT a question about that issue we are required to ignore and ChatGPT even danced around it. Here’s the exchange:

Continue reading “”

James Comer and Chuck Grassley have just released a statement claiming the FBI has proof showing then-Vice President Joe Biden committed bribery in exchange for policy decisions with a foreign national.

Image

FBI Record Allegedly Reveals Biden Was Engaged In Criminal Bribery Scheme With Foreign National

In a new development, an unclassified whistleblower disclosure received by the United States Congress has revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation possesses a record allegedly linking former Vice President Joe Biden to a criminal bribery scheme with a foreign national.

In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland, the whistleblower documents describe the alleged scheme in detail, including the exchange of money for policy decisions.

Senator Chuck Grassley and Representative James Comer, in a joint statement, said that “The DOJ and the FBI appear to have valuable, verifiable information that you have failed to disclose to the American people. Therefore, Congress will proceed to conduct an independent and objective review of this matter, free from those agencies’ influence.”

The scheme suggests as Vice President, Biden abused his position for personal gain. “Transparency brings accountability,” the letter finished.

Suspect In Texas Massacre Arrested After Days-Long Manhunt

Law enforcement agents arrested a person believed to be responsible for killing five of his neighbors with a rifle in their Texas home. A person believed to be Francisco Oropesa, 38, was apprehended in Cut and Shoot, Texas, according to multiple reports.

Oropesa is and illegal alien who has been deported multiple times.

Officials said they’re awaiting fingerprints to confirm the person arrested is Oropesa, who has been taken to the Montgomery County Jail and charged with first-degree murder.

The FBI, and others, had offered a $80,000 reward for information. It was unclear if the apprehension was based off a tip form the public.

The incident occurred four days ago when Oropesa went to the Trails End area home in Cleveland, approximately 45 miles north of Houston, and opened fire, according to the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office.

Oropesa allegedly opened fire on neighbors after one complained that shots coming from his adjacent property were keeping an infant from sleeping.

 

But, of course, we knew this

Democrat Cities Have Biggest Homicide Rate Problem, Study Finds

The Democratic Party aggressively promoted the idea of ‘defunding the police’ after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officer in 2020, which was supposed to improve public safety. A few years later, a new study found the homicide rate in Democrat cities is on the rise and a sign progressive policies are failing.

In a study published by WalletHub, researchers found “homicide rates have risen by an average of roughly 10% in 45 of the most populated U.S. cities between Q1 2021 and Q1 2023, and are still rising.”

The cities with the biggest homicide rate problems include Memphis, Tennesse; New Orleans, Louisiana; Richmond, Virginia; Washington, DC; and Detroit, Michigan. Democrat mayors lead all five cities.

Continue reading “”

Hackers Are Breaking Into ATT Email Accounts to Steal Cryptocurrency.

Unknown hackers are breaking into the accounts of people who have AT&T email addresses, and using that access to then hack into the victim’s cryptocurrency exchange’s accounts and steal their crypto, TechCrunch has learned.

At the beginning of the month, an anonymous source told TechCrunch that a gang of cybercriminals have found a way to hack into the email addresses of anyone who has an att.net, sbcglobal.net, bellsouth.net and other AT&T email addresses.

According to the tipster, the hackers are able to do that because they have access to a part of AT&T’s internal network, which allows them to create mail keys for any user. Mail keys are unique credentials that AT&T email users can use to log into their accounts using email apps such as Thunderbird or Outlook, but without having to use their passwords.

With a target’s mail key, the hackers can use an email app to log into the target’s account and start resetting passwords for more lucrative services, such as cryptocurrency exchanges. At that point it’s game over for the victim, as the hackers can then reset the victim’s Coinbase or Gemini account password via email.

Continue reading “”

Guns and Control: A Nonpartisan Guide to Understanding Mass Public Shootings, Gun Accidents, Crime, Public Carry, Suicides, Defensive Use, and More

A Nonpartisan guide that arms both sides of the gun control debate.

The slogan of the Gun Facts Project is “We are neither pro-gun nor anti-gun. We are pro-math and anti-BS.” From project creator Guy Smith comes Guns and Control: A Nonpartisan Guide to Mass Public Shootings, Gun Accidents, Crime, Public Carry, Suicides, Defensive Use, and More. 

No matter what side of the aisle one is on, people are baffled by gun control. This book is designed to be a guide to thoughtful discussion; it arms readers with facts and the logic behind conflicting arguments and leaves emotional rhetoric to the pundits and focuses on the thorny issues of the debate.
Guns and Control will:

• Guide readers step-wise through each of the major gun control topics: mass public shootings, assault weapons, street crime, suicide, private carry, defensive gun use, gun availability, and more.
• Help readers gain the broad perspective and the full set of important, true facts, just in time for the 2020 Presidential Election.
• Arm readers against some of the more egregious misinformation.
• Support readers in formulating their own conclusions.

Guns and Control will grant high-level perspectives—for example, that mass public shootings are a global phenomenon, occurring in nearly all developed nations—and explore details to understand the causes, and thus possible cures, of gun violence-related problems. Was the push for de-institutionalization in mental health management a contributing factor to the rise in mass public shootings? Guns and Control will help readers find answers to such questions. What the public lacks is a clear, unbiased, broad perspective on the realities of guns, explained in simple, straightforward, and entertaining ways. Guns and Control will demystify these misunderstood aspects of who uses and misuses guns.

Man killed in a deputy-involved shooting in Greene County, Mo.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) -A man is dead after a shooting involving Greene County Sheriff’s Deputies Friday morning. The deputies were called to a convenience store in the 5000 block of West Sunshine west of the Springfield city limits at 8:13 a.m. after a clerk identified a woman involved in a previous theft.

The woman ran across the road to an abandoned house. The deputies went to check the house and encountered the woman. She came out at 8:35 a.m. and was taken into custody.

The deputies then found a man who was holding a gun to his head. Sheriff Jim Arnott said the man told deputies “to shoot me, I’m not going back.” The deputies shot the man after he lunged at them. Arnott said the deputies administered first aid, but the man died.

Arnott said it is not known if the man shot at deputies. The sheriff’s critical investigative team which consists of the Christian, Greene, Lawrence and Webster County Sheriff’s Offices is now investigating. The two deputies are on administrative leave which is standard protocol when they are involved in a shooting.

“The deputies are obviously upset, shaken but they are not wounded. The sad news is they had to take a life,” said Arnott.

Arnott said a nearby neighbor stopped and said they had items stolen and the neighbor believes those items are inside the house. “I would assume that we will recover some stolen property,” said Arnott.

The names of the man and the woman haven’t been released.

BREAKING: Another Would-Be Trans Mass Shooter Arrested

William Whitworth, a 19-year-old male who claims to be female and goes by the name “Lilly,” has been arrested in Colorado Springs, Colo., after threatening various local schools. Whitworth has been charged with two counts of criminal attempt to commit murder in the first degree, as well as criminal mischief, menacing, and more. His case, following so soon after Audrey Hale, a woman claiming to be male, murdered six people at a Christian school in Nashville, once again raises the question: wouldn’t we be better off treating this “transgender” business as mental illness rather than coddling and celebrating people who suffer from these delusions?

KRDO in Colorado Springs reported Thursday that Whitworth made “threats involving schools in Colorado Springs Academy District 20.” This was where he himself went to school between 2014 and 2016; KRDO adds that “they attended both in-person and the district’s Homeschool Academy.” Whitworth did not have an accomplice; KRDO is referring to him as “they” because Whitworth himself apparently prefers to be referred to in the plural; after all, the demons said long ago, “My name is Legion, for we are many” (Mark 5:9). Curiously, however, KRDO begins referring to Whitworth as “she” and “her” later on in its report.

It is a peculiar manifestation of the madness of our age that even as a mentally ill individual plots to act upon his mental illness by murdering people, those who report on this fact still treat his mental illness as if it were perfectly normal and even torture the English language in order to accommodate it. Apparently, no one at KRDO had the vision or wisdom or simple guts to say, “Hey, this trans kid was just planning to kill people, maybe we shouldn’t coddle him and pretend that he’s in his right mind by referring to him according to the pronouns of his delusion and fantasy.” No one would have dared.

Nevertheless, all was clearly not sane or well at the Whitworth household. Police were first called out to visit the Whitworths last Friday, when they received reports that the sister of the reporting party had “threatened to shoot up a school,” had “anger issues,” and had spoken the day before about “school shooting.” When deputies arrived at the house, according to their report, “someone at the door” told them that “someone inside” was “very upset and punched holes inside the walls,” but nonetheless initially refused to let them in. Eventually, they were let in, however, and found “two holes that appeared to be punch marks in the wall,” as well as a door off its hinges. In a bedroom, they encountered the reporting party’s “sister.” It was “Lilly,” that is, William Whitworth.

When the deputies asked Whitworth if he was planning to shoot up a school, he nodded. When they asked him why he would do such a thing, Whitworth replied: “Why does anyone do it?” He was then asked if he planned this massacre at Timberview Middle School, which he had attended, and he nodded again. Asked why he picked that school, he mumbled: “No specific reason.” He added that he also planned shootings at local churches.

The deputies eventually found Whitworth’s manifesto, which he himself dismissed as “schizophrenic rants.” Asked if he was schizophrenic, he answered: “I hope not.” Well, it may not be that, Whitworth, but it’s something, and all the people who told you that “transgender people” were beautiful and courageous and stunning and brave and not at all mentally ill share responsibility for bringing you to this point.

Authorities also found floor plans of the school and directions for how to build a detonation device. They also found a copy of The Communist Manifesto (well, well, well), a list of weapons and 3D printer instructions, hit lists, and a list of various public figures, including conservative YouTuber Lauren Southern, whom Whitworth described as “Pathetic,” and Donald Trump, whom Whitworth dismissed as a “Con-mam” (sic). “Bad cops,” said Whitworth, were “useless garbage.”

William “Lilly” Whitworth, in sum, is yet another Leftist “trans” would-be mass murderer in a society whose leaders steadfastly ignore the existence of such people and blame their victims. Old Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, and the rest are virtually certain to ignore Whitworth as well since he doesn’t fit their narrative about how “white supremacists” constitute the greatest terror threat the nation faces today. Or if they pay any attention to him at all, it will be to affirm their solidarity with the “transgender community” and scold patriotic Americans once again for daring not to believe that men can become women. William Whitworth isn’t the only mentally ill person in this scenario.

Shootings in Seattle’s Capitol Hill Neighborhood in First Months of 2023 Exceed 2022 Total

Barely four months into 2023, a shooting that injured a 9-year-old boy and killed a Seattle community advocate marks a multi-year high of shooting cases in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, the location of the deadly 2020 “autonomous zone.”

Victoria Beach, a lifelong resident of Capitol Hill, as well as chair of the Seattle Police Department African American Community Advisory Council, told KOMO News that she traces the increase in shootings back to the 2020 riots when six square blocks of the neighborhood were abandoned by city officials and turned over to Antifa and BLM rioters and became the infamous Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ).

Continue reading “”

2 Georgia men killed — one electrocuted, the other in explosion — during theft at power station

GAINESVILLE, Ga. — Two Georgia men are dead after attempting to steal copper wire from a power substation, Gainesville police told CBS News.

The men have been identified as Shane Joseph Long, 45, and Christopher Blair Wood, 44.

Police responded to the power station after getting a call from someone at a nearby business saying there was an explosion, CBS News reported. Both firefighters and police made their way to the explosion where they found the two men dead.

An investigation revealed the two men were thieves attempting to steal copper wire and other electrical components, police said.

Lieutenant Kevin Holbrook told CBS News that one of the men was killed by electrocution and the other man could have been killed by the transformer explosion.

Autopsies are still being conducted to determine the cause of death.

CBS News reports that nationwide, power stations have been reporting a rise in copper wire or metal theft. Holbrook the robbers sell the wire to scrap yards or third-party individuals.

Profits from these sales are generally low, Holbrook told CBS News.