16-year-old shot by victim during armed robbery in Soulard

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) – Police say a 16-year-old was shot in the chest as he and three other suspects attempted an armed robbery early Saturday in Soulard.

Following the incident, the male juvenile was dropped off at an area hospital where he is listed in critical condition, according to St. Louis Metropolitan Police.

Officers were dispatched around 1:30 a.m. Saturday to the area of 9th Street and Russell Avenue for a report of shots fired.

The victims, two 24-year-old men, told police they were sitting in their vehicle when they were approached by four males wearing ski masks.

Two of the suspects stood behind the vehicle brandishing a firearm, as the juvenile reached into an open vehicle window and began taking items from the victims, according to police.

When one of the suspects tried opening a passenger door, one of the victims shot the juvenile as the juvenile was reaching through the window.

The suspects then fled the scene in a white SUV. Police said the juvenile suspect was dropped off at the hospital, where officers collected a ski mask as evidence.

Police say the investigation is ongoing.

What If You Called 911 and the System Was Not Available?

That is pretty much the way things were Friday morning due to the Microsoft Meltdown. Emergency services say 911 lines are down in several states as a mass IT outage causes havoc

OK, so it was CloudStrike, not Microsoft at the root of the issue. More on that in a later post.

  • An IT outage is causing global chaos, with reports that 911 services are down across several US states.
  • The Alaska State Troopers confirmed that 911 services are down due to a “nationwide” outage.
  • Emergency services in New Hampshire and Ohio posted on social media reports of similar issues.

Calling 911 is a fine thing to do. They can send all kinds of help your way. But what happens if you can’t call 911, or the system does not answer? Do you have a Plan B? Maybe you should.

Major airlines, banks, and retailers are experiencing widespread disruptions after Microsoft reported problems with its online services, linked to an issue at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

A single point of failure. Gee, did no one do a systems analysis?

What Do You Mean, You Don’t Know

John Frazer served as NRA General Counsel from January 2015 until May 21st of this year. That is when Doug Hamlin separated the positions of General Counsel and Secretary and appointed Michael Blaz as the new General Counsel. Frazer retained his position as Secretary.

Frazer was on the stand today in the remedial phase of the New York Attorney General’s lawsuit. He was asked about how much money the NRA had paid Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, since 2018. Additionally, he was asked how much the NRA had paid for the defense of Wayne LaPierre and himself.

As reported by Erik Uebelacker of Courthouse News who has been following the trial:

While I might give Frazer a pass on how much has been paid to Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, for their work on the NYAG’s case, it is only because the Special Litigation Committee was formed to make decisions on that case – and only that case – due to Frazer and Wayne being named defendants. However, William Brewer and his firm have done plenty of other legal work for the NRA ranging from the multiple lawsuits against AckMac to the Vullo case that went before the Supreme Court. Brewer’s firm even handled the lawsuit against former NRA President Oliver North which is currently on hold pending the outcome of the NYAG’s case.

He certainly ought to have an idea how many billable hours have been spent on his defense by William Fleming of Gage Spencer and Fleming LLP. How hard is it to multiply hours billed times a per hour fee? Moreover, to say he has no idea how much has been paid to Brewer is ludicrous. He might not know the exact figure but he certainly has to know a ballpark figure.

If he doesn’t, then what was he doing as General Counsel all these years? Unless I’m greatly mistaken, doesn’t the Office of General Counsel have to approve bills submitted for NRA legal work before it is passed on to the Accounting Department for payment?

Frazer was never a grifter like Wayne. I will give him that. However, I do expect a certain level of responsibility from an officer of an organization when he is being paid a substantial 6-figure salary. That responsibility includes making sure the members’ dues spent on outside lawyers is well spent. It is impossible to do this if, as Frazer testified, he didn’t know how much was being spent on his defense, on Wayne’s defense, and on the myriad of legal issues being handled by Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors.

To all those who have insisted that membership and revenues are down because Tish James initiated a lawsuit against the NRA, think again. It is down because members, both Life and annual, have had the blinders pulled off their eyes and don’t want to waste their hard earned cash on an organization that seems intent on just pissing it away. Can you blame them when the former General Counsel says he has no idea how much has been spent on legal expenses?

A Major Lie From the Secret Service About the Trump Assassination Attempt Just Got Busted

The Secret Service is hiding in the bunker. They haven’t held a press conference on the July 13 assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. There’s been a code of silence on his harrowing and historic event, and we know why: they got busted for peddling a lie. Shocker—but we have another Biden-era scandal emerging, one where the agency appears to have hidden from the public because there was no spinning what was inevitably going to be asked by the media: the allegation that the Biden Department of Homeland Security denied requests for more resources. After initially denying it, the agency finally had to admit this was true.

The Washington Post and New York Times confirmed it. However, it was The Federalist’s Sean Davis who first reported that a source told him this was the case in the initial aftermath of the assassination attempt against the former president. It only adds to the incompetence of this administration, along with dousing the fires of a cover-up. At this point, there are too many coincidences, security failures, and now lies to dismiss this narrative outright (via NYT):

The Secret Service acknowledged on Saturday that it had turned down requests for additional federal resources sought by former President Donald J. Trump’s security detail in the two years leading up to his attempted assassination last week, a reversal from earlier statements by the agency denying that such requests had been rebuffed.

Almost immediately after a gunman shot at Mr. Trump from a nearby warehouse roof while he spoke at a rally in Butler, Pa., last weekend, the Secret Service faced accusations from Republicans and anonymous law enforcement officials that it had turned down requests for additional agents to secure Mr. Trump’s rallies.

“There’s an untrue assertion that a member of the former president’s team requested additional resources and that those were rebuffed,” Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said last Sunday, the day after the shooting.[…]

On Saturday, Mr. Guglielmi acknowledged that the Secret Service had turned down some requests for additional federal security assets for Mr. Trump’s detail. Two people briefed on the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed that the Trump campaign had been seeking additional resources for the better part of the time that Mr. Trump had been out of office. The denied requests for additional resources were not specifically for the rally in Butler, Mr. Guglielmi said.

U.S. officials previously said the Secret Service had enhanced security for the former president before the Butler rally because it had received information from U.S. intelligence agencies about a potential Iranian assassination plot against Mr. Trump.[…]

The service never held or took part in a public briefing the night of the shooting, while other law enforcement officials held a news conference a few hours after the fact. The service did not hold a public briefing to answer questions in the week after the assassination attempt.

Continue reading “”

We landed on the moon. Now we can’t even keep the Gaza aid pier afloat.

America is famous for doing great things.

Tomorrow [yesterday] is the 55-year anniversary of one of our greatest accomplishments: landing man on the moon. As millions around the world gathered around their TVs and radios in 1969, three bold Americans had traveled 240,000 miles to plant a flag beside the Sea of Tranquility.

The United States summoned its scientific, financial and moral will to achieve something endless generations of mankind had barely considered possible.

Can America still do great things? It hardly seems so.

We popularized use of the internet about 30 years ago and that certainly changed things; for the better, and the worse. The fall of the Soviet Union was another herculean accomplishment, a few years before that.

Since then, there hasn’t been a whole lot. Smartphones, Bitcoin … Vaping? That hardly swells the patriotic heart.

Just last month, we celebrated the 80th anniversary of D-Day. The United States led more than eight nations, using 7,000 ships and landing craft manned by more than 195,000 sailors to deliver nearly 133,000 troops in a single day.

We haven’t had much American ingenuity of late
More recently, we fled a hard-won victory in Iraq and were chased out of Afghanistan by tribesmen sporting small arms. Today we can’t seem to stop the Russians in Ukraine and mostly ignore China’s increasing threats against Taiwan.

We can’t even keep a small pier afloat off Gaza.

Remember the pier? In his March State of the Union address, President Joe Biden announced its deployment to “enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day.”

‘Secure the Border Act’is a racist lie. Voters must defeat it

A small flotilla of ships and 1,000 soldiers and sailors built the modest dock offshore, taking more than two months to do so at a cost of $230 million.

Once installed, trucks delivered humanitarian aid a few yards into Gaza. There, much of the aid remained, unused. In its first month, about 250 truckloads made it through – 4,100 tons worth – which is half of the daily deliveries in a single day before the war. Not exactly Operation Overload.

Pier has experienced one problem after the next
Since its installation, the pier has only been functional for about 20 days. Excuses were legion: bad weather, rough seas, no trucks to bring aid off the beach, attacks from the locals.

Pray that shooting of Trumpwill unite America to rethink our angry division

“The pier is humanitarian theatre,” Refugees International President and former USAID senior adviser Jeremy Konyndyk said. “Much more about political optics than humanitarian substance.”

Though it was intended to last until at least September, it was heavily damaged in a storm and parts of it washed up on the shores of Ashdod. The U.S. military got it working again on June 8 … then suspended operations for two days and hauled it back to Ashdod, fearing a storm.

On June 20, the Pentagon insisted the pier would return soon and would be in Gaza to stay. “We have not established an end date for this mission as of now, contrary to some press reporting on the matter,” Air Force Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder said.

The Biden administration agreed, with one official stating that “the maritime pier is a critical additional conduit for aid deliveries.”

If only we could have given pier a quiet burial at sea
This week, they gave up and hoped no one would notice. “The maritime surge mission involving the pier is complete,” Navy Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, said at a news briefing Wednesday. “So there’s no more need to use the pier.”

During its brief deployment, an estimated 8,000 metric tons of aid were delivered via the pier. That’s the equivalent of about 600 trucks worth — the number humanitarian agencies claim need to enter Gaza every day.

Meanwhile, the war continues.

At this point, few Americans expect another “giant leap for mankind.” But “one small step” would be nice.

The expiscatory Question is, Was the Trump assassination fail procedural (i.e., incompetence) or operational (i.e., a sanctioned kill fail)?

Email from Damian Bennett:

Of the several eyewitness interview videos I have watched, the spectrum of shots fired runs from 5 to 8 to 10. SO. A ‘comically bad’ shooter enters a security perimeter with a rifle in plain view; climbs a ladder (!) to a roof; bear-crawls to a clear-line-of-sight vantage ~130 yards from the target; is observed by multiple civilians AND a Secret Service sniper and spotter detail; encounters an LEO, who retreats; takes firing position; acquires his target; squeezes off 5+ rounds, one of which has lethal precision, before being ‘neutralized’. [Pause.] Your thoughts?
The aftermath:
Your thoughts? [Pause.] Keep in mind ‘conspiracy’ theories ‘debunked’ in the press have tended to rapidly age into exposĂŠs then into factual consensus.
‘We’ll Never Get The Truth’: FBI To Investigate Trump Shooting And Folks Have A REAL Problem With This July 14, 2024
[Pause.] Thirty-two people had film or photograph cameras, in Dealey Plaza, most famously Abraham Zapruder. Of the thousands at the Butler rally almost all had active camera phones.

Trump Gunman Flew Drone Over Rally Site Hours Before Attempted Assassination
Discovery adds to growing list of stunning security lapses that almost led to former president’s killing

The gunman who tried to kill Donald Trump was able to fly a drone and get aerial footage of the western Pennsylvania fairgrounds shortly before the former president was set to speak there, law-enforcement officials briefed on the matter said, further underscoring the stunning security lapses ahead of Trump’s near assassination.

Thomas Matthew Crooks flew the drone on a programmed flight path earlier in the day on July 13 to scour the Butler Farm Show grounds ahead of Trump’s ill-fated rally, the officials said. The predetermined path, the officials added, suggests Crooks flew the drone more than once as he researched and scoped out the event site.

The 20-year-old would-be assassin fired at least six rounds from the roof of the American Glass Research building roughly 400 feet away from where Trump spoke, killing one spectator, critically injuring two others and leaving Trump with a graze wound to the ear. A Secret Service sniper team shot back, killing Crooks, whose motive remains a mystery.

Multiple investigations are under way into how a gunman was able to climb onto a rooftop with a clear line of sight to Trump and open fire with an AR-15 rifle. Police had become suspicious of Crooks more than an hour earlier, when officers saw him milling about the edges of the rally with a range finder and a backpack.

Secret Service agents respond after the Trump rally shooting on Saturday in Butler, Pa. PHOTO: EVAN VUCCI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The use of the drone was just one way in which authorities have said Crooks planned his attack. Crooks, described by friends as very smart yet withdrawn, began researching the site shortly after the Trump campaign announced the rally on July 3, and registered for the event on July 7, officials said. He visited the farm show grounds a few days later to scope it out.

On July 13, officials said, he returned with a pair of homemade bombs that appeared to be designed to be set off by remote control, as they were fitted with a receiver like the kind used to set off fireworks remotely. Investigators found the rudimentary explosives in Crooks’ car parked close to the grounds, along with a ballistic carrier, or vest, with three, 30-round magazines in it, an indication that he might have wanted to cause greater carnage.

Crooks in recent months had received several packages to his home marked “hazardous materials,” officials said. He did online searches for dates of Trump rallies, but also searched for information about next month’s Democratic convention and President Biden, providing a mixed bag of clues for investigators to sort through as they try to determine what, if any, ideology he ascribed to.

NRA Trial Reveals Reformers Have More Work to Do

When a slate of reform-minded candidates won election to the NRA’s board of directors earlier this year, there was genuine hope that it would make a turning point for the organization, which has seen both membership and revenue plummet over the past few years. But testimony delivered during this week’s civil trial in New York has revealed that the board’s old guard still holds at least some sway over the direction of the organization, and there is much more work to be done to get the NRA back on track.

Take, for instance, the testimony of new NRA president Bob Barr, who was not the reformer’s pick to serve as the top elected official of the organization. While most of the reform-minded board members were cautiously optimistic that Barr would go along with the necessary changes to renew members’ confidence in the organization, Barr revealed that the NRA hasn’t even tried to collect the millions of dollars that Wayne LaPierre owes the group.

It wasn’t just the misspending on the part of top NRA officials like former executive vice president Wayne LaPierre that have caused many gun owners to let their memberships lapse or refuse to donate, it’s definitely a major factor. So why hasn’t the NRA tried to claw back the money the jury says is owed to the group? It’s not like they couldn’t use the cash.

Barr made another revealing comment; this one about new EVP Doug Hamlin, who was the choice of reformers. As John Richardon of Only Guns and Money relayed, Trace reporter Will Van Sant quoted Barr calling Hamlin a “placeholder” during testimony.

The National Rifle Association’s new chief executive Doug Hamlin is a placeholder, according to the testimony of former NRA president Charles Cotton that points to fault lines in the gun group’s leadership.

In May, board members chose Hamlin, who led the NRA’s publications arm, as Wayne LaPierre’s replacement. Hamlin is allied to a small, self-described reform bloc at the group.

“The intent is to try to get, frankly, some high-powered person to take it over,” testified Cotton, a LaPierre defender whom the reformers consider part of an old guard. Cotton made his remarks in a New York courtroom where the final phase of New York Attorney General Letitia James’s lawsuit against the NRA is underway. —Will Van Sant

When I spoke to Hamlin on Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co a few weeks after his election, I asked him about whether he considered himself to essentially be a placeholder, or whether he planned on sticking around. Hamlin replied that he served at the pleasure of the board, but he certainly didn’t sound like someone who took the job on a short-term basis.

Hamlin and Barr have both taken the stand in New York this week, and Hamlin was far more willing to criticize his predecessor for his misuse of NRA funds.

The New York attorney general called each to the witness stand to show how their differences could hold the NRA back from making progress toward financial transparency — part of the state’s broader goal of having a court-appointed monitor oversee the NRA and banning LaPierre from its leadership for life.

For instance, Hamlin was more willing to criticize LaPierre’s reign during his testimony.

“Mr. LaPierre breached the trust of the NRA and its members, correct?” state attorney Monica Connell prodded.

“Yes,” Hamlin replied, adding that he agreed LaPierre’s conduct placed the NRA in a “very difficult decision” and was partly responsible for the group’s declining membership.

Meanwhile, Barr maintained that LaPierre discharged his duties to the NRA in good faith, conceding that LaPierre may have made a few mistakes along the way. He took issue with the attorney general calling LaPierre “corrupt” following the verdict against him in February.

“I believe it was, shall we say, a mischaracterization,” Barr testified Wednesday.

Hamlin and Barr also appeared to be on different pages about the NRA’s potential relocating of its headquarters, a move that Knox and other board members believe should only be done with significant input from the board.

Hamlin, who previously ran the NRA’s in-house publishing arm, testified that he wasn’t even aware of the NRA’s intent to sell its Virginia headquarters until a few weeks ago. He axed plans to sell the Fairfax property when he took the NRA’s reins earlier this year. Barr testified that he thought Hamlin’s decision was “rushed.”

Still, these disputes weren’t an issue for Barr, a former U.S. representative from Georgia, who told the court he could “absolutely” work productively with Hamlin. “It’s similar to working in the Congress,” Barr said. “You have disagreements.”

I’m not sure pointing to Congress as a model of efficiency and comity is a great example, to be honest.

Beyond the trial, Barr has also appointed former NRA president Charles Cotton, who, as Van Sant points out, is considered one of the leaders of the old guard, to serve as chairman of several key BoD committees, including the Ethics and Audit committees. Not only that, as Richardson pointed out, Barr named just one of the Four for Reform candidates to any of these key committees.

I find this disappointing as their election is being used by the NRA in its court filings to assert that things have changed and no special monitor was needed. While Rocky’s appointment is good and proper, why was not Jeff Knox put on Bylaws and Resolutions as he probably knows more about the Bylaws than any member of that committee. Likewise, would not it have been wise to put Judge Phil Journey, the only jurist on the Board, on the Legal Affairs Committee.

With the exception of the Finance Committee which has has four known reformers on it (out of 15 total members), the remaining committees have one and perhaps two known reformers on them. If Barr wanted to signal to the members of the NRA and to Judge Cohen that things had changed at the NRA, this certainly was not the way to do it.

While I don’t have a crystal ball on what will happen in the remedial phase of the New York trial, I think the odds are better than even that a special monitor will now be appointed to oversee the NRA’s finances. It should be noted that this monitor will have nothing to do with functions and programs of the NRA including its political functions.

While this will put me at odds with some friends on the Board who are reformers, I think that the special monitor will be a requirement if the NRA is ever to crawl out of the morass it finds itself in.

I said when Barr was elected that he wasn’t my first choice, but I was hopeful that with reformers elected by the board to every other leadership position he would be a part of the effort to regain the trust of members. After the revelations over the past week, I can’t say I still harbor those hopes.

And honestly, as much as I want to see the NRA succeed, why should any individual or company donate a penny in support so long as the NRA isn’t demanding the return of the millions of dollars LaPierre owes the organization and its dues-paying members? Barr wasn’t asked that question on the stand, but everyone who’s stood by the organization or felt it was time to return to the fold deserve an answer.