On behalf of the more than 80,000 supporters of Citizens Behind the Badge, I want to first and foremost express our heartfelt condolences to the entire Uvalde, Texas community and, especially to the families of the 19 young children and two teachers who were murdered, and 17 others injured by a deranged gunman last month.
Words are of little comfort at a time like this, but, hopefully, there is some benefit in knowing that the grief in Uvalde is being shared by Americans everywhere.
It is disheartening to see so much of the second-guessing that is now occurring about the actions taken by law enforcement to bring an end to this horrific crime. So much of the information that was initially reported has proven to be distorted or simply wrong.
There will be plenty of time later on, after the investigation is complete and all of the information is known, to critique the response and decision-making of law enforcement and learn from this tragedy for future benefit.
However, one thing is certain. The blame for this unthinkable act that took the lives of so many lies with a maniacal killer with an evil heart and mind—no one else.
Since the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, when 26 lives were lost, there have been more than 900 school shootings—roughly one school shooting every four days.
Since the mass murder at Columbine High School in 1999, nearly 300,000 students have been on campus during a school shooting. Last year, there were at least 42 acts of gun violence committed on K-12 campuses during regular hours, the most during any year since 1999.
Sadly and irresponsibly, the “defund the police” movement led to many school districts abolishing their SRO programs.
This is a national tragedy that has resulted in some meaningful responses. Most notably, school resource officers (SROs) were placed in more than a third of the schools across America. Sadly and irresponsibly, the “defund the police” movement led to many school districts abolishing their SRO programs.
The Minneapolis City Council voted to remove their 14 SROs just a week after George Floyd’s death. In Los Angeles, the school board voted to reduce their police budget by $25 million. The police chief resigned the next day saying his department could no longer do its job.
In Uvalde, there were four SROs covering eight different schools. Tragically, none of those SROs were at Robb Elementary on Tuesday and the shooter entered the school “unobstructed.”
Hopefully, the Uvalde tragedy will spur school districts around the country to restore and bolster—not defund—their SRO programs so that our children can have this important measure of protection—not to mention an important and positive role model in their lives.
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Craig W. Floyd is the Founding CEO of Citizens Behind the Badge, and is the Founding CEO Emeritus of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, where he led the effort to build the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial and the National Law Enforcement Museum.
About Citizens Behind the Badge
Established in 2020, Citizens Behind the Badge is a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization based in McLean, Virginia. Its mission is to put an end to the misguided and disastrous movement to “defund the police” and to ensure that our law enforcement professionals receive the support and resources needed to keep America safe. For more information go to: www.BehindBadge.org or email [email protected].
Is it time to ban cars? Vehicle driven into crowded marketplace kills one person and injures 30 more.
This editorial is brought to you by a staff writer for Law Enforcement Today.
BERLIN, GERMANY – A 29-year-old German man is in custody after police say he drove his car into a group of people at a popular market in the German capital of Berlin.
This is the same shopping district where an Islamist extremist drove a truck through a Christmas market in 2016, killing 13 and injuring more than 70 others.
And it was just last Christmas that a man in Wisconsin drove his SUV through a Christmas parade, killing six and wounded many more.
Given the rising number of incidents of vehicles intentionally plowing into people, perhaps it is time to pass common sense vehicle control laws?
Amongst the group he hit was a 51-year-old teacher and her students. That teacher has died of her injuries.
Nearly half of the 30 people who were struck and wounded were kids in the teacher’s class. Those students are believed to be between 16 and 17-years-old. Another teacher with the group was also injured.
According to news reports out of Berlin, one girl suffered a traumatic brain injury, a pregnant woman broke her hip, and six victims were still in “mortal danger.”
Police say that Gor H. (his name is not completely revealed due to German privacy laws) drove a car owned by his sister into a busy shopping district on Tauentzienstrasse.
While police will not yet publicly say that they believe the assault was intentional, an investigator speaking anonymously to a local newspaper stated:
“This was by no means an accident. It was a rampage. A stone-cold killer.”
Witnesses saw the suspect driving the Renault Clio into the crowded sidewalk “very fast” and he never attempted to slow down. He then went back onto the street for several hundred feet before leaving the roadway, striking two more victims, and then driving into a perfume shop.
According to reports, Gor tried to leave the scene, but witnesses kept him from leaving, detaining him until the police arrived.
As police cuffed him and led him away, he is reported to have said, “bitte hilf.” Translated, the phrase means “please help.”
A witness, who obviously only saw what happened on the second assault, said:
“Why do you want help? You almost killed two people just now!”
As the investigation continues, Interior Senator Iris Spranger spoke about the incident.
“According to the latest information, today’s events on Tauentzienstrasse represent an amok by a mentally handicapped person.”
An amok is defined as “an episode of sudden mass assault against people or objects usually by a single individual following a period of brooding that is now increasingly viewed as psychopathological behavior occurring worldwide in numerous countries and cultures.”
It is further defined as being “in a murderously frenzied state.”
Police are also saying that there was evidence “that supports the theory of a psychological state of emergency.”
So, the driver may have been suffering from a mental health crisis.
Law Enforcement Today enlisted the aid of an individual fluent in German to go through all of the news articles we could find to assist with translation.
Not one of those articles showed German celebrities, athletes or government officials calling for a ban on vehicles.
So maybe it isn’t all cars that should be banned. Maybe we should just be looking at the type of vehicles used in these types of attacks?
Let’s start with Renault Clio used in this particular attack.
No one needs a Renault Clio, at least not a fully automatic one. At best, you only need a 5-speed manual transmission.
The automatic version makes it spray the car all over the road, creating the possibility of greater carnage. The automatic versions are capable of driving close to 300 miles per hour. While they are equipped at the factory with a small 4-cylinder engine, they can be modified to run like an 8-cylinder pushing roughly 400 horsepower.
If we cannot completely ban the Renault, perhaps we should increase the age to purchase one. And everyone has to go through a background check to buy that particular car, but they have to wait until they are 30.
We also have to increase the depth of the background checks. There is no reason why someone should be able to buy it used from a neighbor or family member without the government’s permission.
We should enact some sort of legal provision that allows anyone to call the police if they believe that the owner of that car may possibly roll through a stop sign someday. That potentially unwarranted fear is all it should take for the authorities to show up, no questions asked, and simply remove the Renault from you garage.
Also, we should probably carve out a section of this new law that allows Gor’s sister to be held liable. In fact, we should also make Renault culpable, at least in a wrongful death civil lawsuit.
Author’s note: the sarcasm of the section above regarding the ban of cars is in no way meant to minimize the tragic situations that occurred in Berlin, or Buffalo, or Uvalde. It is mean to highlight the absurdity of what is being discussed in the nation as many seek to dismantle the 2nd Amendment.
Look, banning cars because of how an owner may choose to drive it is completely asinine. You cannot punish the overwhelming percentage of law-abiding car owners who do not use their vehicles for assault purposes.
Much in the same way that you cannot where guns are involved.
There are three major issues in at play in this conversation.
- No one in the US is driving a Renault Clio.
- Even if they were, no one is calling for a ban on vehicles.
- The ability to own and possess a car in not a constitutionally guaranteed right. Gun ownership on the other hand is etched in stone. It is the one amendment that the writers felt necessary to include that the right shall NOT be infringed.
Yet somehow, we are still listening to the people with the loudest voices in the mainstream media, celebrities and politicians all trying to dictate that the 2nd Amendment is outdated and unnecessary.
For more on the attack in Waukesha that left 6 dead that no one is talking about anymore,
DIG DEEPER
Christmas attack suspect identified as cop and Trump hating, BLM supporting sex offender who was just released on bond
WAUKESHA, WI- More details continue to emerge about the moment a driver rammed his vehicle into a Christmas parade on the evening of November 21st, killing at least five people and injuring 40 others.
Police have taken into custody a person of interest, since identified as 39-year-old Darrell E. Brooks Jr., who reportedly has an extensive rap sheet dating all the way back to 1999. Brooks recently posted bail on reckless endangerment charges.
He has been found to have multiple social media posts promoting anti-white racism, slamming the police and Trump, promoting Black Lives Matter and denouncing Kyle Rittenhouse.
Darrell Brooks, the man taken into custody over the #Waukesha Christmas parade mass casualty incident, is a registered sex offender in Nevada. He was convicted over having sex w/a child. In one of his now-deleted videos, he defended his actions, saying he was pimping the "hoe." pic.twitter.com/eBHSL0b7S4
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) November 22, 2021
Brooks is being questioned in connection with the incident involving a red Ford Escape that plowed through barricades and into the crowd at the Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, sparking panic and unleashing mass bloodshed.
Public records show Brooks has a significant criminal history in Wisconsin that spans well over two decades.
Just this past Friday, November 19th, he posted a cash bond in connection with charges including resisting or obstructing an officer, bail jumping, recklessly endangering safety with domestic-abuse assessments, disorderly conduct with a domestic-abuse assessment, and battery.
On Monday, November 22nd, the Milwaukee County District Attorney said that Brooks should never have been released on such an “inappropriately low” $1,000 cash bond given his past charges.
In the most recent case, dating from an incident on November 5th, the complainant told police that Brooks had deliberately tried to run her over with his car. He of course, pleaded not guilty to those charges. The DA added that investigators are conducting an internal review of the bail recommendation in that case.
BREAKING: Parade Killer Darrell Brooks Was Recently Arrested after RUNNING OVER WOMAN at a Gas Station Earlier This Month! — And Was Bailed Out for Only $1000 Last Week https://t.co/eZq8EXzOZA
— HOLD THE LINE! 🇨🇦1799🇨🇦🇺🇸🚓❤️ HOLD THE LINE! (@wa_kin_gup) November 22, 2021
In July 2020, police charged Brooks with three other felonies, including reckless endangerment and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He is also listed as a Tier 2 registered sex offender in Nevada.
Fox News reported that a background check from Wisconsin’s Department of Justice came back with over 50 pages of charges against Brooks, stretching back to the late 1990s. In 1999 he received his first felony conviction for taking part in an aggravated battery, for which he received three years of probation.
https://twitter.com/News2Pman/status/1462855265620008966
He was convicted of obstructing an officer in 2003 and 2005. In 2002, he had another felony marijuana charge. In 2010, he pleaded no contest to felony strangulation charges after allegedly attacking a woman during an argument about phone calls.
In 2012, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor bail jumping and marijuana charges. A year earlier, in 2011, he pleaded guilty to felony marijuana charges and resisting arrest.
According to court documents, Brooks also appeared to have used the pseudonym “Math Boi Fly” in music videos and is also associated with the aliases Darrell Eugene Brooks and Quinton Feilcein.
Waukesha Christmas horror: Milwaukee DA announces internal review of Darrell Brooks bail recommendation…https://t.co/Bh4k92kqsY
— SnewsHound (@SnewsHound) November 22, 2021
Brooks appears to have used a number of other stage names throughout the course of his aspiring rap career, including “Jay Fly,” “Math Bio,” and “B.L.A.$.” A reverbnation page linked to Brooks via email and Twitter accounts describes him as “the next breakout artist from the Midwest” who’s “finally ready to put Milwaukee back on the map.”
Reportedly, one of Brooks’ videos, which has since been removed from YouTube, showed a red Ford SUV that resembles the one seen plowing into the crowd at the Christmas parade on Main Street in Waukesha.
Witnesses described the chaos of blood and bodies thrown into the air and strewn about the street before bystanders rushed to try and help victims as paramedics raced to the scene. Since the incident, local authorities have set up a temporary memorial for the victims at Veterans Park, located just west of the scene.
Former President Donald Trump released a statement about the Waukesha tragedy, calling it “devastating, horrible and very very sick. He added:
“My heart goes out to the people of this great, beautiful, and hardworking community. We must find answers to this terrible crime, and stop these violent and depraved acts from happening again. I am with you Waukesha and always will be!”
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