Category Archives: crime news

crime news

Shooting incident turns out OK, however …

Does a single shooting involving a gunman who was shot dead by those with handgun permits make me believe that it’s OK to allow guns into houses of worship?

No it doesn’t. However, it does give me pause to offer a word of gratitude that church congregants had the presence of mind to end a spasm of gun violence quickly before it could get much worse.

A shooter opened fire this morning in a church at White Settlement, Texas, a Fort Worth suburb. He shot two people in the church, one of whom died; the other suffers from life-threatening injuries.

Then some worshipers who happened to be carrying weapons opened fire on the gunman, killing him on the spot.

Texas legislators recently approved a law that allows concealed handguns in houses of worship. Only those who are licensed to carry them will be allowed to pack the weapons while worshiping.

I am not yet persuaded that this is a good idea. However, I certainly am grateful that the bystanders who were in the church sanctuary had the skill to end the nightmare quickly. Such relatively good fortune — and I use that term with extreme caution — isn’t necessarily a guarantee that future incidents will produce similar results.

White City Police Chief J.P. Bevering called the congregants who killed the gunman “heroic.” Yes, they most surely are. The rest of the congregation at West Freeway Church of Christ owe them an eternal debt of thanks.

crime news

‘American carnage’ continues

(AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)

I am officially out of ways to express my outrage, my dismay, my grief, my fear over the gun violence that keeps erupting.

The latest spasm occurred in Jersey City, N.J. It involved two shooters who reportedly held deeply anti-Semitic views. They also shot a police officer who was trying to arrest them.

So, we have a hate crime and a crime against law enforcement rolled into one tragic event. Six people are dead. Another American city is grieving.

The only good news to come out of this latest tragedy is knowing that the shooters are dead, too, taken out by police officers responding to the rapid-fire mayhem that erupted.

Donald Trump vowed at his inaugural to stop “this American carnage.” He hasn’t done it. I don’t hold him responsible for this latest tragic event. I merely want to call attention to the president’s vow and his assertion during the most recent presidential campaign that he “alone” was capable of repairing what he said was wrong with this country.

I happen to believe gun violence ranks at the top of the matters that need fixing.

crime news

Well done, Sheriff Richardson

I just got word via social media that a great police officer and a courageous public servant is calling it a career in Randall County, Texas.

Sheriff Joel Richardson is retiring. A former Randall County district attorney, James Farren, has endorsed Chris Forbis to succeed him. I don’t know Forbis. I want to speak briefly about Richardson.

I wrote a blog more than 10 years about how Richardson stood up to take the heat when an inmate escaped from the county jail in south Amarillo. He said clearly it was no one’s fault but his own. Richardson didn’t toss any corrections officers under the proverbial bus. The inmate escaped from a “non-hardened” cell, crawled over the razor-wire fence, hitched a ride with a couple of fellows, who took him into Amarillo. The cops arrested the escapee later that evening.

The sheriff took the heat for the embarrassing incident. That’s what leaders do.

With that, I want to say it was my honor to know Sheriff Richardson during my years as a working journalist in the Texas Panhandle.

Here’s what I wrote in September 2009.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2009/09/taking-the-heat-like-a-man/

 

crime news

First responders prove their heroism … again

A shooter opened fire today at a U.S. Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla.

He killed three people, injured about a dozen others. Then an Escambia County sheriff’s deputy shot the gunman to death.

I want to spend a brief moment saluting the first responders who saved a lot of lives today when the shooting erupted. This was the second such incident at a Navy base; the other one occurred at Pearl Harbor/Hickam Joint Base in Honolulu, where two individuals died before the shooter killed himself.

The latest lunatic was a Saudi Air Force student on station at NAS Pensacola. I do hope the FBI, the Navy and local authorities can obtain all the information they need from the Saudi Arabia government about this moron. Let’s remember that we’re dealing with a government that sanctioned the murder of a Washington Post columnist in Istanbul. This incident requires a full Saudi effort to get to the bottom of it.

As for the first responders, they hurried to the source of commotion. That the sheriff’s deputy was able to — in that euphemistic term — “neutralize” the shooter so quickly speaks to the professionalism that marks so many of our first responders.

The authorities have identified the shooter. You won’t see his name on this blog. I choose to remain silent on the identities of the fools who commit these heinous acts.

I want to speak instead of the heroes who answered the call when peril erupted once again. I also want to express once again how my heart is broken at the news of this violent spasm.

crime news, Uncategorized

Did the AG actually suggest that the cops might not protect us?

U.S. Attorney General William Barr sought to buck up the nation’s law enforcement network, but in doing so he seems to have suggested something dire and dangerous if the cops don’t get the respect they deserve from the communities they serve.

“They have to start showing more respect than they do,” Barr said of the public. “If communities don’t give [law enforcement] the support and respect they deserve, they may find themselves without the services they need.”

It makes me go, “huh?”

Is the attorney general actually suggesting — if not encouraging — that police might not respond to calls for help? Is he saying that police officers might give citizens the short shrift if they need protection?

Say it ain’t so, Mr. Attorney General.

In a ceremony honoring the top police officers from around the nation, Barr noted that military veterans suffered years of scorn in the years immediately after the Vietnam War; that has changed dramatically since the time of the Persian Gulf War. This veteran thanks my fellow Americans for the change of heart.

Are the nation’s police officers feeling the same level of disrespect? Hmm. I don’t know for certain, but it seems as if that the AG’s comparison is a bit overcooked.

If the attorney general is encouraging cops to go slow on emergency responses because the communities they serve don’t love them as much as they should, then he is committing a profound disservice to the nation … and its police forces.

crime news, local news

Ex-Fort Worth police chief wants his old job? Why?

Joel Fitzgerald’s story out of Fort Worth makes my head spin.

He once served as police chief of the Cow Town police department, then he got fired. Now he wants his old job back and is suing the City Council to return to the police department. It’s a request that, to be candid, boggles my noggin.

The council cited sorry relationships the chief had with council members and other senior administrators. So, they issued a vote of no confidence in the job Chief Fitzgerald was doing. Then they fired him.

So, why does a big-city law enforcement officer, one with a good record of accomplishment along the way to the Fort Worth job, want to return to the turmoil he left behind when he got canned?

I don’t know many of the particulars of this parting of the ways. I just find it strange in the extreme that a one-time top cop would seek to return to a job that his bosses determined he was not doing adequately in the first place.

Go … figure.

crime news

Another lunatic shoots up a public school

I am tapped out.

I have run out original thoughts to offer about these acts of insanity that keep erupting in public places.

A shooter opened fire today at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, Calif. Two students were killed; six more were injured. The gunman, a 16-year-old student at the high school, is in grave condition with a self-inflicted gunshot would to his head.

These incidents have become so outrageous, so egregious, so hideous and so damn commonplace they defy us to come up with something that hasn’t already been said over many years of this senseless violence.

I won’t try here.

I am just simply devastated that the parents of two children who died at the hands of a moronic gunman now will live with their grief for as long as they draw breath.

The list of communities stained indelibly by this violence has grown by one more. The worst news is that more will follow.

It is to our nation’s everlasting shame that this violence persists.

crime news

Suspect arrested in Greenville shooting!

Hunt County sheriff’s deputies have arrested a man in connection with a shooting in a Greenville party barn that killed two people and injured six others.

The suspect is a Greenville resident and in keeping with a policy I set on the blog some time ago, I will not identify the individual now held in jail on $1 million bond.

The gunfire erupted over the weekend at a “homecoming” party involving a Texas A&M-Commerce football game. The school did not sanction the party, but it has scared and scarred the community that is about 20 miles east of where the shooting actually occurred.

It is almost becoming a numbing experience to read reports of these kinds of events. They are shockingly common in the United States. Indeed, in Texas, a place known for its so-called “love affair” with guns, these tragedies become even more profound.

I have grown tired of saying the same thing repeatedly about my view that there is a legislative remedy out there — somewhere! — to make it more difficult for nut jobs to get their mitts on weapons.

The Greenville shooter opened fire with a handgun. It wasn’t an assault rifle, or a “weapon of mass destruction.”

Let the judicial system do its work. The shooter faces two counts of capital murder, which in Texas means a death sentence if it goes to trial and he is convicted.

Let us also resume the debate that we need to have about how we can curb gun violence in this country.  If only the president of the United States would join that discussion.

crime news

Gun violence erupts just down the highway

The gun violence insanity has erupted too close to home.

Two people are dead and 14 more injured — some of them critically — after an overnight shooting at a party called to “celebrate” a college football homecoming game at Texas A&M University-Commerce. The shooting occurred at a party venue in Greenville, which is just about 23 miles or so east along U.S. 380 of where I live with my wife.

The suspect remains at large.

Hunt County sheriff’s officials are scouring the area on the hunt for the moron who opened fire.

It has been reported that the university did not sanction the party. I’m not sure why that’s relevant, but I guess it is at some level.

The relevant aspect of this story is another shooter has opened fire in a crowded venue and taken two more lives of unsuspecting and innocent victims.

When in the name of a civilized society will this gun madness stop … if ever?

crime news

Ex-Fort Worth officer charged with murder

That didn’t take long.

Tarrant County, Texas, authorities have charged a former Fort Worth Police Department officer with murder in connection with the shooting death of a 28-year-old woman who was killed in her home while she was playing video games with her nephew.

Atatania Jefferson was black; Aaron Dean, the former rookie officer charged with her murder, is white.

The incident occurred over the weekend as police were responding on a “welfare check.” A body camera that Dean was wearing reveals that he approached Jefferson’s home, told her to put up her hands and then less than one second later he fired his pistol at her, killing her.

It makes us all wonder: What in the name of service and protection is going on here?

Dean is now in jail. No bail has been set. He faces a life sentence if convicted of murder.

Will any of this calm the concerns of the African-American community that is still reeling from the death in Dallas of a black man at the hand of a white Dallas PD officer a year ago? Hardly.

The former Dallas cop, Amber Guyger, received a 10-year prison sentence from the jury that convicted her of murder, causing considerable angst from the African-American community about whether justice truly has been served.

This is just a hunch, but my gut tells me that if a jury convicts Aaron Dean of murdering Atatania Jefferson, he will get a significantly stiffer prison sentence.