Category Archives: crime news

crime news

How in the world did this guy ‘off’ himself?

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Well now. Allow me to offer this initial reaction to news that an accused sex trafficker killed himself in a New York jail cell.

W. T. F.

This isn’t your run-of-the-mill pervert who hanged himself. He was worth many millions of dollars. He claimed to be friends with at least two highly visible politicians: Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.

Jeffrey Epstein had been convicted already of sex crimes in Florida. He stood accused of running a sex trafficking ring involving underage girls. He was a bad dude, man.

But here’s where this story breaks down for me. He was on suicide watch. Authorities found him July 23 lying in his cell; he was unresponsive; he reportedly had what looked like robe burns on his neck. The revived him and slapped the suicide watch on him.

Now, I am no expert on how you handle these matters, but I have just a hint of experience at it.

For six months after I left daily journalism in 2012, I worked part-time as a juvenile supervision officer at the Randall County Youth Center of the High Plains. The facility incarcerates youngsters accused of various crimes. Some of them need special attention. Those with suicidal tendencies, for instance, need real special attention.

When a kid was deemed a threat to himself or herself, the YCHP would require security officers — such as me — to keep eyes on the kid at all times. We had to check on them constantly. The lights were never turned off in their cell. They couldn’t do anything within the confines of the room without someone watching them.

My question is this: How did Jeffrey Epstein hang himself while under the supposedly keen eyes of security officials who were supposed to prevent such a thing from occurring?

Obviously, there won’t be a trial. Epstein has taken whatever secrets he had with him to somewhere in the great beyond.

I am not mourning this guy’s death. However, I would like an explanation from the lockup hierarchy on how this monster managed to off himself in plain sight.

Anyone?

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Speak to us, Mr. President, about violence against Latinos

Mr. President, your silence is giving me a headache.

The gunman who opened fire on Latinos at the Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas, allegedly had declared his intention to “kill as many Mexicans as possible.” He allegedly was motivated by your own rhetoric that many of us have deemed to be hateful toward people of Latin American descent.

So the gunman took matters into his own hands, allegedly.

Why haven’t you spoken out? Why have you declined to categorically declare that you — the president of the United States — will not tolerate hateful actions against Latinos.

Yes, I saw your speech at the White House the other day. I heard you declare that the nation must fight against intolerance and hate. The nation, Mr. President? Yes, that’s right.

What about you, sir? What is going to be your role in that fight? Are you going to lead that fight? Will you speak directly and personally to the pain you are feeling — if you’re feeling it — in the wake of this monstrous act of hate?

Your visit to El Paso and earlier to Dayton, the other community that mourns the deaths of those at the hands of another lunatic gunman, didn’t go well. You must know what we’re saying about all of that out here.

What are you going to do to repair the grievous damage that has been? I am not going to lay the direct blame at your feet for the deaths of those folks. I do believe your rhetoric has played a role.

It now falls on you, Mr. President, to speak directly to what has occurred … and why.

I am prepared to wait for as long as it takes. That, of course, depends on whether the silence-induced headache gets the better of me.

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POTUS faces lose-lose encounter

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Donald J. Trump is set to plunge into a place where he is likely to get bloodied — politically speaking. He intends to venture to El Paso, Texas, in the next day or so.

He will presumably speak to folks who were affected by the mass slaughter of 22 people at the Wal-Mart shopping center over the weekend.

The president is being told he isn’t welcome. Why? Because many Americans — including myself — blame Trump’s fiery, divisive rhetoric for spawning the shooter to massacre Latinos gathered at the store for some last-minute, back-to-school shopping.

Should he go? I believe he should. It’s a critical part of the job he agreed to do when he got elected president of the United States. Is this president good at lending comfort? Is he adept at saying just the right thing, in just the right tone, to just the right audience in its time of intense grief? No. He isn’t.

Will he step up and acknowledge the role his rhetoric has played in the tragedy that exploded in El Paso? I doubt it seriously.

I am left to wonder: Has there ever been a recent U.S. president who has felt the scorn of stricken communities the way this one is feeling it now in the wake of the El Paso tragedy?

Did Bill Clinton feel it when he went to Oklahoma City in 1995 after the bomber blew up the Murrah Federal Building? Did George W. Bush feel it when he ventured multiple times to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005? Did such recrimination fall on Barack Obama when he went to Charleston, S.C., after the madman opened fire in that church, or when he went to Newtown, Conn., after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre that killed all those precious children and their teachers? No, no and no!

This visit, and the trip he plans to take to Dayton, Ohio — another city stricken by gun violence during the same weekend— likely won’t go well.

All I can say is: Suck it up, Mr. President.

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Video games, Lt. Gov. Patrick? They’re to blame?

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the following, among other things, on “Fox & Friends”: “We’ve always had guns, always had evil, but I see a video game industry that teaches young people to kill.”

He cited other causes as well, as did Donald Trump, the president of the United States.

Patrick, quite expectedly, didn’t attribute any of the hatred that erupted in El Paso over the weekend to the rhetoric that has come from the mouth of POTUS. Oh, no! Nothing there.

This is where Republicans’ defense of the president breaks down. Donald Trump does not own any responsibility for the way he talks about Hispanics, about African-Americans, about any people “of color.” Nor do many of those who support him.

Lt. Gov. Patrick has held up video games that teach young people “to kill” as a primary cause of what transpired in El Paso. To be fair, Patrick does call the massacre a “hate crime.”

Fine, so far. Why not take the next logical step, though, by identifying the catalyst that lit the spark of that hate and resulted in the slaughter of those innocent victims?

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Should the POTUS visit El Paso?

Donald J. Trump is set to fly to El Paso, Texas, later this week in the wake of the massacre of 22 victims at the Wal-Mart shopping center.

The alleged shooter reportedly hates Mexican immigrants. He was prodded to act reportedly by rhetoric uttered by — that’s right — the very same Donald J. Trump.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke said today that the president should stay away. So has O’Rourke’s successor in the U.S. House district he represented for six years in Washington, Veronica Escobar, another Democrat. They both say the president isn’t welcome in their city.

“He’s helped to create what we saw in El Paso on Saturday,” O’Rourke told the El Paso Times. “He’s helped to produce the suffering that we are experiencing right now. This community needs to heal.”

Oh, boy. I happen to believe the president should go to El Paso; he also plans to visit Dayton, Ohio, which erupted in gun violence hours after El Paso suffered its grievous wounds. And, yes, he faces the prospect of getting an unfriendly welcome from angry El Paso residents.

Donald Trump is facing the most serious quandary perhaps of his presidency. What in the world does he say when he visits with victims? Is he capable of holding himself accountable for the actions of a lunatic who drove 660-plus miles from the Metroplex to inflict such damage?

If lightning strikes and hell freezes over, perhaps there’s a chance he’ll do what he needs to do, which is take responsibility for fueling the anger that erupted at the Wal-Mart in El Paso.

I am not going to bet the farm on it.

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Astonishing lethality in Dayton massacre!

If it’s true — and I believe it is — that Dayton, Ohio, police officers shot a gunman to death just 30 seconds after the first shots rang out in the city’s entertainment district, then we need to ponder a serious question.

How in the world did the shooter act with such lethal efficiency to kill nine people and injure many others in such a short amount of time?

More to the point, what kind of firepower was this moron packing before the cops “neutralized” in a hail of gunfire?

We’re talking about two horrific massacres in the span of hours this past weekend. A Wal-Mart shopping center in El Paso, Texas, was the scene of the slaughter of 22 people. Then came the Dayton tragedy later that evening.

The police were able to respond rapidly to the Dayton tragedy. They deserve the highest praise imaginable for acting as quickly and decisively as they did, gunning down a shooter who was dressed in body armor.

But still …

He was able to kill all those people in a mere blink of time!

To think, therefore, that many within the gun lobby resist efforts to legislate restrictions on the purchase and ownership of such weapons of mass destruction. What’s more, our political leaders knuckle under to their demands to keep their hands off inadequate existing laws.

Wow!

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Here’s what POTUS could have added about massacres

Donald Trump today laid the blame on the mass shootings at the feet of several institutions and cultural trends.

He blamed the Internet for promoting violence, the media for their “fake news” reporting, a lack of mental health awareness and care, the preponderance of violence-ridden video games.

I’ll accept that most of those causes as valid areas of concern; the media, though, have been singled out only because of the president’s hatred and mistrust of them.

What he didn’t do was take any personal responsibility for the coarseness of the political dialogue. Therefore, if I were writing his remarks, I would have added something like this:

Finally, and most significantly, I want to call attention to the coarse rhetoric that has infected our political discourse. I also want to express my personal regret for contributing to it.

Yes, I declared my presidential candidacy in 2015 with a direct assault on Latin American immigrants who were — and still are — crossing our border illegally. However, I went too far in ascribing criminal intent to too many of them. For that I apologize.

Furthermore, from this day forward I am going to dial back my own hard-bitten rhetoric. I will pledge to work openly toward developing a more civil political climate. 

My regret runs deep and I am sorry for whatever I have done to inflame the deeply held passions to which I have referred already in the wake of the El Paso and Dayton massacres.

Why didn’t he say that? It’s simple. Donald Trump does not possess the gene that allows him to express regret for any mistake he commits. So he shrouds institutions and people all around him with blame and responsibility for matters that he –as the president of the United States — has the power to control all by himself.

He once said that “I, alone” can fix what ails the country. He ought to say that “I, alone” will demand an end to the hate-filled rhetoric that has poisoned our political atmosphere.

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2nd Amendment serves as barrier to ‘slippery slope’

Now that we’re talking once again openly and relatively urgently — once again! — about gun control legislation, I want to offer an argument that I believe doesn’t get as much attention as it should.

Nearly 30 people are dead after massacres in El Paso and Dayton. Donald Trump has called for “urgent action” to stem gun violence. The nation once again is horrified at the actions of two individuals motivated apparently by vastly different reasons, but whose actions have brought untold misery and heartache to us all.

I believe in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I have read it zillions of times. Although I believe it is worded awkwardly and can be interpreted in any number of ways, it does say that the right to bear arms is guaranteed to all U.S. citizens.

Does that constitutional guarantee act as a barrier against what some might call a “slippery slope” argument opposing efforts to “register” firearms owners? I believe it does.

I’ve heard a bit of social media chatter about how gun registration necessarily leads to “confiscation” of firearms. I want to shoot that argument down — pun very much intended.

The Second Amendment’s language, in my view, prohibits confiscation. Thus, to allow the government to confiscate firearms would require repealing or amending the Second Amendment. Does anyone with half a brain believe that is going to happen, even in the wake of this deadly back-to-back outburst over the weekend? Of course they do not.

Therefore, I maintain my belief that there are legislative remedies available to help stem this epidemic of gun violence. Universal background checks is a start. There might be a registration component to consider as well.

As for the “slippery slope,” the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment acts as an impenetrable barrier to prevent us from sliding too far down that slope. It doesn’t preclude wise men and women in government from doing what they can to legislate a cure for the scourge that is killing too many innocent people.

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‘American carnage’ continues unabated

Mr. President, I feel the overwhelming need to remind you of the signature line of your inaugural speech on Jan. 20, 2017.

It was the moment you declared that the “American carnage stops right here. Right now.”

Uh, Mr. President, it hasn’t stopped.

But you know that already. The slaughtering of 20 people in El Paso and 10 in Dayton within hours of each other speaks to the ongoing bloodletting that is occurring throughout our country.

The motive behind the El Paso massacre is coming into focus. The shooter hates immigrants, particularly Latin American immigrants. He wanted to “kill as many Mexicans as possible,” he told the cops who arrested him. The reason for the Dayton bloodbath remains a bit cloudy. I, for one, haven’t yet heard about a motive for the moron opening fire there. About all I know is that he was dressed in body armor and the police gunned him down within seconds of his firing the first rounds at his victims.

I want to return to that pledge you made.

I heard you make the statement about stopping the “American carnage,” but I don’t recall what you said at the time in front of that “record-setting” at the inaugural about how you intended to tackle this crisis. If only you had said anything else that resonated with Americans. I recall a dark, foreboding speech about the myriad crises you said you inherited from your predecessor.

It seems to me, Mr. President, that your rhetoric since taking office has had quite the opposite effect. You haven’t “ended” the carnage, but have stoked anger that only has worsened it.

Let me be clear about one point, Mr. President: I am not going to hold you personally responsible for what that moron did in El Paso. It’s been said during the day that you are no more responsible than Sen. Bernie Sanders was responsible for the pro-Bernie idiot who opened fire on Republican members of Congress practicing for that charity baseball game.

However, I am among many Americans who is distressed beyond measure at the tone of your rhetoric and what impact it might have on those who are inclined to act in the manner we witnessed in El Paso.

You promised to stop “the American carnage.” It’s not too late to make good on that pledge. What are you going to do about it?

Mr. President? Are you listening?

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More guns won’t prevent carnage … period!

I am quite certain we’re going to join this debate fully in due course, but I want to inject on this blog a thought I heard this morning in the wake of the El Paso and Dayton massacres that occurred in the past 24 hours.

Thirty people are dead, many more are injured in the wake of two senseless attacks by morons intent on doing harm.

The debate to which I refer? It will involve whether putting more guns in people’s hands will make us a safer society. This morning I heard from a Texan, former San Antonio mayor and former housing secretary (and current candidate for president of the United States) Julian Castro, who made a most cogent observation.

He told “This Week” host Jon Karl that the El Paso slaughter occurred in Texas. It allegedly was carried out by a Texan, who traveled from the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex to El Paso to terrorize innocent victims.

Castro noted that Texas is known worldwide as a place where its residents carry lots of guns; he noted we have concealed carry laws, open carry laws and campus carry laws in Texas. Yet the individual who opened fire in the Wal-Mart mall likely knew of the consequence of facing return fire from firearm-packing bystanders … but it didn’t deter him in the least!

He committed his hideous, heinous and horrific act anyway.

Do more guns make us safer? Well, let’s have that debate. I am willing to argue they do not!