A Christian Calls…

Police are investigating a threat made to a local mosque in Watauga, Texas, where an unidentified man threatened to decapitate Muslims who attended it.

Local news station Fox4News reports that the Watauga Mosque received a particularly disturbing threat via a telephone message this week, when a caller made explicitly violent threats that went well beyond the kind of verbal abuse callers normally level against the mosque.

“F*ck you, f*ck Muhammad, f*ck Islam,” said the caller, who identified as a “Christian” during their message. “This is America. If you don’t like the way we do sh*t, get the f*ck out.”

“We’ll start just cutting off the heads of all of you motherf*ckers,” the caller continued. “Huh? How would you like that? Maybe we need another Christian crusade, which I think we do.”

“I’m a Christian, I’m gonna tell you, I’m your f***ing enemy. I hate you, and I will never be your f**kin’ friend.

“When he started talking about chopping off people’s heads and launching a crusade against Muslims, that’s when it started to get scary because that’s an actionable threat,” said Alia Salem, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“I want to be very clear that the Muslim community has no animosity towards the Christian community, but we do ask the Christian community stand up against this kind of hatred. This does not speak for the vast majority of Christians,” said Salem.

I think that would be excellent, if Christians spoke up, and spoke out, with clear condemnation of the Christian caller. You have a great opportunity here to demonstrate that you are not bigoted, nor do you support such bigotry on the part of anyone.

Via Fox4.

Cops and Body Cams.

Screen shot of video footage of Chicago police shooting of 18-year-old Paul O’Neal | Video provided by IPRA.

Video footage released Friday by the Independent Police Review Authority doesn’t show the gunshot that killed 18-year-old Paul O’Neal eight days ago, but it does give a cop’s-eye view of the chaotic moments that led up to his death — and the dying teen being handcuffed in a growing pool of blood.
IPRA head Sharon Fairley described it as “shocking and disturbing” in a Friday morning press release, and the lawyer representing O’Neal’s family against the city called the images “beyond horrific.”

[…]

On the video, gunshots can be heard from behind the closed gate. After one officer helps another to scale the gate, the pair circle around to a neighboring house in the 7400 block of South Merrill Avenue and sprint to the backyard, where three officers already have a bleeding O’Neal pinned to the ground. The officer who shot O’Neal did not activate his camera before joining the chase, and IPRA has said there is no other camera angle that shows the fatal shot.

“You f—-ing shoot at us?” one officer asks the prone O’Neal as he is handcuffed. Another, searching the teen’s backpack, asks: “Have you got anything on you?”

O’Neal does not appear to respond before the camera turns away. He would die of his wounds during surgery.

Emphasis mine. It’s obvious cops can’t be trusted with body cams as they are.

Police have said O’Neal was unarmed.

Later, in footage recorded from a camera worn by a sergeant who responded to the scene, the senior officer instructs officers to shut off their body cameras, and warns one officer — apparently one who fired shots during the melee — not to talk about what happened in front of officers who are wearing their cameras.

“Here’s the thing,” the sergeant says. “Any statements you’re making in front of peoples camera and stuff like that are just killing you.”

In all, IPRA released video from nine cameras, but is reviewing footage from multiple other cameras. In her statement, Fairley said the investigation is “still very much in the early stages,” but investigators had determined that releasing the videos would not compromise their investigation.

Emphasis mine. Can we just get rid of the evil stormtroopers now? “Killing them”. No, sarge, it’s you killing all those brown people. In spite of this incredibly damning statement, FoP has rushed right in to tell people not to ‘rush to judgment’. I think I’m fine on the judgment front, it’s quite clear to me who needs to be condemned, in the harshest terms.

Dean Angelo, president of Chicago Lodge 7 of the Fraternal Order of Police, issued a statement cautioning against a rush to judgment.

“While there are multiple aspects to consider pertaining to the released videos, it is important to be mindful of how rapidly this event unfolded. Due to the fact that this chaotic incident occurred in a matter of moments, each individual perspective needs to be taken into consideration,” Angelo said.

Except for the perspective of Paul O’Neal, who can’t provide his, being murdered by cops.

After watching video with O’Neal’s mother and sister Friday morning just hours before the video was released, the family’s attorney, Michael Oppenheimer, said the recording of officers as their adrenaline subsides was equally disturbing: one officer remarks that the shooting likely means he will face a 30-day suspension.

Fuck the cop’s perspective. I don’t care about their perspective on anything.

Full story at the Chicago Sun Times.

Cops: now we DEMAND IT!

Shutterstock.

Boston cops are very unhappy, and have drafted a long letter of complaint and demands. They want more weapons, more ammunition, more body armor, and no accountability. Boston is about to implement a body cam program, and the cops are absolutely against it. This is only a 6 month pilot program, and they are still adamantly against it. You really have to wonder why this is such a problem for Boston cops. If, as the letter states, they are truly frightened every moment for their lives, I’d think they would be enthusiastically in favour of body cams.

“You can sing cumbia (sic) ’til the cows come home, but that won’t stop a Rifle Round Aimed at a Police Officer’s Chest,” the letter stated. “We live in a world where a sitting President has basically ‘fanned the flames of Police hatred’ with political rhetoric and now a sitting Governor is politically afraid to speak.”

The letter, which was signed by the presidents of the Boston Police Detectives Benevolent Society, Boston Police Superior Officers Federation, and Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, demands not only an increase in department staffing but the issuing of long guns with “ample ammunition” for use by patrol officers, as well as ballistic shields and helmets and “extra-loaded” magazines.

The full, 3 page letter can be read here (pdf). This is yet another example, like the ‘blue lives matter’ bills, which clearly demonstrates that all the majority of cops want is unquestioning obeisance, a cowering fear in the face of their well-armed authority, and complete respect, without ever having earned that respect. When you’re busy bristling over wanting more weapons and refusing body cams, the implications are quite clear.

Via WFXT, WCVB, and Raw Story.

SFPD: All Labs Matter.

Photo: Michael Noble Jr., The Chronicle.

The union representing San Francisco police officers published a photograph of two dogs in its monthly newspaper that critics say belittles the Black Lives Matter movement and raises questions about the police force’s commitment to repairing its relationship with communities of color.

The picture, which appeared on the back page of the August issue of the San Francisco Police Officers Association Journal, shows a pair of Labrador retrievers, one black and one white. The black dog has a sign around its neck reading, “Black Labs Matter,” while the white dog sports a sign reading, “All Labs Matter.”

[…]

The dog photo “once again shows a severe lack of understanding,” said Sgt. Yulanda Williams, president of Officers for Justice, an organization within the San Francisco police force representing African American and other nonwhite officers. “It’s so inflammatory, and they still don’t get it. They still choose to inflame situations, and it’s just really insulting.”

Union officials did not immediately comment to a request for comment on the journal photo, but Union President Martin Halloran pointed to a radio ad put out by the union about the recent attacks on police officers.

“In light of the rising violence against police officers, we hope everyone can start to turn down the volume,” Halloran says in the ad. “Anti-police rhetoric has been cited as a contributing factor to the violence against police officers. I think we can all do better and the police will do our part. We will continue with our best efforts to build bridges of communication and understanding between us and the community that we serve.”

The headline of the lead article in the August issue of the union journal reads, “Persevering the violence and blame: America’s cops have been there before.”

The union published the photo amid questions about whether the department has a systemic problem with racism, following the emergence of two separate sets of racist text messages exchanged between officers. Halloran has repeatedly said no such problem exists, calling the department one of the most culturally and racially diverse in the nation.

The U.S. Department of Justice is in the midst of a collaborative, top-to-bottom review of the police force that was launched after officers shot and killed a stabbing suspect, Mario Woods, in the Bayview neighborhood in December.

Mario Woods was shot more than 20 times by cops.

A panel of retired judges, assembled by District Attorney George Gascón to investigate potential police misconduct and bias, has questioned whether the union holds too much power in the department, and many activists have accused the union of standing in the way of reforms.

[…]

Anand Subramanian, executive director of the panel of judges investigating bias, also criticized the publication of the dog photo, saying, “It shows a severe lack of judgment and empathy for the real and justified pain and outrage that black communities are feeling.”

Sgt. Williams, who drew ire from the union when she testified before the judges’ panel about racism she experienced in the Police Department, said the photo demonstrated “blatant unwillingness to speak up for black lives.

“The POA is as good at sticking their foot in their mouth as Donald Trump,” she said. “So much for reform, that’s what that looks like. Reforms aren’t going to happen until you get them to concede that they’ve been doing things wrong, and this does not look like a concession or even an understanding or a desire to understand.”

Full story is at SFgate and Raw Story. Cops keep managing to demonstrate just how bigoted they are, and also how determined they are to stay that way, making every narrative all about them. Sorry, stormtroopers, you want respect? Fucking earn it.

White Nationalists Loving Trump.

White ~~Nationalists~~ Supremacists haven’t kept their love of Trump a secret, but they are now jubilant over Trump & Co.’s attack on the Khan family.

The Daily Stormer is an anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi hate site that’s endorsed Donald Trump. Editor Andrew Anglin repeatedly smeared the late Capt. Khan and his family as terrorists and called on them to be deported. From his post:

So, an Islamic terrorist from Pakistan infiltrates the US military, with the intent of getting high-quality training to use in his jihad against Whites, and also perhaps for the purpose of sabotage, and accidentally gets his dumbass killed.

And now, the Jews tell us we’re supposed to celebrate him as a hero? Just because he’s dead?

No dice, kikes.

[…]

I am hereby calling for the Khan family to be immediately deported to Pakistan. What’s more, I want their terrorist son’s body dug up and shipped back with them.

This terrorist filth has no more right to rot in our ground than he had to walk on it. [Daily Stormer, 7/31/16]

Daily Stormer writer “Tharru Larbi” praised “God Emperor Trump’s rightful criticism of St. Khizr Khan’s flailing remarks about ‘muh constitution’ and ‘muh muslim patriot son.’” The writer concluded:

If Trump wants to point out the hypocrisy of the Democrats parading a Muslim father of a Muslim soldier while his wife sits quietly, and submissively, by his side — so be it. Of course, the Democrats and Jewish media don’t have an issue with this since what they want for all goyim is quiet submission.

[…]

Yes, goyim! This is what you should strive to be like. Look how patriotic and happy those two Muslims are. They’re so American

No thanks. I’ll take a beautiful Aryan woman any day over these two ugly troglodytes and I’ll happily retweet Iron Ann when she rightly calls out the Democrats.

[…]

It’s too bad a traitor like McCain can continue to cite his military career as a prop for his political career despite the record of his many transgressions. Even the people he served with and was jailed with as a POW hated him.

Sad! [Daily Stormer, 8/1/16]

The Southern Poverty Law Center calls video blogger Paul Ray Ramsey (aka Ramzpaul) a white nationalist who “has emerged as the hottest right-wing video blogger this side of former Klansman David Duke.” The pro-Trump racist pundit made a YouTube video attacking Khan and praising Trump for not apologizing:

RAMZPAUL: I think he responded good. And God bless Donald Trump. He didn’t apologize, he didn’t grovel. He’s kind of like Sidonius, the guy in that story. He’s a man, he stood firm. But like the story of the Roman time and Sidonius, our troops, our army, our empire is now starting to be flooded with mercenaries like this guy from Pakistan. He may be an American citizen, but he’s not of the founding stock. He’s not of the white, European Christian that made this country. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 8/21/13; YouTube, 8/1/16]

Leading Hate Website Leader Don Black: Trump’s Khan Attack “Proves To Me That Trump Is The Real Thing.” The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Don Black as a “former Klan state leader and long-time white supremacist” who “is best known for creating Stormfront.org, the first major Internet hate site.” During Stormfront’s radio program, Black said Khizr Khan is a “professional Muslim” and praised Trump for his attacks against the Khans. Black said the episode “proves to me that Trump is the real thing. He really is, I think, sincere in what he’s doing even though he’s of course obviously ego-driven.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 8/2/16, Rense Radio Network, Stormfront, 8/2/16]

The Southern Poverty Law Center describes VDare.com as “an anti-immigration hate website” with a white nationalist ideology. The website’s Twitter account responded to Republicans defending the Khan family by writing, “And at the very moment when the tide turns, the GOP starts cucking. All these ppl need to do is just shut up.”

https://twitter.com/vdare/status/760155770767839234

[Twitter, 8/1/16; Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 8/2/16]

Eric Hananoki has the full story at MediaMatters. It’s bad enough, the re-normalisation of virulent bigotry enabled by Trump, but the putrid re-blossoming of these white supremacist groups, after they had been pushed to the fringe, is damn scary. All thinking people should be scared.

NYC: ‘Blue Lives Matter’ Bill.

CREDIT: eddtoro/Shutterstock

New York has become the latest state to introduce a Blue Lives Matter bill, which would classify assaulting an officer as a hate crime. The bill was introduced today by New York Assemblyman Ron Castorina (R), with support from Council Member Joseph C. Borelli (R) and NYPD Sergeant Joe Imperatrice, the president and founder of Blue Lives Matter NYC.

Hate crime legislation currently only applies to attacks based on race, sexual orientation, national origin, and religious affiliation. But this new legislation would classify cops as a protected class, aligning them with ethnic and religious minorities and the LGBT community.

In an interview with the New York Observer, Castorina noted the recent attacks on cops in Baton Rouge and Dallas this past month as a driving force for the bill. He also blamed Black Lives Matter protests for provoking violence against law enforcement.

“It’s based on this climate in this country right now where police officers are being abused and they’re being disrespected, and we’re seeing they have a target on their back, in Louisiana and in Dallas,” Castorina said. “You can envision this happening at a protest, where somebody might throw a rock or a bottle or a punch.”

Talk about a bad, knee-jerk reaction. This is completely unnecessary, as punishments for assaulting a cop are much higher than assaulting a non-cop, and everyone knows that cops will already do whatever they need to in order to tack on a resisting arrest charge, so now they’ll be busy finding ways to tack on an assault charge, too. Oh, this won’t lead anywhere bad, no, of course not. :Insert spine popping eyeroll here: Honesty would be welcome. Why not just call this what it is, a brutal enforcement of bowing down to authority? Being a cop is nowhere near as dangerous as a number of other jobs, and the majority of cops are killed in traffic accidents. The stats are quite clear as to there being many more civilians shot and killed by cops, then cops being shot by civilians.

Civilians get killed by police far more often. Law enforcement officers shot and killed some 990 people in 2015 and another 491 in the first half of this year, according to the Washington Post’s award-winning tracking of police shootings.

That’s almost 1,500 police killings in 18 months, compared to 305 law enforcement officers attacked and killed in the line of duty in the six-year span of numbers in the new report. Police officers have shot and killed about 82 people each month nationwide since the start of last year, and have been killed by attackers roughly 4 times per month going back to the start of 2010.

So of course, cops must be made into a protected class, oh my yes! As these bills pass, and they will, we can all look forward to many more people dying unjustly at the hands of cops, and those who don’t die may well end up with extended prison sentences because of cops who will claim assault. Just what our already over-burdened, fucked up penal system needs. Fuck stormtroopers.

Via ThinkProgress.

Four White Women Agree.

Fox News presenters Sandra Smith, Lisa Kennedy Montgomery, Elizabeth McDonald and Meghan McCain speak to guest David Webb (center)

The University of Houston’s Student Government vice president, Rohini Sethi, was hit with sanctions last week after she posted a message on Facebook that read: “Forget #BlackLivesMatter; more like #AllLivesMatter”

“For her to say on her social media ‘forget black lives matter,’ it’s almost as if to say if all of us were to die tomorrow, she wouldn’t care,” University of Houston Black Student Union President Kadidja Koné explained to The Washington Post on Monday.

But four white women hosting Fox News’ Outnumbered on Monday expressed outrage over the sanctions.

“The penalty was so harsh,” host Elizabeth McDonald complained. “The student leader, the president also said… you don’t go to jail for First Amendment violations but she deserves tougher sanctions. Who is this guy? He should be tossed out of his job.”

“I still don’t understand why saying ‘All Lives Matter’ is controversial,” co-host Meghan McCain chimed in. “I don’t understand why you can’t have empathy and understanding for the Black Lives Matter movement and also think that all lives everywhere — including by the way in the womb — also matter. Like, it’s really hard for me to understand how this is controversial.”

Monday’s Outnumbered guest, conservative radio host David Webb, declared that Black Lives Matter was a “violent movement” with “anarchists” behind it.

“It is such a false argument,” co-host Lisa Kennedy Montgomery opined. “It’s so offensive because when you say ‘All Lives Matter,’ you are not intending to say — for most people — is black lives don’t matter, but that’s how it’s taken.”

McCain asserted that universities would let students “go off on Trump” and “to say the most awful, disgusting, horrific things and there would be no recourse.”

“But you say this,” McCain added, “you say ‘All Lives Matter’ and you get demoted and you get your job taken away. That’s crazy.”

“Is there just no open discourse?” co-host Sandra Smith wondered. “Can you just not have a conversation on college campus anymore without someone being offended or having to delete a Facebook post where someone shares their opinion?”

“I’m for not backing down anymore,” Webb said. “You can take your safe space crowd — it doesn’t exist, this is college. This is supposed to be an expansion of our minds.”

Spoken from the safe space haven for bigoted, obnoxious, oblivious assholes. Right. Well, there we have it folks, the incredibly stunning, eloquent, and rational argument for all lives matter. Four white women agree!

Via Raw Story.

Justice Department to Investigate Fatal Shooting of Loreal Tsingine.

Loreal Tsingine with her Daughter Tiffany.

Here’s hoping this investigation will result in some form of justice, rather than the usual lack of it. Unsurprisingly, the cop who killed Ms. Tsingine had a highly questionable character, but the Winslow cop shop took him on anyway.

The Justice Department will investigate the police shooting of a Native American woman in Arizona, a spokesman said on Friday, a day after footage released by the Winslow police department raised concerns about racial bias in the fatal shooting.

The department’s civil rights division will review the local investigation into the March 27 shooting death of Loreal Tsingine, spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said.

Tsingine, 27, was shot and killed by the Winslow police officer Austin Shipley in late March after officers suspected her of shoplifting in a local store and confronted her. Silent body-camera footage, first obtained by the Arizona Daily Sun, shows a police officer trying to restrain Tsingine then shoving her to the ground and finally drawing a gun on her as she approaches him.

In the video, Tsingine gets up and walks toward Shipley with a small pair of medical scissors in her left hand, and another officer quickly approaches her from behind. Shipley draws his gun and directs it at Tsingine, and the footage is cut off before he fires the fatal shot.

[…]

Tsingine’s aunt, Floranda Dempsey, said her niece was 5ft tall and weighed 95lbs. “They should have been able to subdue her with their huge size and weight,” she said. “It wasn’t like she came at them first. I’m sure anyone would be mad if they were thrown around.” She added a question: “Where were the tasers, pepper sprays, batons?”

The family filed a $10.5m wrongful death lawsuit against the city at the beginning of the month, claiming that “the city of Winslow was negligent in hiring, training, retaining, controlling and supervising” the officer who killed Tsingine.

Shipley’s training records show two of his fellow officers had serious concerns that he was too quick to go for his service weapon, that he ignored directives from superiors, and that he was liable to falsify reports and not control his emotions.

A day before Shipley’s training ended, nearly three years ago, a police corporal recommended that the Winslow police department not retain him.

I cannot be the only one who wants an answer as to why in the hell this person was hired in the first place, then why in the hell he was kept on, and why he was not red-flagged all over the damn place. What is the point of cops trying to do the right thing, when they are simply ignored? This is how cop shops get a well deserved reputation of being rotten to the core.

This is a photo of Shipley, wearing a three percenters shirt, which might go a long way to answering why Ms. Tsinginge is dead, and why Shipley is so damn trigger happy:

Austin Shipley, a three-year veteran of the Winslow Police Department, shot and killed Loreal Tsingine on Easter Sunday. Photo from Facebook. Source.

[…]

Nationwide, Native Americans are disproportionately killed by police. Based on data from the Counted, the Guardian’s database of police killings in the US, fatal police shootings of black, white, Hispanic and Asian Americans have all gone down slightly or remained roughly the same from 2015 into 2016, but twice as many Native Americans have been killed over the same period.

Because the number of Native Americans, relative to other racial and ethnic categories, is quite small, just a handful of incidents can dramatically change the per capita rate. Still, 13 Native American people have been killed just over halfway through 2016, more than the 10 that were killed in all of 2015.

Tsingine is one of four Native Americans killed in 2016, representing about 30% of the incidents in contrast to the rate among all racial groups, in which women represent victims in about 3% of fatal shootings. For comparison, only one Hispanic or Asian American woman has been shot and killed by police in all of 2016, even though they represent a much larger portion of the population than Native American women.

[…]

Simon Moya-Smith, an activist and Oglala-Lakota tribal member, said it was “unfortunate that Native Americans are routinely excluded from this conversation” about racialized police violence. Moya-Smith noted as an example that in her Democratic nomination acceptance speech Thursday night, Hillary Clinton did not mention systemic racialized violence or discrimination against Native Americans.

“We know that many people don’t see us as human. We’re relics of centuries of lore,” Moya-Smith said. “We first need to get the cops to recognize us as human, and hopefully then they won’t think of themselves as the judge, the jury and the executioner.”

5 feet tall. 95 pounds. A pair of tiny medical bandage scissors. Two big ass cops, batons, pepper spray, tasers. And Ms. Tsingine ends up with 5 fucking bullets in her tiny body. How the fuck anyone could rule that justified, I do not know. Also, I’m thankful for The Guardian picking this story up, and getting word out. So, U.S. media, where the fuck are you?

The Guardian has the full story.

Video Released of Loreal Tsingine’s Death.

Winslow Police Department via YouTube.

A recently released body camera video of a 27-year-old Navajo woman who was shot five times after allegedly being involved in a shoplifting incident in Winslow, Arizona, shows the altercation between the police officer and Loreal Tsingine. Tsingine died, while the officer was cleared of any wrongdoing earlier this week.

No audio was available in first seconds but the video portion shows how the officer aggressively pushes Tsingine to the ground. A pair of scissors is seen in her hand as another officer is seen behind her. The officer pushes her again and something falls out of her pocket, which looks like medication. She gets up and walks toward the officer with the pair of scissors in her hand as he lifts his gun and aims directly at her. The video then fades to black and the audio kicks in. After the sound of heavy, labored breathing the officer says, “She came at me with those scissors.”

“I don’t care if she stole copy,000 worth of merchandise or whether she was brandishing a knife or scissors. In the larger historical context, I see this as a violation of an Indigenous woman and her space was violated,” said Brandon Benallie of the Border Town Justice Coalition of the video. “She responded appropriately. In this larger historical context, she acted bravely. She dared to defend her body.”

Benallie also questioned why the other officer did not get involved. “There was no point for him to shoot. This other cop could have taken her down. (Officer) Shipley chooses to murder her rather than create a situation where Loreal would be alive today.”

Benallie, the family of Tsingine and other members of the Border Town Justice Coalition will line the streets of this small town near the Navajo Nation today in efforts they say will hold the city’s police department accountable for crimes towards Indigenous people after Officer Austin Shipley shot Tsingine on Easter.

“Join us and make sure the Winslow Police Department and the City of Winslow, a bordertown settlement, are held accountable for their inhuman crimes towards Indigenous people and other people of color,” read a Coalition news release.

The group is protesting a recent decision by an independent ruling by the Maricopa County Attorney’s office, which stated that no criminal wrongdoing occurred. The Winslow Police Department requested an independent investigation into the incident by the Arizona Department of Public Safety, which turned over its report to Maricopa County at the request of Navajo County Attorney’s office.

Loreal Tsingine’s death at the hands of cops didn’t make the news anywhere much, outside of local news and Indian news outlets. Indigenous people are killed at high rates by cops, and they are subject to the same harassment as other people of colour. I doubt much will be done in this case, but here’s hoping anyway. My thoughts are with the family, friends, and protesters.

Bodycam footage Winslow Arizona shooting.

Full story at ICTMN.

Fort Myers, Florida: Night Club Shooting.

A gunman opened fire in a Fort Myers, Florida nightclub early Monday morning, killing two and wounding at least 16 others. Many of the victims were teenagers.

According to local reports, an unidentified person started shooting at Club Blu around midnight, when the venue was shutting down. Police arrived at the scene shortly after. Sixteen people, aged 12 to 27, were brought to the Lee Memorial Hospital, where at least one person perished.

A woman who watched the shooting unfold and tried to help the victims told ABC News that the venue was full of young people.

“It was a young teen event. There were kids. The kid I was holding in my lap, he was 14 years old that got shot,” Tatianna Nouhaioi said. “And then there was a little girl who also got shot and she was 13. One of the security guard’s daughter got shot, so I mean there was kids 13, 14, 15, 16. It was a young kids event.”

A second woman who lives in the area of the night club reported that she heard multiple guns fired at once.

Club Blu responded to the shooting on Facebook, saying the gunman was not a young person at the event.

“We are deeply sorry for all involved. We tried to give the teens WHAT WE THOUGHT WAS A SAFE PLACE TO HAVE A GOOD TIME. Ages 12-17. There was armed security as well as full security, inside and out,” the club said. “As the club was closing and parents were picking their children up…..that’s when all this took place. There was nothing more we could of done az you see it was not kids at the party that did this despicable act.”

Most of the victims have been released from the hospital, but two remain in critical condition. No arrests have been made, however police detained three people of interest.

More despair. How much more has to happen before people in this country wake the fuck up? Another awful thing? I find myself assuming the two young people who died were persons of colour, because they are being described as men, not teenagers, not young men, not kids.

Via ThinkProgress.

The Fraternal Order of Police Is Insulted!

REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk.

Cops are insulted that they aren’t being put up on a pedestal of pure heroism. It’s hard to imagine how they think having snitrums all over the place is helping any.

Philadelphia’s police union is blasting Hillary Clinton for inviting relatives of victims of police shootings to speak at the Democratic National Convention next week, but failing to include relatives of slain police officers.

John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, said the union was “shocked and saddened” by the planned choice of speakers at the convention, which opens Monday in Philadelphia.

“The Fraternal Order of Police is insulted and will not soon forget that the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton are excluding the widows and other family members of police officers killed in the line of duty who were victims of explicit and not implied racism,” Mr. McNesby said in a statement.

Shocked! Saddened! Insulted! Angry! Certainly, I can understand those feelings. Interesting that Mr. McNesby just can’t figure out that all those emotions and more are also on the part of all the families and friends of those who were victims of extrajudicial killings by cops. As for explicit vs implicit racism, you need to understand those concepts, not just the words, Mr. McNesby. You also need to understand that cop isn’t a race. It probably wouldn’t hurt if you could figure out that people wouldn’t be driven by absolute fury if you acknowledged wanton murder committed by cops, and stopped killing people of colour. The little things, you know. :eyeroll: The mere fact of this outrage is terrifying coming from cops, because you know there is zero thought going on there, it’s all kneejerk reactions, reactions which have a hell of a lot to do with a lack of cop worship. I don’t want people who are authorized to kill wanting worshipful obeisance. We already have enough trouble with religions.

He said it’s “sad that to win an election Mrs. Clinton must pander to the interests of people who do not know all the facts, while the men and women they seek to destroy are outside protecting the political institutions of this country.

I, uh, can I just die of irony poisoning now?

The Clinton campaign has scheduled former President Bill Clinton to speak Tuesday night with members of Mothers of the Movement, a group that includes relatives of black men killed by police such as Eric Garner of New York and Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri.

Former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, who said the nation is a “powder keg” over the police-involved shootings and assassinations of officers, is also scheduled to speak.

Full story here.

The Red Hot Assholes Revival.

Pastor Steven Anderson (Screenshot/YouTube)

Remember Steven ‘Pulpit Stomp’ Anderson? Steven and his other hateful buddies are getting together, for the Red Hot Preaching Conference in Sacramento, Ca. this weekend. Gosh, a whole weekend of poisonous hatred. Sounds charming.

The “Red Hot Preaching” conference scheduled for this coming weekend in Sacramento will feature four of the most repugnant King-James-Only pastors who have more than just their relentless hatred of gays in common … they’re all Quiverfull. These preachers of patriarchy are Truly True Believers™ who embrace Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar-style “family values” … Christian homeschooling mega-families who reject all forms of birth control and are devoted to raising up a “quiver full” of children to serve as “arrows” in God’s holy war.

Pastor Roger Jimenez, who celebrated the Orlando massacre, saying, “Christians shouldn’t be mourning the deaths of 50 sodomites,” will be hosting a four-day conference of “soul-winning” and “hard preaching” at his church, Verity Baptist, in Sacramento beginning Thursday evening.

Jimenez will be joined by three fellow “fire-breathing” preachers: Steven Anderson, pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona, who has advocated for the death penalty for gays and adulterers, Donnie Romero, pastor of Stedfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth, who prayed for the injured survivors of the Pulse nightclub attack to die and who threatened violence against LGBT people, and David Berzins, pastor of yet another Independent Fundamental Baptist church, Word of Truth, in Prescott Valley, Arizona.

When Jimenez and company are not busy condemning “sodomites” and “faggots,” they’re likely to be preaching about a woman’s duty to stay at home, dress modestly, submit to her husband, have lots of babies, homeschool, and always be sexually available when hubby’s in the mood.

The current political climate didn’t create these evil doucheweasels. They’d be evil any where, any time. That said, the current political climate is openly fostering and embracing every kind of bigotry and hatred, under one guise or another. The guise of Christianity is being used to push through one evil after another in the GOP dream platform. That’s why, while it’s very tempting to simply mock and dismiss these evil clowns, we cannot afford to do so. Here in uStates, if we aren’t vigilant, if we don’t make every possible effort to rouse people to get out and vote, to make a difference, these evil clowns could well be our future overseers.

The full story is here.

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