Tag Archives: Governor Greg Abbott

Texas bill eliminates red light cameras

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To which my Libertarian side replies: “excellent.”

First, the story from RedState.com:

Texas Governor Greg Abbott Recently Wiped Out Red Light Cameras Throughout The State

by Brandon Morse

With a stroke of his pen and smirk on his face, Texas Governor Greg Abbott made a short video of himself proving why he’s one of the most beloved Governors in the nations.

Abbott opened his video by saying that he was at the Texas Capitol in Austin signing bills, and described the one sitting in front of him.

“I’m about to sign this bill than bans red light cameras in Texas,” he said before putting his signature on the paper.

Abbott then held up the now former bill for everyone to see.

“Is now law,” said Abbott with a slight smile.

But wait, BZ. Ask any motor officer. They’ll tell you red light cameras save lives. Right?

Red light cameras have been a lucrative way for cities to garner extra cash from traffic violations. From 2007 to 20010, Texas cities accrued $100 million from 1.2 million camera tickets. However, red light cameras have two major problems.

For one, they’re unconstitutional. Upon receiving a citation from an officer, you are given the opportunity to fight it in court. The city or county has to prove your guilt. If it can’t, the ticket is thrown out. Red light cameras don’t work that way. If you get a ticket, you’re expected to pay it, due process be damned. It puts the onus on the driver to prove he’s innocent, not the authority to prove a citizen’s guilt.

But secondly, and most importantly, the safety reasons for these cameras to supposedly exist don’t even keep drivers safe. In fact, according to the Star-Telegram, they actually make intersections more dangerous:

As for the only legitimate argument in favor of the cameras — safety — a 12-year study released in 2018 by Case Western Reserve University in Ohio concludes there is “no evidence of a reduction in total accidents or injuries” attributable to red light cameras in Texas. In fact, the study says, by training motorists to “stop even when it would be safer to continue through the intersection,” red light cameras have actually increased rear-end collisions at such intersections: up 28 percent combined in Dallas and Houston.

“Intersections with cameras are likely to be among the most dangerous intersections,” the study says.

Because I am inquisitive and the internet is at my beck and call, I started to query red light camera safety. I discovered a few things. First, there are numerous articles and studies indicating that, no, red light cameras do not yield immediate traffic safety. In fact, some studies show the opposite.

Second, red light camera manufacturers get a cut of the ticket profits.

Third, various jurisdictions utilize red light camera systems as an agency cash cow. Screw traffic; we just like the profits. They’re fabulous.

It’s not just Texas; other states want to remove red light cameras.

Red-light cameras come under fire, at least 7 states trying to ban them

by Charlie Lapastora

Traffic stop law enforcement, in the form of photo enforcement, is at the center of a heated national debate – and it has both sides seeing red.

More than 500 communities in the U.S. have some type of red light or speed camera program to catch motorists who flout traffic laws. There are other municipalities who are either looking into starting to use them, or expanding their existing program.

But now, there are a growing number of areas who are starting to question whether the speed camera programs are effective. Critics even call them unconstitutional.

Seven states, including Arizona, are considering legislation to prohibit red light and speed camera use. They say those programs, which have grown in popularity the past few years, are ripe for abuse.

I mentioned safety or the lack thereof. Where are those articles and studies?

From Phys.org:

Red-light cameras don’t reduce traffic accidents or improve public safety: analysis

by Case Western Reserve University

Red-light cameras don’t reduce the number of traffic accidents or injuries at intersections where the devices are installed, according a new analysis by Case Western Reserve University.

Touted by supporters as a way increase public safety by ticketing drivers who continue through red lights, the cameras actually shift traffic patterns: More drivers tend to brake harder and more abruptly, increasing fender-benders and other so-called “non-angle” collisions.

“Once drivers knew about the cameras, they appeared to accept a higher accident risk from slamming on their brakes at yellow lights to avoid an expensive traffic citation—thereby decreasing safety for themselves and other drivers,” said Justin Gallagher, an assistant professor of economics at Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve.

From HarryBrownLaw.com:

DO RED LIGHT CAMERAS ACTUALLY KEEP US SAFE?

A study in St. Petersburg Florida determined that red light camera helps decrease side collision, but it also increased rear-end collisions. 

One of AAA’s New York Spokesperson Robert Sinclair key points to this topic initially was that side collision would decrease with red light cameras. He stated that some intersections need cameras because the risks are too high. He mentions that t-bone accidents, being hit by on the side, are the weakest point in the car and can lead to too many bad things. 

In later reports, Sinclair addresses the issue of amber light time. Amber light is the yellow light that is there to caution drivers when the light is changing from green to red.

Regarding amber lights, there were allegations that red light camera companies were reducing the time of yellow lights in intersections with cameras.

From ArsTechnica.com:

Major Chicago study finds red light cameras not safer, cause more rear-end injuries

by Megan Geuss

Chicago is the home of the nation’s largest red light camera program and encompasses 350 cameras at a variety of the city’s intersections. The red light camera program has been accused of mismanagement and embroiled the mayor’s office in a $2 million bribery scandal. But recently, administrators trotted out a seemingly redeeming statistic: that the introduction of the cameras had created a 47 percent reduction in the rate of right angle, or “T-bone,” injury crashes.

The Chicago Tribune in response commissioned a scientific study by two well-regarded transportation researchers, who found that the statistics promoted by the mayor’s office were misleading. According to the Tribune, the authors of the study found a statistically significant, but still smaller, reduction in angle and turning injury crashes by 15 percent, as well as “a statistically significant increase of 22 percent in rear-end injury collisions.” Overall, there was “a non-significant increase of 5 percent in the total number of injury crashes” that happened at intersections with red light cameras when comparing the injury crashes that occurred there before and after the cameras were present.

On a more granular level, the researchers found that there were no safety benefits from cameras that are installed at intersections where there have already been few crashes with injuries, and occasionally, there was evidence that red light cameras actually increased injury crashes at such intersections. “When intersections experiencing fewer than 4 injury crashes per year are considered, there is a significant increase in all crashes by 19 percent after the installation of RLCs,” the Tribune study found.

Then this little gem from the StarTelegram.com:

INTERSECTIONS WITH RED LIGHT CAMERAS ‘LIKELY TO BE AMONG MOST DANGEROUS,’ STUDY SAYS

by Anna M. Tinsley

Red light cameras don’t cut down on accidents or make intersections safer, a new study shows.

True, fewer motorists may blow through red lights, cutting down on T-bone type accidents. But the trade-off is that there are more rear-end collisions as drivers slam on their brakes to avoid going into the intersection and are hit by vehicles from behind.

“We find that the cameras changed the (angle) of accidents, but (there is) no evidence of a reduction in total accidents or injuries,” according to a recent report by researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio who reviewed Texas traffic data.

Does that make sense? Ask yourself the question: how many times, at the last second, have you approached an intersection only to see the cameras and then slammed on your brakes?

You want law enforcement by robot? By equipment? I don’t. And I was law enforcement for 41 years. Yes, I wrote traffic tickets.

Finally, it’s the Libertarian in me — little “L” — that’s emerging here. So few people have privacy and we’re willingly shedding more privacy week by week. Cameras everywhere, monitoring, checking, computers keeping data, license plate recognition systems archiving our plates, our cars, where we were at specific times — with this information shared by numerous law enforcement agencies. Companies like Ancestry keeping our DNA and then selling it to other companies. Facial recognition. Cameras in grocery stores following what we purchase.

It’s enough. Stop. We don’t need China’s “social points system” here in the United States, though no one can say it’s not already here with the existence of Alphabet, Google, Facebook, Twitter and their ilk. When a social media app is “free,” it’s never free.

Because YOU are the product being sold.

BZ

 

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Joe Biden: First Baptist Church hero shouldn’t have had a gun

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You actually read that correctly.

The man who, in every sense, was the person primarily responsible for stopping Devin Kelley, the suspect in the November 5th church shooting in Sutherland Springs, in which 26 persons were killed, was singled out Wednesday by former Vice President Joe Biden — but not in a good way.

From the WashingtonTimes.com:

Joe Biden says Texas church shooting hero Willeford never should have owned AR-15

by Douglas Ernst

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden says the Texan who confronted Sutherland Springs’ mass shooter this month never should have owned an AR-15.

Gunman Devin Kelley was shot and wounded on Nov. 5 by hero Stephen Willeford during the deadliest church shooting in U.S. history, but Mr. Biden told an NBC audience on Monday that an AR-15 should not have aided the good Samaritan. His comments came during a “Today” show appearance that was opened up for an audience Q&A session.

“How do you justify the Democratic [Party’s] view on gun control when the shooter was stopped by a man who was legally licensed to carry a gun?” a woman asked.

“Well, first of all, the kind of gun being carried he shouldn’t be carrying,” Mr. Biden replied, the Daily Wire reported. “Assault weapons are … I wrote the last serious gun control law that was written and was law for 10 years, and it outlawed assault weapons and it outlawed weapons with magazines that had a whole lot of bullets and so you can kill a whole lot of people a lot more quickly.”

Mr. Willeford, a former National Rifle Association instructor, said in follow-up interviews after the shooting that his AR-15’s firepower was necessary because Mr. Kelley wore protective body armor.

Here are Biden’s remarks on Wednesday’s Today show.

Consider that for a moment.

In the world of Joe Biden, the shooter should have been able to continue on his rampage — and in every likelihood would have done so — unopposed and unimpeded until the “approved” wielders of firepower arrived: the law enforcement agency applicable.

Note to Joe and others: I worked in law enforcement for 41 years, easily twice the standard service for most officers. I’ve seen most everything imaginable in a LE venue. And if there’s one thing I know it’s this: there is no way any law enforcement officer can be everywhere at every time. Further, you wouldn’t want that. It would equate to a veritable Police State and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone or any nation.

That said, Joe Biden, you are apparently more than willing to abandon the ability of average Americans to arm and defend themselves against certain assaults and deadly incursions in order to enable your perfect world.

This from Liz Wheeler on OAN:

From NationalReview.com:

Joe Biden’s Muddled Response to the Texas Shooting Was Unintentionally Revealing

by David French

If nothing you propose will reduce mass shootings, just go for sentiment and stigmatize gun owners.

The Sutherland Springs, Texas, shooting presents a serious problem for those who claim that the government offers the answer for gun violence. After all, the government failed at every turn, and it was up to a private citizen to stop one of the worst mass shootings in American history. The shooter was disqualified on multiple grounds from legally owning a gun, yet he obtained his weapons anyway. The police were apparently nowhere near the church (they can’t be everywhere in rural America) and couldn’t intervene for many long, agonizing minutes. It took a brave citizen with an AR-15 to match the shooter’s firepower and bring his rampage to an end.

Stop with the facts. Just stop them. Never let the facts, history, logic, rationality, proportion and common sense get in the way of a good fucked-up decision. Or opinion.

Still and all, it’s just fine for our “leaders” to eschew the rules and laws they impose on us little people, us proles, groundlings, serfs, commoners. You know, those persons who have personal security assigned to them, people who are paid to carry guns.

The rest of us can go to hell.

BZ

 

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Facts and hatred

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Mandatory Credit: Photo by AP/REX/Shutterstock (9190148a)
Sutherland Springs Shooting. Law enforcement officers gather in front of the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs after a fatal shooting, in Sutherland Springs, Texas
Shooting, Sutherland Springs, USA – 05 Nov 2017

This would seem to be quite the incongruent post but, if you follow along, you’ll soon come to understand the linkage I’m attempting to make.

On the heels of Sunday’s shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, Demorats, Leftists and the American Media Maggots came out in full force and barked sharply about firearms, gun deaths, white people. SLF. Standard Leftist Fare.

Then they began to excoriate those who were sending prayers, as did certain personnel in my comments section. Typical Leftist pap: “What is needed, clearly, are more prayers and no gun restriction. Oh and thoughts. Thoughts and prayers, yup, that will do it.”

Time.com wrote:

Democratic leaders and gun control advocates shut down the immediate and familiar outpouring of “thoughts and prayers” for the victims of the South Texas church shooting on Sunday, calling for stronger gun laws.

“Represent,” Time, “represent.”

Because, well, “thoughts and prayers” refer to religious people and everyone knows that religious people are stupid and Caucasoid and ill educated, driving around in Ford FX4 Off Road pickup trucks with loud motors and damaged exhaust pipes, flying Confederate banners and Ed Gillespie bumper stickers with Gadsden Flag front license plates, looking to run down little Muslim kids and children with higher melanin counts. Race baiting? Nah.

It’s all you ig’nant Southerners with that easily-mocked and stupid drawl like, well, Bill Clinton. Wait. That’s not what you meant.

When Speaker Paul Ryan wrote this on Twitter:

He got this loving retort from highly-paid and relevant actor extraordinaire Wil Wheaton:

These social media responses as well:

And lest we forget that profound and insightful Teutonic Keith Olbermann, Mein Fuhrer:

The embracing, kind, inclusive and understanding Chelsea Handler?

How odd that Laura Ingraham happened to address the issue on her Monday show.

Of course, as we all know, it’s only Caucasoids who are mass murderers. Just ask Ruben Navarrette.

Except for one thing: those damnable facts. It’s too bad Tucker didn’t have immediate access to the facts — facts even acknowledged by Leftist organs. First, from Slate.com:

Mass Shooters Aren’t Disproportionately White

by Daniel Engber

Where the myth came from, and what it gets right and wrong about the demographics of mass killings.

Stephen Paddock shot more than 500 people from the windows of his Las Vegas hotel room Sunday night, killing 58 of them. In the days since, a familiar story has been passed around the internet about the blinkered way in which we talk about these sorts of massacres. We’re so quick to blame Islamic terrorists, this story goes, that we don’t address the stark, distressing truth about mass shootings. The killers aren’t angry immigrants, by and large. They’re white men.

Of course they are. Ask any Leftist, Demorat or American Media Maggot. Or Ruben Navarrette.

“These shooters are almost exclusively coming from a single socio-economic class and racial group,” wrote actor Cole Sprouse in a widely shared Twitter thread. We must now address “what part of whiteness influences this kind of Petri dish for gun violence and killing.”

Because, after all, actors are particularly insightful and full of professorial knowledge.

This wasn’t just a social media phenomenon. The Huffington Post published Sprouse’s tweets as a “Powerful Take on Whiteness and Mass Shootings.” An article in Elle called the link between white men and mass shootings “a general rule” and proposed that “our refusal to confront toxic white male violence is why this problem will metastasize.” The progressive news site ThinkProgress said that “when we talk about mass shootings, we are talking about white men.” Newsweek wondered if “white men commit mass shootings out of a sense of entitlement.” A CNN opinion piece bemoaned the fact that “America has silently accepted the rage of white men.”

In a narrow sense, these stories are correct: The plurality of mass killers are white. But the notion that white men of privilege are disproportionately represented among mass shooters—indeed, that they make up “nearly all” of them—is a myth.

“Oh myth, can I have another cup of coffee please?

What those initial Mother Jones numbers showed, though, was that white people weren’t overrepresented among mass shooters. The media outlet had found that roughly 70 percent of the shooters in mass killings were white—certainly a majority. But according to Census Bureau estimates for 2012, whites accounted for 73.9 percent of all Americans. (Keep in mind that the definition of whiteness is both vague and forever changing. In the 2010 census, the “white” category includes those whose families originate in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Mother Jones, for its part, categorizes one Moroccan immigrant killer as “white”; leaves the race field blank for a Turkish immigrant; and describes several shooters of Pakistani, Palestinian, Afghan and Kuwaiti extraction as “other.”)

Uh-oh. Leaks in the hull?

I’m not sure where Kimmel and Leek got their stat about mass murders perpetrated by teenagers, but that figure, too, wasn’t that far off from U.S. demographics. At any rate, it certainly wasn’t true—as many argued then, and many do today—that mass shooters were “almost exclusively” or “disproportionately” or “nearly all” white. (Mass shooters are disproportionately men, however—more on that below.)

Of course mass shooters are disproportionately men. Ask anyone in Chicago.

Here’s another way of looking at it: Instead of asking why so many mass shooters are white, we could ask what it is about mass shootings that differentiates them, even to a small extent, from the broader trend of racial inequalities in murder rates. Why might the huge disparities that we see in homicides, born of systematic disadvantage, be diminished (though not reversed) in our most extreme episodes of violence?

Don’t stop there. Keep going.

All of that is a very long way of saying the data don’t support the whites-are-overrepresented-among-mass-shooters meme. On the other hand, they do back up the notion that these killers are nearly always men. In the Mother Jonesdatabase, 97 percent of the listed killers are men; in the one from USA Today, that number is 94 percent.

Guilty. Then from NYMag.com:

Whiteness Doesn’t Cause Mass Shootings

by Jesse Singal

Yesterday’s horrific massacre in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in which 26-year-old Devin P. Kelley killed 26 people and injured many others at the town’s First Baptist Church, has spurred the tragically familiar call from Americans begging for politicians to take some action — any action — in response to what feels like an epidemic of mass shootings. Today, many are arguing for enhanced gun-control legislation, perhaps legislation which would take into account what appears to be an important connectionbetween domestic violence and these sorts of acts.

But in a Democracy Now! segment from earlier today, George Ciccariello-Maher, a political science professor at Drexel University, made a different case. He argued that while it’s important to examine the policy ramifications of Kelley’s murders, including the possibility that “targeted gun control for domestic violence [offenders]” or similar policies might prove effective, the bigger conversation should be about the fact that he was white.

Evil Caucasoids. Evil religious Caucasoids. Evil Constitution-embracing Caucasoids.

But the full damage done by these whiteness-violence claims goes deeper. And to explain this, it’s important to explain why some people are making these arguments in the first place. When Ciccariello-Maher and others posit whiteness as an explanation for violence or other bad behavior on the part of whites, they are, in part, offering a rejoinder to the pernicious idea that blackness can explain such behavior on the part of blacks. As many scholars have shown, perhaps most comprehensively the Harvard University professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad in his excellent book The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America, this idea has a long, ugly history.

Thank you.

Let’s say, for a minute, that Engber is wrong and mass shooters are disproportionately white. If this is reason enough to claim that their race is an important causal factor, then a conservative interlocutor could easily jump in and say, “Oh, well then I guess blackness is causing black crime, since black people commit violent crimes at higher rates.” That is a real discrepancy, after all — it’s one that can be explained by socioeconomic factors, including institutionalized racism and urban neglect on the part of predominately white American power structures, but it’s also easily exploited by racists as “proof” of the sorts of claims spotlighted in Muhammad’s book. Or what about Europe? In those European countries that have been hit by recent mass-casualty attacks, those attacks have been overwhelmingly committed by Muslims. Does it follow from this that we need to talk about “Muslim culture,” or that Muslims are essentially violent in a way Christians and Jews are not?

Leftist excuses made by Leftists taking into account every Leftist meme possible. You have to see beyond that. And I’m sure you do.

Leftists believe there is no such thing as an evil person, only a misunderstood person. They couldn’t be more wrong, ignorant or naive themselves.

Look, Leftists, I can see you a mile away. So can Conservatives. You don’t respect the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights. In your world everything is gray and in flux. I get it. People of any religious bent are evil — except for Muslims, because you fear them and at least recognize that if you go against them they’ll kill your ass. I get your cowardice on that, too.

I also understand your final play: gun confiscation. Outright confiscation. Some Leftists are brave enough to talk for the rest of you and advocate it. I at least admire the honesty and clarity of those few Leftist souls making that argument. It’s why I admire Bernie Sanders. At least he’ll tell you he’s a Socialist all day long.

Bottom line? Guess what? Gun confiscation isn’t going to occur.

Unless, of course, you wish to revisit 1861.

BZ

 

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26 people killed in Texas church shooting, suspect dead

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Occurring at about 11:30 Central time on Sunday, Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, of New Braunfels, Texas, approached the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, opened fire with a Ruger AR15-style rifle, and killed at least 26 persons.

Less than twenty-four hours after the event — just like the New York truck attack on Tuesday, October 31st where 8 persons were killed by a Muslim ISIS sympathizer — we know a good deal about the shooter and the circumstances. Quite unlike the Las Vegas mass shooting on Sunday, October 1st, where 58 people were killed by Stephen Paddock.

One way to know you’re in Texas. Look at the motto on the rear of the police SUV.

Whereas the bodies had not yet cooled before Demorats, Leftists and the American Media Maggots called for the abolition of the 2nd Amendment, two brave Texans, I believe, will be shown to be the reason that Kelley and killed before any sort of police response and, more importantly, was unable to drive to another location and perhaps kill even more people.

Let’s examine some of those Leftist comments.

Just off the top of my head, 37,000 people died in vehicle accidents in 2016. Not a peep. 44,000 to 98,000 people die in US hospitals each year due to medical mistakes — the third leading cause of death in the US. Not a peep. There were 762 murders, 3,550 shooting incidents, and 4,331 shooting victims in the city of Chicago — a Leftist haven — in 2016. Almost every victim and suspect was black. Not a peep. The FBI’s 2015 Uniform Crime Report found that nearly three times more Americans were killed by knives or other “cutting instruments” than shot and killed by long guns. Not a peep.

From AJC.com:

Bystander, neighbor chase gunman who killed 26 at Texas church

by Jared Leone

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas

Two men followed the gunman who killed 26 people and injured more than 20 others at a Texas church Sunday, leading police to the man’s location, according to reports.

Bystander Johnny Langendorff watched as Devin Kelley traded gunfire with a neighbor who had grabbed his own rifle and engaged the gunman as he tried to flee the scene at First Baptist Church.

“I pulled up to the intersection where the shooting happened and I saw two men exchanging gunfire,” Langendorff said, according to the San Antonio Express-News. “The other gentleman said we needed to pursue (Kelley) because he shot up the church. So that’s what I did. I just acted.”

The pair followed Kelley until he lost control of his vehicle and ran off the road. Authorities were there moments later, according to KSAT.

It is still unclear if Kelley was shot by the armed resident or if it was self-inflicted.

Then there was this from MySA.com:

Hero describes how he tracked down church shooter after attack

by Kelsey Bradshaw

As emergency responders rushed into Sutherland Springs following the state’s deadliest shooting, two men were headed the opposite direction – chasing after the suspected shooter.

Two locals took on the man who authorities say shot and killed 26 people at the First Baptist Church Sunday morning as the suspect was trying to flee the scene. 

Johnny Langendorff was one of the men who chased after suspected killer Devin Kelley, a 26-year-old from Comal County, he told KSAT in a television interview. 

The pair chased the man down FM 539 headed North before the shooter lost control and ran off the roadway. Langendorff said the other man with him jumped out of the car and drew his rifle on Kelley.

“He didn’t move after that,” Langendorff said.

I’d call that a rather ready clue in terms of who was responsible for the stopping of Kelley. Some additional insight here.

If there’s one thing we know — but Leftists, Demorats and the American Media Maggots don’t — it’s that it takes a person with a firearm to stop a person with a firearm.

We now know, Monday, that the second citizen involved was 55-year-old Stephen Willeford, above.

  • Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, was leaving First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs after he opened fire on parishioners, killing 26 people

  • Stephen Willeford had ‘grabbed his rifle and engaged the suspect’

  • Kelley fled the skirmish and got back in his SUV to flee the scene at 95mph

  • Willeford then jumped in the truck of neighbor Johnnie Langendorff and told him to chase Kelley

  • Kelley eventually lost control of his vehicle during the high speed chase 

  • He called his father to say he had been shot and didn’t think he would make it

  • Police then believe that Kelley shot himself dead

CNN reported about the suspect, Devin Kelley:

Kelley was once a member of the US Air Force, spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said. He served in logistics readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, starting in 2010.

Kelly was court-martialed in 2012 for two counts of Article 128 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, assault on his spouse and assault on their child, Stefanek said. Kelley received a bad conduct discharge, confinement for 12 months and a reduction in rank, she said. The Air Force did not provide a date of the discharge.

Kelley purchased the Ruger AR-556 rifle in April 2016 from an Academy Sports & Outdoors store in San Antonio, a law enforcement official told CNN.

When Kelley filled out the background check paperwork at the store, he checked the box to indicate he didn’t have disqualifying criminal history, the official said. He listed an address in Colorado Springs, Colorado when he bought the rifle, the official said.

We know that Kelley worked as a security guard for a Texas waterpark this past summer, according to a resume under his name that appears online.

We know that he is married to Danielle Shields Kelley, and that his mother-in-law has an address in Sutherland Springs, where Danielle is from. His wife’s mother, in fact, attends the First Baptist Church. My first question knowing that: is she one of the victims?

It is becoming evident that Kelley had ties to and/or knew about that church. How personal was this attack?

Heavy.com writes:

Another former classmate, Nina Rose Nava, wrote on her Facebook page: “…in complete shock! I legit just deleted him off my fb cause I couldn’t stand his post. He was always talking about how people who believe in God we’re stupid and trying to preach his atheism. Smh.” It’s not clear why the killer would say he briefly taught Bible classes if he was fixated on atheism.

CBS unearthed a photo of Devin Kelley that shows him with the beard. According to KSAT-TV, “His parents lived in one home, while Kelley lived in a ‘barndominium’” on a “wooded property behind a cattle guard.” His neighbor, Mark Moravitz, told KSAT: “Nothing abnormal. Regular guy. I mean, the only thing unusual across the street is we hear a lot of gunfire, a lot of times at night. We hear gunfire a lot, but we’re out in the country.” The New York Times reported that his parents’ home is worth $1 million.

This, by the way, cinches my first thought: the shooting was personal.

Court records in Comal County show they got married in April 2014, when he was 23 and she was 19. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), told The LosAngeles Times of the motive, “I’ve been talking to some community members. They think there was a relative there. It was not random…There’s going to be some sort of nexus between the shooter and this small community… somebody in that church will help us find answers.”

As per normal these days we look to social media for some answers. Kelley’s Facebook page was pulled rather rapidly, but not before I captures this and other screen shots from various sources. Please note them.

Then there was the below photo with an Antifa reference. True or not? Unknown yet.

Kelley also had this post about a firearm. Oddly enough, it is a Ruger AR-556 with a number of accessories attached.

It would appear at first blush that Kelley leaned Left considering his associations on Facebook and other forms of social media.

And why do I say I frequently seek news sources from UK media? Here is one excellent example, from the UKDailyMail.com:

EXCLUSIVE: ‘Creepy, crazy and weird’: Former classmates say Texas gunman was an ‘outcast’ who ‘preached his atheism’ online before killing 26 in the state’s worst ever mass shooting

by Jenny Stanton

  • Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, shot dead 26 people and injured 24 others in Texas
  • Walked into First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs in Texas and opened fire 
  • He was wearing black, tactical gear and carrying a military style assault rifle
  • Kelley was shot by local Stephen Willeford, 55, and died after a car chase
  • Former classmates have described him as an ‘outcast’, ‘creepy’ and ‘weird’
  • Another said he talked ‘about how people who believe in God were stupid’
  • LinkedIn reveals Kelley was an Air Force veteran and ex-Bible studies teacher
  • He was court martialed in 2014 for two counts of assault on his spouse and child
  • He was living in New Braunfels, a suburb of San Antonio, and was married 
  • Did you know Devin Patrick Kelley? Please contact Jenny Stanton by emailing jenny.stanton@mailonline.com

The Texas church shooter who mercilessly shot dead 26 people and injured 24 others was an ‘outcast’ who ‘preached his atheism’ online.

Former classmates say Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, who stormed First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs in Texas and opened fire on Sunday, was ‘creepy’, ‘crazy’ and ‘weird’.

Patrick Boyce, who attended New Braunfels High School with the killer, told DailyMail.com: ‘He had a kid or two, fairly normal, but kinda quiet and lately seemed depressed.

‘He was the first atheist I met. He went Air Force after high school, got discharged but I don’t know why. 

Nina Rose Nava, who went to school with the gunman, wrote on Facebook: ‘In (sic) in complete shock! I legit just deleted him off my fb cause I couldn’t stand his post. 

‘He was always talking about how people who believe in God we’re stupid and trying to preach his atheism’ 

Christopher Leo Longoria replied: ‘I removed him off FB for those same reasons! He was being super nagtive (sic) all the timd (sic).’

I think we’re beginning to realize something of a theme.

He was married to Danielle Shields, and they appear to have a child together. She was previously a teacher at the First Baptist Church.

Kelley lived at his parents’ home with his wife and child and neighbor Mark Moravitz told ABC News he would sometimes hear gunshots coming from near that house late at night.

The gunman’s mother-in-law, Michelle Shields, also appears to have been a parishioner at the church and was friends on social media with the pastor’s wife.

It is not clear whether they were at the church at the time of the shooting.

As it turns out: yes, it was personal. From the UKDailyMail.com:

REVEALED: Texas shooter sent ‘threatening texts’ to his mother-in-law, who attended church where he massacred 26 people before calling his father to say goodbye before committing suicide

by Ashley Collman

  • Officials say Devin Patrick Kelley was in a domestic dispute with his mother-in-law Michelle Shields, who attended First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas

  • At an afternoon press conference, it was revealed that Kelley sent ‘threatening texts’ to his mother-in-law

  • Officials wouldn’t go into further details about the family fight

  • Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackett said that Kelley and his wife Danielle were estranged 

  • Danielle used to work as a teacher at the church, her mother is friends with the pastor’s wife

  • Records show they were married in April 2014, when Kelley was 23 and his bride was 19

  • He was also married at least once before, to a Tessa K Kelley

  • The couple divorced in 2012, the same year he was court-martialed for domestic violence   

  • After killing 26 in the church on Sunday, Kelley fled in his car and was found dead behind the wheel 

  • The official cause of death is pending, but officials believe he committed suicide by gun 

  • Before killing himself, he called his father and said he didn’t think he was going to make it, officials said  

All things considered, I say this: contrast and compare to the Las Vegas shootings. Examine and notice how quickly we learn things about all the other shooters, killers and terrorists.

Las Vegas still does not pass the smell test. Another reason why myself and others do not trust the investigators running the Las Vegas case. There is good reason, I submit.

Finally and most importantly, condolences to the families who lost loved ones in the First Baptist shooting. Your names have not yet all been revealed but trust me, you are in the thoughts and prayers of thousands and thousands of Americans throughout the United States.

BZ

 

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26 persons killed in Texas church shooting

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The original story is here.

Following a press conference from Texas Governor Abbott, new information is:

There are 26 confirmed deaths in the Texas church shooting.

The suspect, 26-year-old Devin Kelley was armed with a Ruger AR15 type rifle. As the suspect exited the church, a local resident armed with a rifle engaged the suspect, who dropped his firearm and fled from the church. The citizen pursued the suspect.

Kelley fled in his vehicle, crashed, and was found dead. It is unknown if the suspect shot himself or was shot by the citizen.

Kelley was dressed in all black gear and wearing a ballistic vest.The victims range in age from 5 to 72.

More information forthcoming.

BZ

 

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