Since I don't know when I'll sleep (it's 4 am now) I'll write what happened (the abbreviated version.....the long one is already part of the investigation with more to come). I'll not write about any part of the investigation that I've learned about since (as a witness I know more than I should since inevitably my JAG brothers and sisters are deeply involved in the investigation). Don't assume that most of the current media accounts are very accurate. They're not. They'll improve with time. Only those of us who were there really know what went down. But as they collate our statements they'll get it right.
I did my SRP last week (Soldier Readiness Processing) but you're supposed to come back a week later to have them look at the smallpox vaccination site (it's this big itchy growth on your shoulder). I am probably alive because I pulled a ---------- and entered the wrong building first (the main SRP building). The Medical SRP building is off to the side. Realizing my mistake I left the main building and walked down the sidewalk to the medical SRP building. As I'm walking up to it the gunshots start. Slow and methodical. But continuous.
Two ambulatory wounded came out. Then two soldiers dragging a third who was covered in blood. Hearing the shots but not seeing the shooter, along with a couple other soldiers I stood in the street and yelled at everyone who came running that it was clear but to "RUN!".
I kept motioning people fast. about 6-10 minutes later (the shooting continuous), two cops ran up. one male, one female. we pointed in the direction of the shots. they headed that way (the medical SRP building was about 50 meters away). then a lot more gunfire. a couple minutes later a balding man in ACU's came around the building carrying a pistol and holding it tactically. He started shooting at us and we all dived back to the cars behind us. I don't think he hit the couple other guys who were there. I did see the bullet holes later in the cars. First I went behind a tire and then looked under the body of the car. I've been trained how to respond to gunfire...but with my own weapon. To have no weapon I don't know how to explain what that felt like. I hadn't run away and stayed because I had thought about the consequences or anything like that. I wasn't thinking anything through. Please understand, there was no intention.
I was just staying there because I didn't think about running. It never occurred to me that he might shoot me. Until he started shooting in my direction and I realized I was unarmed. Then the female cop comes around the corner. He shoots her. (according to the news accounts she got a round into him. I believe it, I just didn't see it. he didn't go down.) She goes down.
He starts reloading. He's fiddling with his mags. Weirdly he hasn't dropped the one that was in his weapon. He's holding the fresh one and the old one (you do that on the range when time is not of the essence but in combat you would just let the old mag go). I see the male cop around the left corner of the building. (I'm about 15-20 meters from the shooter.) I yell at the cop, "He's reloading, he's reloading.
Shoot him! Shoot him!) You have to understand, everything was quiet at this point. The cop appears to hear me and comes around the corner and shoots the shooter. He goes down. The cop kicks his weapon further away. I sprint up to the downed female cop. Another captain (I think he was with me behind the cars) comes up as well. She's bleeding profusely out of her thigh. We take our belts off and tourniquet her just like we've been trained (I hope we did it right...we didn't have any CLS (combat lifesaver) bags with their awesome tourniquets on us, so we worked with what we had). Meanwhile, in the most bizarre moment of the day, a photographer was standing over us taking pictures. I suppose I'll be seeing those tomorrow.
Then a soldier came up and identified himself as a medic. I then realized her weapon was lying there unsecured (and on "fire"). I stood over it and when I saw a cop yelled for him to come over and secure her weapon (I would have done so but I was worried someone would mistake me for a bad guy). I then went over to the shooter. He was unconscious. A Lt Colonel was there and had secured his primary weapon for the time being. He also had a revolver. I couldn't believe he was one of ours. I didn't want to believe it. Then I saw his name and rank and realized this wasn't just some specialist with mental issues. At this point there was a guy there from CID and I asked him if he knew he was the shooter and had him secured. He said he did. I then went over the slaughter house. the medical SRP building. No human should ever have to see what that looked like. and I won't tell you. Just believe me. Please. there was nothing to be done there. Someone then said there was someone critically wounded around the corner. I ran around (while seeing this floor to ceiling window that someone had jumped through movie style) and saw a large African-American soldier lying on his back with two or three soldiers attending. I ran up and identified two entrance wounds on the right side of his stomach, one exit wound on the left side and one head wound. He was not bleeding externally from the stomach wounds (though almost certainly internally) but was bleeding from the head wound. A soldier was using a shirt to try and stop the head bleeding.
He was conscious so I began talking to him to keep him so. He was 42, from North Carolina , he was named something Jr., his son was named something III and he had a daughter as well. His children lived with him. He was divorced. I told him the blubber on his stomach saved his life. He smiled. a young soldier in civvies showed up and identified himself as a combat medic. We debated whether to put him on the back of a pickup truck. A doctor (well, an audiologist) showed up and said you can't move him, he has a head wound. we finally sat tight. I went back to the slaughterhouse. they weren't letting anyone in there. not even medics. finally, after about 45 minutes had elapsed some cops showed up in tactical vests. someone said the TBI building was unsecured. They headed into there. All of a sudden a couple more shots were fired. People shouted there was a second shooter. a half hour later the SWAT showed up. there was no second shooter. that had been an impetuous cop apparently. but that confused things for a while. meanwhile I went back to the shooter. the female cop had been taken away. a medic was pumping plasma into the shooter. I'm not proud of this but I went up to her and said "this is the shooter, is there anyone else who needs attention...do them first". she indicated everyone else living was attended to. I still hadn't seen any EMTs or ambulances. I had so much blood on me that people kept asking me if I was ok. but that was all other people's blood. eventually (an hour and a half to two hours after the shootings) they started landing choppers. they took out the big African American guy and the shooter.
I guess the ambulatory wounded were all at the SRP building. Everyone else in my area was dead.
I suppose the emergency responders were told there were multiple shooters. I heard that was the delay with the choppers (they were all civilian helicopters). they needed a secure LZ. but other than the initial cops who did everything right, I didn’t see a lot of them for a while. I did see many a soldier rush out to help their fellows/sisters. there was one female soldier, I don’t know her name or rank but I would recognize her anywhere who was everywhere helping people. a couple people, mainly civilians, were hysterical, but only a couple. one civilian freaked out when I tried to comfort her when she saw my uniform. I guess she had seen the shooter up close. a lot of soldiers were rushing out to help even when we thought there was another gunman out there. this Army is not broken no matter what the pundits say. not the Army I saw. and then they kept me for a long time to come. oh, and perhaps the most surreal thing, at 1500 (the end of the workday on Thursdays) when the bugle sounded we all came to attention and saluted the flag. in the middle of it all. this is what I saw. it can't have been real. but this is my small corner of what happened.
Police officers told to zip lips on bombingSure, and I call bullshit on this 40 year old investigation- but you boys in the SF PD better watch out, I will wager that you are now on Double-Secret Probation.
Phillip Matier,Andrew Ross
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The San Francisco Police Officers Association's leadership has been told to muzzle it after signing a letter accusing onetime Weather Underground radical Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, of being behind the nearly 40-year-old bombing at a San Francisco police station that killed a sergeant.
We hear that both U.S. Justice Department reps and Police Chief Heather Fong put in calls to the union to find out just what they were doing talking out of school about an active investigation that may be ready to make a move soon in the 1970 bombing at Park Station.
The word was, button your lips.
Police Officers Association President Gary Delagnes confirmed that his union got a call from federal investigators telling them they had an "active investigation and should not be commenting on the case."
Misallocated InfamyCSMK sent me this reminder and it is spot on target on how things are playing out now, once again, in the Republic.
by Srdja Trifkovic
December 7th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under
For the past 67 years America has commemorated over 2,400 sailors, soldiers and airmen who were killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Every such anniversary reminds us that all history is to some extent contemporary history: Almost seven decades after the event, the myth of FDR's goodness and greatness—revived for current political purposes during and after this year's election campaign—makes it less "appropriate" than ever to ask if he knew about the attack; and, more importantly, whether he willed it. This date "will live in infamy," for a few more decades at least, until it succumbs to this country's collective amnesia. We may be running out of time for its infamy to be allocated more equitably.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was eager to enter the war in Europe. He wanted this strongly following the fall of France (June 1940)—when he came to believe that without American intervention the Nazis would conquer the Old Continent—and desperately after Germany attacked the Soviet Union a year later. In this desire he was supported by the old East Coast elite which was traditionally Anglophile, by the increasingly influential Jewish lobby, and—after June 22, 1941—by Moscow's sympathizers within his entourage and in the country at large.
"Among the modern middle-class men, in terms of income and the station in life they have attained, there are two categories that deserve special attention: the bureaucrats and the managers of the great corporations. In earlier days, the government employee was held to be a man who could not have made his way in the business world and was therefore tolerated with condescension; he had little to do and his remuneration was correspondingly small. Even the few entrepreneurs who entered the public service did so mainly under draft, as a necessary though unwanted duty, to be got out of as soon as possible.
Today, the government agent holds his head higher than do those who furnish him his keep – he is the government while they are only the people – and is held in esteem by the very ones he dominates. He is, of course, a non-producer, but in the present ethos that circumstance does not degrade him, either in his own eyes or that of society; indeed, the producer holds an inferior position in life than does the government official. The government official is the law." --Frank Chodorov
"Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience." ~ John Locke
"Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say 'what should be the reward of such sacrifices?' Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!" -- Samuel Adams
SC boy shot, killed trick-or-treating; 2 injuredI was curious that there was no picture so I decided to do some searching and I found the following after spending ten minutes doing multiple Google searches (Web, News, then finally Blog):
Nov 1 12:54 AM US/Eastern
SUMTER, S.C. (AP) - Authorities say a 12-year-old boy has been shot and killed while trick-or-treating in central South Carolina.
Sumter Police Chief Patty Patterson says the boy was trick-or-treating with his family Friday at about 8:30 p.m. EDT when they approached a home and thought they heard fireworks. Patterson says a man fired from inside the home, killing the boy.
The boy's father and brother were wounded by the gunfire. They have been taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The shooting suspect has been taken into custody. Patterson has not released the man's name or the identity of the family.
The police chief says she is in disbelief and does not know why the shooting occurred.
Breaking News: 12 year old boy shot and killed while trick or treating *Suspect, Quentin Patrick, arrested*:I wonder why the "news" sites are not posting the alleged murder's picture? My paranoid and skeptical nature says it is political correctness- especially since the national election is but a few days away.
Breaking News: 12 year old boy shot and killed while trick or treating *Suspect, Quentin Patrick, arrested* November 1, 2008 — mylifeofcrime
AP: Obama aunt from Kenya living in US illegallyAND
Nov 1 12:08 AM US/Eastern
By EILEEN SULLIVAN and ELLIOT SPAGAT
Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) - Barack Obama's aunt, a Kenyan woman who has been quietly living in public housing in Boston, is in the United States illegally after an immigration judge rejected her request for asylum four years ago, The Associated Press has learned.
Zeituni Onyango, 56, referred to as "Aunti Zeituni" in Obama's memoir, was instructed to leave the United States by a U.S. immigration judge who denied her asylum request, a person familiar with the matter told the AP late Friday. This person spoke on condition of anonymity because no one was authorized to discuss Onyango's case.
Onyango's case—coming to light just days before the presidential election—led to an unusual nationwide directive within Immigrations and Customs Enforcement requiring any deportations prior to Tuesday's election to be approved at least at the level of ICE regional directors, the U.S. law enforcement official told the AP.I called a good friend with Border Patrol and told him about this and when I told him about deports now must be approved by a Regional Director, his response was:
The unusual directive suggests that the Bush administration is sensitive to the political implications of Onyango's case coming to light so close to the election.
Posted: August 23, 2008And from an interview at Jeff Schreiber's Blog, America's Right:
5:40 pm Eastern
By Drew Zahn
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
Philip J. Berg
A prominent Pennsylvania Democrat has sued Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission, claiming that Obama is not a natural-born citizen and, therefore, is not eligible to be president of the United States.
Philip J. Berg, a former member of Pennsylvania's Democratic State Committee and former deputy attorney general of Pennsylvania, filed the lawsuit this week in U.S District Court, asking the court to declare Obama ineligible for the presidency and to prevent him from running for the position.
Being the natural skeptic that I am, Mr. Berg, I couldn't help but think that a relatively well-known and respectable local party operative such as yourself would be the perfect person to act as surrogate on behalf of Hillary Clinton and her campaign, only a matter of weeks after she somehow maneuvered her way into having her name included in the nomination. Care to comment?:AND
I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time to break the story, which only now is beginning to gain traction for a hopeful leap into the mainstream media. Berg, who served as Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania for eight years, ran twice for governor in 1990 and 1998 and once for the U.S. Senate in 1994, was former chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery (PA) County and a former member of the Democratic State Committee, was more than happy to speak with me yesterday afternoon in the lobby of the courthouse following a hearing in the chambers of the Hon. R. Barclay Surrick.
Being the natural skeptic that I am, Mr. Berg, I couldn't help but think that a relatively well-known and respectable local party operative such as yourself would be the perfect person to act as surrogate on behalf of Hillary Clinton and her campaign, only a matter of weeks after she somehow maneuvered her way into having her name included in the nomination. Care to comment?More can be found here:
I have had no direct or indirect contact with anyone on the Hillary Clinton campaign. Did I help her in the primaries? Yes. Was I in favor of her over Obama? Yes. What did I do? I contributed some money and made some phone calls to various states for her. Other than that, I attended one Montgomery County [PA] Democratic Committee dinner at which her daughter spoke, though for the record, Obama’s representative was also at the same function. So, am I closely involved with them? No.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.— Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.Then this came to mind:
Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.And with the last thought it flowered into the reminder that soon enough, I am sure we will hear:
"I was just following orders".However, a smiled blossomed across my face when I recalled, that defense does not work anymore...
"I said something the other day down in Georgia, and the Republicans jumped on this. I said, you know, absolutely immigrants need to learn English, but we also need to learn foreign languages," he said Friday.Why be embarrassed Mr. Foreigner? Unless of course you realized that you admitted your intentions of working towards creating a bi-lingual nation and we Americans do not want it, eh Mr. Foreigner?
Obama told the crowd that this is one of the problems with politics today.
"This is an example of some of the problems we get into when somebody attacks you for saying the truth, which is we should want children with more knowledge. We should want our children to have more skills. There's nothing wrong with that! It’s a good thing," he said.
While the Obama campaign says that Obama speaks a little bit of Indonesian, Obama himself admits that he isn't bilingual.
"I know because I don’t speak a foreign language. It's embarrassing!" he said.
The Obama campaign reiterated Friday that Obama would continue to require immigrants to learn English to be eligible for citizenship.Perhaps they need to understand this Mr. Foreigner, that YOU have NO say so over the requirements, or haven't they, or even you, ever read the Constitution and laws of these united States? Let me give you a hint Mr. Foreigner, the language it is in is English.
Barack Obama's planned visit to Europe later this month has thrust him into a diplomatic kerfuffle that threatens to undercut one of the cornerstones of his foreign policy: the notion that, unlike President Bush, he will listen to and work harmoniously with governments allied with the United States.Why is it that the only one saying so is a German? Why aren't Americans asking WHY ANY candidate would go overseas to campaign for the office of the President of these united States? In fact, why would any American say this?
The controversy began when word leaked that the Obama campaign, during the candidate’s first trip abroad as the presumptive Democratic nominee, was considering Berlin's historic Brandenburg Gate as the backdrop for a major address on transatlantic relations.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she opposes the idea, referring to the highly symbolic landmark as an "inappropriate" setting for a speech linked to a domestic American political campaign.
"Obviously Brandenburg is the sexiest option," the official said, but it would "undermine the message that Obama can work with U.S. allies and offers McCain evidence of Obama's diplomatic inexperience."Mr. Foreigner is not the only one who has traveled overseas, but I cannot find where Mr. McCrazy tried to speechify to the foreigners. However, we have to read comments such as this one from him:
The Democratic official also said that wherever Obama speaks, "it will be probably the biggest pure campaign event ever held outside the United States" and that it would be "absolutely significant" because it’s taking "campaigning to a public gathering overseas."
Mr. McCain said his campaign would pay for the coming trip. We'll pay for it because we don’t obviously want any criticism from that direction," he said.What!?! He is just concerned with criticism, not the fact that it is absolutely wrong to have the citizens pay for it to begin with?
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