A 28-year-old Houston police officer and a 38-year-old agent with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC), both of whom were off-duty and had been hired as church security, returned fire.
More like wannabe police? Though close cousins, I suppose.
A document laying out the investigation’s findings would be comical if the stakes weren’t so high. It describes Hernandez falling over, rolling on the ground for several seconds, falling over again while struggling to stand up and breaking his sunglasses, sending a piece flying into the frame. He shouted “shots fired” four times, said the shots were coming from the car, and claimed he was “hit.” His partner, who also unloaded into the car, seemed confused, at one point simply asking him, “What?” The sound of an acorn hitting the car is barely audible before the shooting begins.
During the investigation, Hernandez was initially adamant that shots had been fired.
Eventually, investigators showed him frame-by-frame footage of an acorn hitting the car. “Acorn?” Hernandez asked. “Acorn,” the investigator responded.
he trained at West Point and served as an infantry and special forces officer for a decade, which included two rotations in Afghanistan. He said that he never faced combat because he was an officer.
Also because there aren’t quite as many acorns in Afghanistan and they aren’t as scary as American acorns.
My ex is a cop. There is not enough discussion about the fact that many cops suffer PTSD and they receive little support with it.
A lot of cops come into the job because they were raised in households where there was abuse. Sometimes they were the person protecting one parent from the other. They grow up with this hero mentality. Often the whole situation they grew up in is completely unexplored. Then they are expected to respond to domestic cases without any insight into how this might trigger them.
Although there is nominally psychological support for police, it’s a big CYA thing for the agencies. Police have very high rates of suicide. If the agency gives them counseling, then when the cop commits suicide, they can say, “We did our best. See. We sent them to counseling.” But there is a big conflict of interest, because the counselor has the authority to recommend that they lose their badge and gun. So, they don’t really open up in counseling - especially if their PTSD has gotten their whole identity wrapped up into their job.
When I was on Long Island, 9/11 was still very present in people’s consciousness. One of the referrals my therapist could give was to a counselor who specialized in working with first responders UNDER THE TABLE because they didn’t want their agencies to know they were seeing a therapist.
I didn’t really understand these kinds of triggers like the sound of an acorn dropping until I went to Israel. When the war broke out, planes and drones would fly overhead at night, whereas before it had been quiet. It took me about 2 months being back in the US before I didn’t freak out at the sound of a plane.
Joining us now with his analysis of the new data and to talk about how policy changes have contributed to this alarming trend, especially in certain states, Chip Brownlee, a reporter at The Trace, a nonprofit news site that covers gun violence. His latest is titled, You’re More Likely to Be Shot in Selma Than in Chicago .
Ha! I suspected you’d beat me to it, so I didn’t post from the AP, lol.
Who else is not surprised that Uncle C. Thomas made the dissenting opinion.
And if the gop (it doesn’t deserve capital letters any more) wants cognitive and drug tests administered to the POTUSes, then they should be administered to every member of SCOTUS and both Houses of Congress. I mean, if the POTUS is suspect, shouldn’t the rest of the government be treated the same way, for the same reasons? Sincerely!
Officials say the threats were made on Discord, a social media platform popular with video gamers, and contained images of guns.
The account’s profile name was in Russian and translated to the surname of the attacker who killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.
Holy flipping huge red flags…!
They said he claimed to have deleted his Discord account because it was repeatedly hacked.
Totally plausible… though it makes it sound like the issue was dropped there? It seems like a follow-up with Discord to check that claim (and, if true, investigate the actual source of the threats) would be logical.
