#Texas school gunman

[antifainternational]

Far-Right Mass Shootings, May 2022-May 2023

Now that we know that the mass murderer in Allen, Texas was a far-right extremist and incel (as well as that puzzling but not-that-uncommon mix of being a racialized neo-nazi/white supremacist), we wanted to illustrate that mass shootings by the far-right are not aberrations with this list of similar events from over the last twelve months: December 23, 2022: A gunman opens fire in Paris, killing 3 Kurdish people & wounding 3 more in a plan to “kill non-European foreigners.” The attacker had just been released from prison after attacking migrants in Paris with a sword the year before. December 19-20, 2022: 22-year-old Anderson Aldrich enters a CO. gay bar with an assault rifle & opens fire, killing five and wounding 25 others before he is subdued. November 25, 2022: A 16-year-old former student storms two schools in Aracruz, Brazil, armed with two pistols and wearing a bulletproof vest emblazoned with a swastika. The teen shoots 16 people in the rampage, killing three of them. October 12, 2022: After posting an online manifesto against Jewish & LGBTQ+ people, a Bratislava, Slovakia teen shoots three people outside a local gay bar, killing two and wounding the third person before fleeing. The suspect was found dead the next day. September 27, 2022: Brothers Mark & Michael Sheppard are charged with manslaughter for opening fire on a group of migrants getting water near Hudspeth County, TX. One victim died from gunshot wounds, and one is recovering at an El Paso hospital. September 26, 2022: A gunman wearing a balaclava and a t-shirt with a swastika emblazoned on it enters an elementary school in Izhevsk, Russia, killing 15 people - 11 of them children - and wounding another 39 before turning the gun on himself. September 11, 2022: 53-year-old Igor Lanis’ obsession with far-right conspiracies ends when he guns down his wife, 25-year-old daughter, & family dog, before turning his shotgun on responding police, who shoot him dead. Only his daughter survives. August 9, 2022: A group of Black men helping someone jump-start a car in a Macon, GA. Wal-Mart parking lot are subjected to racial abuse by another man who then pulls a gun and begins shooting at them. May 15, 2022: 68-year-old David Wenwei Chou is charged with hate crimes after storming a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods, CA. and shooting parishoners, killing one and injuring five others

May 14, 2022: An 18-year-old white supremacist opens fire in a supermarket in a black neighbourhood in Buffalo, NY, killing ten customers and wounding three others while livestreaming the attack.

May 11, 2022: A masked gunman walks shoots 3 Korean women working in a Dallas hair salon. Authorities believe the incident is connected to two earlier drive-by shootings targeting Asian-owned businesses in the Dallas area on April 2nd and May 10th. This is just a list of mass shootings committed by bigots, fascists, and far-right extremists over the last 12 months. We haven't included shooting with less than two victims, thwarted mass shootings, or any of bombings, stabbings, vehicle attacks, or other acts of violence.

In 2022 we documented 477 violent incidents motivated by hate or committed by bigots, fascists, or right-wing extremists, including 112 shootings. These attacks killed 366 people and injured 399 others. Read our 2022 report here. When we say anti-fascism = self-defence, we meant it. The endpoint for far-right ideology is mass murder. Fascists intend to do harm to our communities and will seize on any opportunity to hurt others. The only thing stopping them is ourselves. WE PROTECT US!

[follow-up-news]

City officials in Uvalde, Texas, released another trove of videos on Tuesday from officers responding to the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting, footage that they had previously failed to divulge as part of a legal settlement with news organizations suing for access. The new material included at least 10 police body camera videos and nearly 40 dashboard videos that largely affirm prior reporting by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and FRONTLINE detailing law enforcement’s failures to engage the teen shooter who killed 19 children and two teachers. Officers only confronted the gunman 77 minutes after he began firing, a delay that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said cost lives. In one 30-minute video released Tuesday, officers lined up in the school hallway as they prepared to breach a classroom door about an hour after the shooter first entered the building. The footage, while not new, showed a slightly different angle from what had previously been released.

[beardedmrbean]

The hate-filled teenage incel who gunned down a fellow pupil at his Nashville school this week appears to have been in contact with fellow Christian school shooter Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow, according to a report.

The online accounts of Solomon Henderson, the 17-year-old who shot himself dead after murdering a 16-year-old girl Wednesday, showed ties with Rupnow, the 15-year-old who also killed herself after fatally shooting two at her school in Madison, Wisconsin, law enforcement sources told ABC News.

Rupnow even appears to have been following Henderson online before she died — a month before he also shot up his Christian school more than 600 miles from her, the sources said.

A Bluesky account linked to Henderson also posted an edited image of Rupnow a day before the shooting, the outlet said, without making clear which of the attacks it meant.

Another post on the same Bluesky account mentioned intentions of carrying out a shooting with a second person that day, the report said, again without making clear if it meant Rupnow’s attack in December or Henderson’s bloodbath this week.

Both teens died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds after carrying out separate massacres — and showed disturbing interest in neo-Nazi ideology and violence in their online search histories, reports said.

Both teens also revered other school shooters, with both posting about the massacre at Parkland, Florida.

Henderson also made Pinterest posts about the horror at Uvalde, Texas, while Rupnow posted about the Columbine school shooting, according to the outlet.

Henderson carried out the shooting just after 11 a.m. Wednesday at Antioch High School – about 45 minutes southeast of downtown Nashville – where he “confronted” 16-year-old Josselin Corea Escalante and shot her multiple times, killing her.

One other student was hit in the arm and was taken to the hospital, while another suffered a face injury that wasn’t from the gun. Henderson then turned the gun on himself.

Police say Henderson rode the bus to Antioch High School Wednesday morning, then slipped into the bathroom and came out with a handgun.

He then went into the cafeteria, where he opened fire and killed Escalante after accosting her.

Footage from inside the cafeteria captured the final gunshots as students and cafeteria workers cowered for cover.

[allthegeopolitics]

Families of the victims killed in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, have filed two wrongful death lawsuits: one against the firearm manufacturer and another against two technology companies, Meta and Microsoft, for their alleged role in marketing the weapon used. Friday’s pair of lawsuits came on the second anniversary of the school shooting, one of the deadliest in United States history. The gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, attacked Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022, and killed 19 children and two teachers, leaving 17 more people injured.

Continue Reading.

[saintmeghanmarkle]

⚠️ [RECAP] Meghan at Uvalde, Texas on 26th May 2022 after the Robb Elementary school mass shooting. A Master Post including Thomas Markle's stroke

A Sinner asked for some references for why Meghan's pap walk in the immediate aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting and why it is still considered unforgivable by so many Sinners.

I went to look for a source post but its is scattered all over this sub, twitter (X) and the internet. So I thought I would create a master post for future reference. Please note that I wasn't on the ground that day and don't know have first hand knowledge. We had two Sinners (Feisty_Nurse and BubbleGum_Yum_Yum) who were on the ground and I have included their relevant comments. Both Sinners are considered to be credible to me. I will share their comments of their experience here.

There are follow on posts from Sinners which I will share. You will need to read them for full context.

... means that a portion of text is used and click on the link for full context

Those who can and want to support the Children in Texas, this is org is recommended by BGYY Texans Care for Children website link.

______________________________________________________________

The Uvalde school shooting occurred on the 24th of May 2022 at an elementary school. The gunman, Salvador Ramos, killed 19 children, 2 teachers and injured 18 others. Robb Elementary School would have had children who are primarily from the ages of 4 to 10 years of age. [Wikipedia source for school shooting].

Photo 1: Regular people paying their respects at the school

On the same day (24th May), it was reported that Thomas Markle Sr suffered a major stroke days before he was about to fly to London for the Queen's Jubilee. [Dailymail archive link]. The trip to London was meant to be a big deal. He was going to be on GBNews and hang out with Lady C.

Photo 2: Thomas Markle Sr rushed in hospital after stroke. Photo taken by Backgrid

Meghan flew to Uvalde on a private jet, Texas 2 days after the shooting on the 26th of May. Here are the highlights of the photographs released and an attempt to hitch her PR to a national tragedy.

The photos below went viral globally in the immediate aftermath of the Uvalde shooting.

Photo 3: Taken by Chandan Khanna (AFP)

This photo of the visit to the community centre was provided directly to Buzzfeed by Meghan [Buzzfeed article] | [Archive link]

Photo 4: Meghan attends a community centre with vending machine sandwiches and Dorito chips / crisps

The Sussex Squad promoted World Central Kitchen (WCK) and they were the top donor to WCK to celebrate Archie and Lili's birthday. https://donate.wck.org/team/425216. credit: Aware-Impression8527. There were tweets about $100k raised to celebrate Lili's birthday. There was a mixup that Meghan also funded WCK at Uvalde from the Sussex Squad. This is because the Squad's $100k Lili donation was confused with the Uvalde attendance of Meghan. eg. this Scobie tweet on the 6th of June 2022.

I remember the squad saying that THIS stall was set up by Meghan to provide food to Uvalde. But in reality it was pre-made sandwiches and Doritos.

Photo 5: WCK kitchen in Uvalde not funded by Archewell

Archewell Partners was released and confirmed that WCK was a partner and that that money was donated to WCK for meals in Haiti. credit BuildTheHerd [Source Post]

Photo 6: From BuildTheHerd post

CONTEXT MATTERS

What many people didn't realise is that Meghan was living her Pretty Woman fantasy during the Santa Barbara Polo match just a few days before this crass PR tactic. Remember that young polo player refusing to share his award with her? It was just us Sinners and the sugars who were watching these events unfold more closely. What's worse is that she went back to grifting at the Polo club immediately after the Uvalde stunt and didn't rush to Mexico to see her father. Here's the colour swatches of Meghan before and after Uvalde. It shows that she body glazed specifically for Uvalde like it was a red carpet event. [Source Post]

Photo 7: Her shade of bronzer is particularly striking as her skin is darker in the sun than in the shade.

Thomas Markle Sr, aged 77, suffered a stroke and was a mere 54 miles from Uvalde and a 4 hour drive from Montecito. She was happy to fly on a private jet to publicly show sympathy for dead kids but didn't show the same level of concern towards her dying father. [Full context, this Leilani of Barbados opinion post.]

______________________________________________________________

Soon after social media was divided about the incident and a lot of the focus was diverted to Meghan's stunt instead of the victims. Many pointed to the similarities between this incident and Catherine paying tribute to Sarah Everard. I dont think these incidents are the same thing as Kate was not captured by the media and was only recognised by those who saw her up close in the crowd [source post video] credit RoohsMama

Photo 8: Meghan turning around to watch the photographing capturing her flowers on the cross

When you search for "Meghan Markle at Uvalde". You are most likely to see this video. Post source video by -ellen-degenerate-. In this version, the posing for photographers and the her photographers following after she leaves is not visible. There were photographers in the area, but Meghan brought her own photography team. This was confirmed after the pic from the community centre was exclusive to Buzzfeed and Sinners on the ground.

This VIDEO shows raw footage of 3 photographers capturing Meghan at the scene (source: NBC News: Meghan Markle Pays Respects At Scene Of Texas School Shooting YouTube).

Pay close attention to this NBC video as you can see the photographers snapping pics of her and how she poses. The photographs from these 3 photographers is what ends up getting circulated amongst the press. Note that this was 2 days after the tragedy. Bigger celebs like Matthew McConaughey turned up much later and the visit was not publicised.

Video 1 - NBC video, photographers following her

Here you can see the female photographer with the mask goes into the photograph the Meghan's flowers and Meghan cannot resist turning back to watch her taking the photo. You can also see Chandan Khanna capturing her laying the flowers at the beginning of the clip.

Video 2: close up of photographers capturing her

Carolyn Durand, Finding Freedom co-author tweets about Meghan's visit to Uvalde with the high res pics from the photographers

Photo 9: Look at the names of the photographers credited in the tweet

Shutterstock also tweets about Meghan's visit a few hours later and tags Kensington Royal

Photo 10: Shutterstock photo

These are the photographs from the 3 photographers from different agencies: Jae C Hong / Yasin Ozturk / Chandan Khanna. Credit Yahoo News | archive Even this article is disgusting because it talks about the couples impending travel to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee rather than discussions around the tragedy.

Photo 11: Jae C Hong photo (AP)

Photo 12: Yasin Ozturk photo (Anadolu Agency)

Photo 13: Chandan Khanna photo (AFP)

So by this point even casual on lookers were disgusted by her behaviour, especially in the context that her father was in hospital after a stroke.

Then came the leaks from the Sinners who were Boots on the Ground...

Brief highlights from from Feisty_Nurse post [Read About that Uvalde visit... Full post here]. Posted on 28th September, 2 days after Meghan's visit. So the crisps / chips weren't even from her.

I was visiting recently with one of the other nurses who also went to Uvalde, Texas following the school shootings. ..... I was busy staffing a shift at Uvalde Memorial Hospital on May 27th when I heard the narcissist of Montecito👸came in with her bodyguard, photographer, and the Netflix crew. ..... The Texas Highway Patrol providing security at the hospital escorted Meangan and her troupe out, with the suggestion that if she wanted to help? Go donate blood with directions to the senior center. Onward, the circus went to Robb Elementary so photos could be taken of Meangan in mourning.😢 Uvalde is a small community with a strong sense of family. So here she was, in the midst of the most horrific thing that could ever happen. An ego profiteer.😁 .... When in reality? There were no trays of sandwiches from H-E-B (grocery store). Just three small vending machine sandwiches that were tossed out. The drinks and chips were all courtesy of South Texas Blood❣️ for their donors. I know, I get the Doritos nacho cheese.

Highlighted comments from Bubblegum_yum_yum can be found in "The backlash is growing, so the BuzzFeed article about Meghan’s visit to Uvalde was edited" [RoohsMama post]

As a member of the media, I must say: SHE DID NOT AVOID THE MEDIA. THE MEDIA AVOIDED HER BECAUSE WE ARE NOT HERE TO TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS OF HER AND WRITE ARTICLES ABOUT HOW SHE BROUGHT CHIPS TO A COMMUNITY CENTER AND FLOWERS TO ONLY ONE OF THE CROSSES. She laid flowers at the “youngest victim” for clout She could have - and should have - laid flowers at every single cross. She can afford it. The role of the media is not to document unaffiliated people flying in for photo ops. Our role here is to tell the stories of the children whose stories will never be complete because they were tragically and disgustingly killed at 8, 9, 10 years old. ....

more comments from BGYY "She just kind of walked in with her crew ...." [HillyBeans post]

Yes. She did. I’m here as part of a press team and this entitled brat shows up with a team of several people and is trying to make it a godd*** spectacle! A Texas Ranger told her team to fuck off because it’s the site of a literal massacre, not a celebrity photo op I’m going to be very frank because this situation is extremely real and raw and beyond what words can describe: It’s time for HER to ask EVERYONE HERE if they’re okay! Don’t bring them chips and shitty sandwiches and show up with an entire media crew here for YOU and not for actual media coverage of what is happening! She’s also fucking it up for us actual reporters on the scene. There are such strict protocols and the relationship between the media and officials is predicated on such a fine line that having a fucking unauthorized media crew show up sets every other journalist back! ....

After the pap walk it was revealed that Meghan wrote a letter to Moms Demand Action and it was shared on social media by Shannon Watts

Photo 14: Meghan's letter to Moms Demand Action

The Archewell Foundation also funded a new KABOOM! playground in Uvalde in October 2022.

“It has been an honor to support the children and families in Uvalde design and build this amazing space where the community can come together,” said James Holt, Executive Director of Archewell Foundation, in a statement. “Our hope is that this special project can help the community heal, and be home to imagination, games and play for many years to come.”

Kaboom still organises fundraisers giving shoutouts to the Sussex Squad like on 4th May 2023 https://x.com/kaboom/status/1654206812587974656

Photo 15: Archewell funded Kaboom playground see their logo

Master Post link

author: Negative_Difference4

submitted: September 10, 2024 at 07:34AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Sebastian Murdock at HuffPost:

Internal company emails and a deposition obtained by HuffPost reveal how the right-wing network Newsmax dismissed accurate reports that a mass shooter was a white supremacist and shared an image of a man they incorrectly identified as the killer. Texas man Mauricio Garcia, 37, filed a libel lawsuit against Newsmax and other media organizations in March after an image of him was used in their coverage of a May 6, 2023, mass shooting at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas, that depicted him as the shooter. The real gunman was a 33-year-old white supremacist who shared the same first and last name as Garcia. The gunman killed eight people and wounded seven others before he was killed in a shootout with police. But it was the innocent Garcia’s image that was used to depict a neo-Nazi killer.

“This was a pretty obvious unforced error,” Newsmax News Director Chris Wallace wrote in an email after it became clear the network had connected an innocent man to a mass shooting, according to court records. Garcia is being represented by Houston attorney Mark Bankston of Farrar & Ball. Bankston previously represented the parents of a child who died in a 2012 school shooting who won a $45 million judgment against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for lies he spread about it. Entertainment blog Hollywood Unlocked and TelevisaUnivision (the parent company of Spanish-language broadcaster Univision) are also listed as defendants. Fox News was previously listed as a defendant but was dropped from the lawsuit in June. News site Today News Africa and far-right commentators Tim Pool and Steven Crowder settled with Garcia, Bankston told HuffPost. Andrew Brown, the chief operating officer at Newsmax, gave a deposition as part of the lawsuit on Aug. 20. During it, Brown routinely acknowledged that Newsmax staff failed its internal journalistic practices when reporting on the shooting. [...] Two days after the shooting, on May 8, media reports began to trickle in about the shooter’s ties to the neo-Nazi movement, including his tattoos of a swastika and the SS lightning bolt of Hitler’s paramilitary forces. The shooter also had a Russian social media account “rife with hate-filled rants against women and Black people,” The New York Times reported. And Aric Toler, a former researcher at the open-source research outlet Bellingcat, independently verified the killer’s social media website and posted details on X, formerly Twitter. Following the new details from Toler, prominent right-wing voices — including that of billionaire and X owner Elon Musk — floated conspiracies denying the shooter’s neo-Nazi background. [...] Later that night, on Newsmax’s ”Greg Kelly Reports,” the host questioned the shooter’s white supremacist background. Kelly was wrong, as authorities would later clarify. Even worse, Kelly aired a photo of the wrong Garcia while making his incorrect point. “We didn’t know anything for a good long time, like a day and a half went by, no information whatsoever, until they told us this guy did it, Mauricio Garcia,” Kelly said on his show. Next to Kelly was a mugshot of the innocent Garcia with a large graphic titled “‘White’ Supremacy?” underneath the image. Below that, a title for the segment read “Here We Go Again With ‘White Supremacy.’” [...]

‘I Told Them Not To Run It’

Backlash to the Kelly segment was swift. Publications including Forbes, Mediaite and The Daily Beast all wrote stories pointing out that Kelly had shown a photo of the wrong man. And The Associated Press released a fact-check about the wrong image, but did not mention Newsmax. Kelly had also — along with Knowles, the vice president of programming at Newsmax — questioned whether the shooting had been motivated by white supremacy. On May 9, authorities made clear the shooter had a history of racial hatred. “We do know that he had neo-Nazi ideation. He had patches. He had tattoos. Even his signature verified that,” Hank Sibley, North Texas regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at a press conference a day after Kelly’s segment. As the reports came in, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy forwarded executives an email that a Daily Beast reporter sent asking about the error. “[Newsmax Vice President] Elliot, let’s follow up on this right away he needs to if he did do the wrong photo,” Ruddy said of Kelly. “He needs to say that ... Their team needs to be very careful on this obviously ... I’ll speak to bill about some simple thing to get back once you confirm, they did make the wrong photo.”

HuffPost obtained emails from right-wing propaganda outlet Newsmax on how wrong they got their coverage on the white supremacist Allen mall shooter, with host Greg Kelly running a segment on his Greg Kelly Reports program criticizing reports about shooter’s affiliations with white supremacists (which were indeed confirmed).

Any reputable news outlet would have terminated Kelly at that point (or several before then).

[fuckyeahtx]

I love Where I Am From But FUCK

On Saturday, a 33-year-old, Nazi-sympathizing gunman armed with an assault rifle killed eight people and wounded seven others at a popular shopping mall in Allen, TX, a suburb of Dallas. Among the victims were two elementary-school students. A mass shooting is typically defined as the killing of four or more people. Texas has seen almost one a month in the past year. What have Texas Republicans been doing in that time? Making guns even more accessible, not less.  

Less than a year has elapsed since the horrific school shooting in Uvalde, TX, where 19 children and two teachers were murdered at the local elementary school. Months later, the state senator representing Uvalde was told to stop bringing up gun-control legislation or face being barred from speaking at all. Multiple mass shootings have occurred in Texas in the intervening months, as gun control remains a non-starter in the GOP-dominated State Capitol.   

Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has made a big display of attending vigils for victims of each massacre, while simultaneously ensuring that gun massacres remain a uniquely American (and especially Texan) horror. He again said he would not regulate firearms and justified it with the false claim that mass shootings have no relationship with the strictness of a state’s gun-control laws, insisting that the “root cause” is “mental health problems.” As a nation, we’re forced to go through this whole disgusting song and dance every couple of months: A mass shooting occurs, Republican politicians offer their hollow “thoughts and prayers,” do nothing to tighten gun control, blame mental-health issues, then do nothing to address mental-health issues either. Abbott has cut over $200 million in funding from the state agencies that provide mental health services. 

[mythbustersfacts]

JFK Revisited

The episode begins with Adam gesturing animatedly in front of the camera while holding a replica Carcano rifle.

Adam: “Alright, MythBusters fans, today we’re diving into one of the most controversial myths in history: the magic bullet theory! Did a single gunman really gank JFK? Or was there a second shooter on the grassy knoll? To find out, we’ve going to Dealey Plaza in Dallas—to test it for ourselves!”

Jamie stands stoically in the background, his arms crossed, his hat shading his expression.

Jamie: “This isn’t about conspiracies. It’s about physics. That’s all.”

The camera pans up to show Jamie climbing the stairs to the Texas School Book Depository. He takes position at the window, rifle ready. Adam, meanwhile, stands below on the sidewalk, looking at passing traffic with a mischievous grin.

Adam yells up to the window, “Alright, Jamie, here comes our first victim. Try this blue Honda!”

Jamie adjusts the scope and takes aim. A shot rings out, striking the car’s hood with a loud clang. The Honda swerves slightly and accelerates away.

Adam: “That was beautiful. Let’s go again!”

A silver minivan appears, and Adam waves enthusiastically.

Adam: “Ooh, ooh, Jamie! The van! Let’s see if you can hit that side panel!”

Jamie fires again, this time denting the side of the van. The driver screams and honks angrily but doesn’t stop. Adam laughs and claps his hands like a delighted child.

Adam: “Direct hit! You’re getting the hang of this!”

The camera cuts to Jamie, who reloads with a quiet intensity. The next car, a sleek red sedan, approaches. Adam is practically vibrating with excitement.

Adam: “Jamie! This one! Let’s go for the windshield!”

Jamie adjusts his aim and fires. The bullet smashes through the windshield, and the sedan veers off the road, crashing into a lamppost. The driver steps out, clearly shaken but unharmed. Adam grins nervously and waves.

Adam: “Uh, sorry! MythBusters! Science in progress!”

Jamie is silent, his focus unbroken. Suddenly, a white pickup truck enters the frame. Adam points enthusiastically.

Adam: “This one! This one! Let’s see if you can graze the side mirror!”

Jamie exhales slowly, takes aim, and pulls the trigger. But this time, something goes horribly wrong. The bullet doesn’t strike the truck—it hits a child crossing the street. The boy crumples instantly, blood pooling beneath him. There’s a beat of stunned silence. Then chaos erupts.

Adam: “Oh my god. Oh my god. Jamie, what the hell did you do?!”

Jamie lowers the rifle and stares down at the scene, his face unreadable.

Jamie: “He walked into the line of fire. That’s not on me.”

Adam: “Not on you?! Jamie, someone’s dead! What are we supposed to—what are we—”

The sound of approaching sirens cuts through Adam’s panic. Jamie steps away from the window, calmly unslinging the rifle.

Jamie: “We leave. Now.”

Adam: “Leave?! Jamie, we just killed a guy!”

Jamie: “Correction. I killed a guy. And you’re coming with me.”

The camera shakes as the crew scrambles to pack up their equipment. Adam looks directly at the lens, wide-eyed and trembling.

Adam: “Cut the feed. Cut the—”

The screen cuts to black. The episode never aired, the footage was recovered from an SD card found by a cleaner at M5 Industries and leaked online.

[xjoonchildx]

.

i know this is a place most of us come to chill out and relax. tumblr has been such a great escape for me, too. that's why i really, really try to keep this space limited to things that fulfill that purpose. but then there are days like these and it feels like i'll explode if i don't get these thoughts out.

exactly one year ago today, at 11:38 AM, an 18 year old armed with a semiautomatic rifle walked into robb elementary school in uvalde, texas. for one hour and fourteen minutes, he proceeded to execute children while the so-called "good guys with guns" waited outside. they just stood there with their hands in their pockets and let this maniac have his way with terrorized kids for 74 minutes. 4440 seconds.

when it was all said and done, that gunman killed 19 first graders and 2 teachers. let me repeat: first graders. little kids with pokemon backpacks and rainbow high lunchboxes.

and the entire country was horrified. and we cried and we cried and we watched story after story on the news about what happened to those kids. and we said what was appropriate at the time: how appalling! how awful! think of those children! what a tragedy!

and then we just moved on.

just like we did after columbine.

just like we did after sandy hook.

just like we did after parkland.

just like we did after orlando.

just like we did after virginia tech. and buffalo. and las vegas. and el paso.

on and on and on, we move on.

and in a way, i kind of get it. i try not to think about what happened to those kids in uvalde because if i stop to think about it -- to really think about the kind of terror they endured at the end of their far too short lives, i might lose my mind.

if i really stop to consider how disrespected these children were in life and in death, how nearly 400 police officers stood outside that classroom and school and listened to little kids being gunned down, i don't know that i could justify living for another day in this country.

shame on america.

shame on every single american who's allowed the gun lobby and GOP to bamboozle them with bullshit stories about transgender boogeymen coming for their kids. they happily turn a blind eye to the very real boogeymen with high-capacity, semi-automatic weapons of war walking into schools, synagogues and grocery stores every few weeks.

in this country, it's harder to buy cold medicine than it is to purchase a weapon capable of mowing down dozens of people in seconds. they'll tell you that the second amendment is the only thing protecting you from the culture wars they fabricate and y'all buy it over and over again, elect these pieces of shit over and over again.

do you want to live in a country where an assault-style rifle has more rights than a six year old?

if not, then fucking do something about it.

[dailyunsolvedmysteries-movedd]

Who Is ‘Prayer Man’?

On the day of JFK’s assignation, Dave Wiegman and Jimmy Darnell, two of the news cameramen travelling in the motorcade, began filming when they heard gunshots. For several decades, the significance of their two films was thought to lie in their portrayal of the spectators along Elm Street and the cars in the motorcade. More recently, attention has been drawn to the films’ depiction of the doorway of the Texas School Book Depository, and in particular to a previously ignored figure who, according to some observers, may have been Lee Harvey Oswald. In several frames of the two black–and–white news films, a figure is visible in the western corner of the TSBD doorway. From the cameras’ point of view, the figure is standing to the left of the man in the Altgens photograph who has been identified as Billy Lovelady. The figure’s right arm appears to be raised across its chest, which has earned it the name ‘Prayer Man’. The figure is unlikely to have been praying, but it may have its arms crossed, or it may be holding an object up to its chest. Although the figure in the currently available versions of the films is insufficiently distinct to permit a definitive identification, it appears to be a white man, dressed in a loose, dark–toned shirt with an open neck and either short or rolled–up sleeves. The figure does not appear to be wearing a white shirt or a tie, as would have been customary for male office workers in the early 1960s. Its short hair and light skin tone strongly suggest that it is neither a woman nor a black man, although the lack of definition in the images does not completely rule out either possibility. The figure’s head and hairline are not inconsistent with Oswald’s appearance.

Could ‘Prayer Man’ Have Been Oswald?

Lee Oswald claimed to have been on the first floor at the time of the assassination. There is certainly very little evidence to support the official doctrine that he was on the sixth floor of the TSBD. An unreliable witness, Howard Brennan, described the gunman as looking somewhat like Oswald, and a handful of other witnesses gave vague descriptions that matched Oswald along with any number of other young, white men. On the other hand:

Every witness who described the gunman’s clothing, including Brennan, claimed that it did not match Oswald’s clothing.

Oswald was seen on a lower floor about 15 minutes before the shooting, at the same time as a spectator saw a gunman on the sixth floor.

Oswald is known to have been on the first floor, in or near the domino room, about five or ten minutes after this.

Reports in the Dallas Morning News and the New York Herald Tribune, both published on the morning after the assassination, state that Ochus Campbell, the vice–president of the TSBD company, and a policeman saw Oswald very shortly after the shooting in a “storage room on the first floor”

The currently available evidence of Oswald’s location at the time of the assassination does not preclude him from being Prayer Man.

When Marina Oswald (who has maintained her husband’s innocence) was shown by researchers pictures of the “prayer man” from the films taken by Dave Wiegman of NBC-TV and Jimmy Darnell of WBAP-TV during the assassination, an unprompted Marina told Ed LeDoux that the “Prayer Man” was Lee.

[readingsquotes]

"For 77 minutes while a gunman massacred fourth-graders at an Uvalde, Texas elementary school in 2022, members of the Texas Department of Public Safety roamed school hallways. Not once during that time did they attempt to open the doors to the classrooms in which the gunman was killing children and teachers.

On Wednesday, however, the Texas DPS took a different approach to campus safety. Dressed in riot gear, the state police force descended on the University of Texas at Austin, aggressively detaining protesters and tackling a television cameraman at a nonviolent pro-Palestine protest, leading to at least 30 arrests."

...

These escalations against students are a choice. Police can be patient, even passive. The Texas DPS proved that when they loitered outside the ongoing slaughter of grade-schoolers. Indeed, data shows that police are not primarily crime-fighters, devoting a small percentage of their stops to suspected crimes and a much greater percentage to things like racially biased traffic stops. Their work, by the numbers, is foremost the enforcement of order and inequality along race and class lines.

...

“Shit, if only they’d have moved like that when my son was being murdered,” the father of a murdered Uvalde child tweeted above footage of Texas DPS officers in riot gear storming toward unarmed students at UT Austin. “But what do I expect….1 AR-15 keeps 376 officers at bay.”

...

The police response on college campuses does little for public safety or protection of Jewish students. Statistically, police have seldom filled this role. The same Texas DPS that made mass arrests at UT Austin on Wednesday also shoved away students who protested a speech by open antisemite Richard Spencer at Texas A&M University in 2016, and handcuffed Uvalde parents who demanded DPS save their children from a school shooting.

...

These students are calling for ceasefire. America’s militarized police forces are bringing the war home.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Jesse Duquette :: @JRDuquette:: The US is a gun fetish cosplaying a country not overtaken by the death fantasies of inadequate men.

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 14, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 15, 2024

Today, former president Trump turned 78. For his birthday, Representative Greg Steube (R-FL) introduced a bill to name 4,383,000 square miles of the coastal waters off the United States over which the U.S. has sole authority, a region called the exclusive economic zone, the “Donald John Trump Exclusive Economic Zone of the United States.” 

A less welcome present was that the chief executive officers who attended a meeting with Trump in Washington yesterday told reporters they found him uninformed and unfocused. Christina Wilkie and Brian Schwartz of CNBC noted that the attendees dislike the Biden administration’s enforcement of antitrust laws, its price caps on drugs and medical products, and its promise of progressive tax policy and like Trump’s promise to slash regulations and cut taxes, so they went into the meeting hoping to support him.

One CEO left the meeting with the takeaway that “Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” and several, Andrew Ross Sorkin of CNBC reported, said that he “was remarkably meandering, could not keep a straight thought [and] was all over the map.” He could not explain how he planned to accomplish any of the policies he was proposing. When asked why he had chosen a policy of bringing the corporate tax rate down to 20%, he allegedly answered: “Well, it’s a round number.” 

No one applauded Trump, attendees reported, in striking contrast to reports of the enthusiasm of Republican lawmakers yesterday. This difference underscores that Trump likely intended yesterday’s grandstanding to send a political message that Republican members of Congress support him despite his criminal convictions, while the lawmakers themselves were trying to show party unity at a time when they are bitterly divided. 

Also today, the Supreme Court handed down the Garland v. Cargill decision, which considered whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) correctly determined that a device that dramatically increases the speed at which a semiautomatic weapon fires bullets, called a bump stock, could be prohibited under the law, originally passed in 1934, that outlawed machine guns. 

By a 6–3 vote, the Supreme Court said the ATF did not make that decision correctly and that bump stocks were not banned under the law.

After the Parkland, Florida, shooting of February 14, 2018, when Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people and injured 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, then-president Trump told reporters that he had been studying the issue of gun safety. This was his first articulated policy on that issue, and although the Parkland shooter did not use a bump stock, Trump said he had told then–attorney general Jeff Sessions to write regulations to ban bump stocks in October of the previous year, after a gunman using them had fired up to 1,000 rounds of ammunition in 11 minutes, killing 58 people and wounding about 500—two died later—at a Las Vegas music festival. 

By the time the ATF finalized a new rule on December 18, 2018, Sessions was gone and it was Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker who announced that bump stocks would be classified as a “machinegun” under federal law. The rule went into effect on March 26, 2019. People who owned bump stocks had to get rid of them, either by destroying them or by taking them to an ATF office. The ATF estimated that about 520,000 bump stocks needed to be destroyed. 

A Texas gun store owner, Michael Cargill, handed over his two bump stocks under protest and then sued the ATF, saying it did not have the authority to reclassify bump stocks. 

Today, in a majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court dove deep into the mechanics of bump stocks to try to establish that they were not physically machine guns and that because of differences in the mechanical operations between true machine guns and bump stocks, the law did not prohibit bump stocks. ATF officials thus had no business defining bump stocks as they did in 2018, and those who want them can own them.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote: “There is a simple remedy for the disparate treatment of bump stocks and machineguns. Congress can amend the law—and perhaps would have done so already if ATF had stuck with its earlier interpretation. Now that the situation is clear, Congress can act.” 

Indeed, if Congress truly reflected the will of the people, it would have acted on this issue years ago. A Pew poll from June 2023—when bump stocks were illegal—showed that 64% of Americans want assault-style weapons banned altogether, as they were between 1994 and 2004. But Republicans have increasingly fetishized guns as a symbol of individualism, and Republican senators have kept most gun safety legislation at bay by weaponizing the filibuster, which means that any legislation must have not simply a 51-vote majority to pass the Senate, but 60 votes.  

In other Supreme Court news, yesterday Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) released documents showing that Justice Thomas accepted at least three more trips from billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow than had previously been known. 

And in other news concerning our nation’s horrific history of mass shootings and the political meaning of guns, today a federal judge ordered the liquidation of the personal assets of conspiracy theorist and InfoWars host Alex Jones to begin the payment he owes to the families of those murdered at Sandy Hook. For years, Jones told his followers that the shooting was a hoax to encourage restrictions on gun ownership, prompting harassment of the victims’ families. 

A jury in Texas and a jury in Connecticut awarded the families $1.5 billion in damages for defamation; Jones owns about $9 million of personal assets but will keep his $2.8 million home in Texas. The judge threw out an attempted reorganization of Jones’s company, Free Speech Systems, saying Jones’s creditors would recover more money in state courts. The families have sued Jones for hiding millions of dollars in assets. 

Reacting to the news of the Supreme Court’s decision in Garland v. Cargill, gun safety advocate David Hogg, who survived the Parkland shooting, wrote: “Ah yes because who doesn’t need the ability to freely turn a semiautomatic AR-15 into what in effect is a machine gun. This is f*cking insane.”

“We know thoughts and prayers are not enough,” President Biden said in his own statement about the Supreme Court’s decision, referring to the usual response of Republicans after a mass shooting. “I call on Congress to ban bump stocks, pass an assault weapon ban, and take additional action to save lives—send me a bill and I will sign it immediately.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[follow-up-news]

A grand jury has indicted two former Uvalde school police officers in the botched law enforcement response to the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary school that left 19 children and two teachers dead, two Texas state government sources with knowledge of the indictment told CNN Thursday. Former Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arrendondo and former school police officer Adrian Gonzales were named in the indictments, which represent the first criminal charges filed in the school massacre. The two officers face felony charges of abandoning and endangering a child, Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell told the Uvalde Leader-News, and one of them was expected to surrender later Thursday. The indictments were not immediately available from the Uvalde County District Court clerk’s office. Family members of the victims have been meeting with the DA’s office to discuss the results of the months-long grand jury investigation, according to Brett Cross, the guardian of 10-year-old Uziyah Garcia, one of the fourth graders killed in the shooting rampage. Earlier this year, the US Justice Department released a damning report that concluded law enforcement officers had many opportunities to reassess their flawed response to the May 24, 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School. Bursts of gunfire, reports a teacher had been shot and then a desperate call from a student trapped with the gunman could – and should – all have prompted a drive to stop the bloodshed far sooner, said the report. Instead, it took 77 minutes from when the 18-year-old shooter walked into Robb Elementary School until he was stopped. The carnage remains among the deadliest episodes in America’s ongoing scourge of campus shootings.

[beardedmrbean]

PASADENA, Texas (AP) — A parent tackled a man who opened fire during a band competition at a Houston-area high school as several others then helped disarm and detain him in a shooting that injured one person, officials said.

The man in his 80s entered Pasadena Memorial High School on Saturday evening during the competition that involved students from numerous school districts and discharged a small-caliber weapon, police said. Police said in a statement they did not yet know a motive in the shooting.

The Angleton Independent School District said the person who was injured was a percussion technical consultant for their band. Police said the man, who the district said was struck in the shoulder, was taken to a hospital and was in stable condition.

The man who opened fire wasn’t affiliated with the competition, according to the Pasadena Independent School District. He was tackled by a parent after discharging the weapon and then school district police and “several good Samaritans” helped apprehend him, the district said.

“Within 60 seconds a suspect was disarmed and they prevented further shooting by this suspect,” Pasadena police Chief Jerry Wright said at a news conference.

The Pearland Independent School District said in a statement that some parents of the students in their district “bravely intervened, successfully subduing the individual and detaining them until law enforcement arrived.”

[meret118]

Police officials who responded to the deadly Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting waited far too long to confront the gunman, acted with “no urgency” in establishing a command post and communicated inaccurate information to grieving families, according to a Justice Department report released Thursday that identifies “cascading failures” in law enforcement’s handling of the massacre.

The story, authored by McIntyre, relays the horrific allegations of a 17-year-old girl who says she was repeatedly raped while at a party with the police chief’s stepson and two other individuals in May 2023.