The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Crazy People Are Dangerous

Posted on | January 26, 2022 | Comments Off on Crazy People Are Dangerous

Say hello to 24-year-old Zachary Lucas Olivar of Snellville, Georgia, who (a) has a “history of mental illness,” and (b) shot a sheriff’s deputy in Jones County. Before we go any further with this story, permit to ask this question: Why is it that we never hear about the mental health of such people until after they shoot a cop? Or get shot by the cops, as the case may be. In Philadelphia, for example, they had a full-scale race riot in October 2020 after Walter Wallace Jr., who had “mental health problems,” and was brandishing a large butcher knife when he charged a police officer and got shot. Wallace’s “mental health problems” weren’t front-page news until after he got shot (and everybody started looting because “social justice”). You might think there’d be some kind of early-warning system in place, so that all the locals would know who the crazy people were, and then when they got shot by cops, everybody would be like, “Oh, it was that one. Had to happen sooner or later.”

Olivar’s family had been dealing with his craziness for weeks in Snellville, which is a suburb of Atlanta in Gwinnett County. What is not explained in any of the news articles I’ve read is why Olivar was in rural Jones County, about 70 miles south of Snellville, down near Macon. Perhaps he was a rhythm-and-blues fan, hoping to visit the Otis Redding “Big O” Ranch just south of Round Oak. Olivar was in that vicinity, on State Route 11 between Round Oak and Wayside, when he was spotted driving erratically by Deputy John Kile:

Olivar puts his hands out of the driver’s side window, as if surrendering. However, he refuses repeated requests to exit the car.
“This is my home, sir. This is my home,” Olivar says repeatedly.
It’s around the 4-minute mark that something appears in Olivar’s hand, prompting the deputy to ask: “What you got?”
Seconds later, a gun wrapped in a towel is thrust out the window and a flash point is seen.
Kile grunts from the impact of a bullet, but doesn’t fall. Instead, the camera shows his feet running to his patrol car, as he screams “Shots fired, shots fired” into his radio.
Video recorded from the perspective of the patrol car shows Kile was standing just a few feet from the gun, and he is seen grabbing his chest as he runs back to his vehicle.
The video concludes with Olivar captured six minutes later, after his vehicle is forced off the road. Kile was among the pursuing officers, despite his injuries, officials said.
Olivar, who lives in Snellville, is being held without bond at the Jones County Sheriff’s Office “facing aggravated assault charges,” officials said.
Jones County Sheriff R.N. “Butch” Reece says investigators have learned Olivar has a “history of mental illness,” which is why he decided to release the video.
“We have received reports that he has been having issues for the past week, with several attempts made by his family to get him help,” Reece wrote on Facebook.
“Families are struggling to get help for loved ones with mental health issues; however, it seems all too often that these individuals fall through the cracks. Unfortunately it sometimes takes an incident like this one to show how important accessibility to mental health care really is. Our jails are not designed to be mental health treatment facilities.”
Reece concluded his post by saying he hopes the incident helps bring “a much needed change in the mental health system” with the help of state legislative action.

Before I post the video, perhaps I should warn you that Deputy Kile is apparently a fan of country music classics, and was actually listening to “Wildwood Flower” on his radio when he blue-lighted Olivar:

 

Deputy Kile was wearing a bulletproof vest, which saved his life, and Sheriff Reece praised the restraint shown by his deputies in arresting Olivar because, let’s face, he was this close to being a “suicide by cop.”

As far as I’m concerned, you shoot a cop, you should die in a hail of gunfire, and I don’t want to hear about your “mental health problems.” There’s a big difference between regular crazy and shoot-a-cop crazy.




 

Category: Crime, Georgia

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