"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler
Groups the States
As many as 100 people may have died in the partial collapse of a condominium tower near Miami Beach, so this is probably not a good time for grim humor however (a) the building had been the subject of a recent study about it sinking, and (b) somebody recently paid $2.8 million for a penthouse suite in the building. Gonna guess the resale value of that unit might not be quite what it was before Thursday.
Updating the previous story about Othal Wallace, who was seen on bodycam video shooting a police officer in Daytona Beach, Florida, the reward for his capture has now been increased to $200,000, and U.S. Marshals have joined the manhunt for the armed and dangerous suspect, who may now be in the Atlanta area:
Atlanta police are on the lookout for an “armed and dangerous” suspect accused of shooting a Florida police officer in the head. . . .
Atlanta police have confirmed with FOX 5 that law enforcement in the metro Atlanta area has been advised to be on the lookout for Wallace.
According to investigators, his vehicle was last “pinged” in an area around Stockbridge, Georgia.
The wanted suspect was last seen driving a gray 2016 Honda HRV bearing California license plate 7TNX532.
Stockbridge is on I-75 southeast of Atlanta, and Wallace is believed to have relatives in the area. The 26-year-old police officer he shot in the head Wednesday night has undergone surgery but is still in critical condition. Notice that there is not “allegedly” about this — the crime was captured on video, and there is no doubt about Wallace’s guilt.
BOLO issued in metro Atlanta for ‘armed and dangerous’ man who shot Daytona, Fla. officer https://t.co/iZ5U0lpl33
— WSB-TV (@wsbtv) June 24, 2021
In fact, Wallace is a black nationalist and a member of an anti-white hate group, the NFAC, and posted social media messages boasting about his hatred of police as “pigs” whose blood he intended to shed. He was amassing an arsenal: “Investigators found guns and ammo stockpiled in an apartment belonging to a relative of Othal Wallace where the shooting occurred.” So while the Biden administration is busy prosecuting Trump supporters, this black radical was planning to kill cops:
Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood says an investigation into Othal Wallace has revealed a hatred for law enforcement.
The sheriff says he thinks it was only a matter of time before he tried to kill a police officer.
“What we’re discovering is, any law enforcement officer that came in contact with this guy, was going to get killed. Listen to his manifestos and see what he’s posting … you see the hatred that he’s putting out there to police. We have to eradicate that. We cannot allow hate to dominate our lives, and that’s what this motivation is,” Sheriff Chitwood said.
But you won’t see anything about this on CNN or MSNBC.
UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! As Ed Driscoll has already informed you, Othal Wallace was captured early this morning.
Hundreds of officers are searching for Othal Wallace:
A $100,000 reward is being offered for anyone who can help authorities locate a man accused of shooting a Daytona Beach police officer Wednesday night, according to Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood.
The suspect at the center of the manhunt was identified before 11:30 p.m. as 29-year-old Othal Wallace, and he’s believed to be driving a gray 2016 Honda HRV with the California license plate number 7TNX532, records show.
Chitwood’s tweets identifying Wallace also included still photos from body camera footage that appeared to show Wallace behind the wheel of the Honda.
The Daytona Beach Police Department said an officer was investigating a suspicious incident on Kingston Avenue shortly before 9 p.m. Wednesday when he stopped replying to calls on his radio.
When additional units arrived, they found the officer lying on the ground suffering from a gunshot wound, according to the department.
The officer was rushed to Halifax Health, where he underwent surgery and was in critical condition. His name has not been released.
The Florida Highway Patrol said at about 10:45 p.m. that parts of Interstate 4 and Interstate 95 were being shut down in connection with the search for Wallace.
Dozens of patrol vehicles from multiple different Central Florida law enforcement agencies could also be seen near the shooting scene aiding in the search.
Wallace is considered armed and dangerous. Anyone who sees him should call 911 immediately.
You may be surprised — if you know nothing about crime — to learn that the accused suspect has a prior criminal history:
According to court records, Wallace was arrested twice in 2018 in Broward County, where he was charged with domestic violence. The Office of the State Attorney chose not to pursue charges in one case, and adjudication was withheld in another.
The same year, Wallace was arrested by the West Melbourne Police Department after he was spotted driving recklessly on Interstate 95, records show.
According to his arrest report, he was pulled over, and officers found marijuana in his car. He was arrested and charged with driving with a suspended license and possession of cannabis.
He pleaded no contest to the charges.
According to several police reports, Wallace listed his address as the Florida United Methodist Children’s Home in Enterprise, which is located in southern Volusia County.
Domestic violence, reckless driving, suspended violence, some weed — minor crimes, really, but indicative of a lawless disposition. Here’s a question for you: Why was Wallace, a Florida resident, behind the wheel of a car with California license plates? Could this be a telltale clue about the “suspicious incident” that the police officer was investigating?
We will learn more about this incident, and must hope the officer survives his wound, or otherwise Othal Wallace will be charged with murder — and it was all captured on the officer’s bodycam.
I’m sure CNN and Joe Biden will ignore this crime.
A Michigan judge last year turned loose an accused murderer who is now suspected of killing two people in Detroit, and is back in jail.
Detroit police on Tuesday named Orlando Whitfield, 32, as a person of interest in the gruesome slaying of a “31-year-old man and his 27-year-old girlfriend inside a home on the city’s northwest side. . . . The couple’s 9-month-old infant was luckily found unharmed inside.”
The Detroit Free Press reports:
Last year, when a judge decided to release the man accused in her sister’s slaying ahead of trial, Amanda Edmunds was beside herself. “Who’s to say he’s not going to get out, cut his freaking tether off and then just disappear?” she said.
On Tuesday, her voice was sharp as she spoke of the Washtenaw County judge with the knowledge the man not only cut his GPS tether last week, then turned himself in, but was now named as a person of interest in a Detroit double-fatal shooting discovered in-between on Monday.
Amanda Edmunds, 33, of Ypsilanti said Washtenaw Circuit Judge Carol Kuhnke needs to be held accountable for the actions of the 32-year-old Ypsilanti area man, Orlando Whitfield, as “no person in their right mind” would let a murder suspect out. And, meanwhile, his attorney, Erika Julien, said both her client and Kuhnke are innocent.
“Judge Kuhnke did the right thing,” Julien said. “She did what due process in our Constitution calls for and it was a tough call and I understand that, but she did the right thing. It’s a case-by-case basis.”
Kuhnke said in an email Tuesday, “I wish I could” but that she could not comment on a pending case.
Whitfield is accused in the January 2018 shooting death of 25-year-old Marissa Edmunds in Ypsilanti, which officials believe took place during a robbery that also left her boyfriend wounded.
Whitfield was denied bond when he was arraigned that same month on one count of open murder, four counts of armed robbery and one count possessing a firearm in the commission of a felony.
More than two years later, in May 2020, Kuhnke ordered Whitfield be released from custody. She cited delays in his case that had left him behind bars for 28 months while presumed innocent and concerns that COVID-19 was expected to worsen that problem.
While Amanda Edmunds last year said Whitfield was behind the case delays, citing, among other issues, his change of attorneys, Julien said the discovery in the case was incredibly lacking by the time she was appointed by the court to represent Whitfield, more than a year after the case had been opened. . . .
Julien said she received notice mid-week last week that Whitfield had cut his tether.
He was in touch with her shortly after however — she believes it was within 24 hours — about turning himself in, she said. She said he panicked for his family and cut his tether due to an increase in threats against him related to the murder case.
Worried about him being taken back into custody safely given his status as a homicide suspect who cut his tether, they worked on a plan to safely return him to the jail, she said.
She was preparing to walk him into the Washtenaw County Jail on Tuesday when she got a call from a reporter about the Detroit shooting, she said.
Here’s the thing: Orlando Whitfield is a career criminal. So far as is known, he has never done anything in his life except commit crimes. When he was arrested for the murder of Marissa Edmunds, Whitfield had only been out of prison for two months “after serving time for a 2007 assault with intent to commit sexual penetration. He previously served probationary sentences for fleeing police and operating with an invalid license or allowing a person with a suspended license to drive in Wayne County, corrections records show.” Oh, and while he is jail awaiting his murder trial, Whitfield was also charged with making a “shank.”
I’m sure you’re wondering, what kind of judge would turn this guy loose? Well, (a) last year, Joe Biden got 72% of the vote in Washtenaw County, and (b) Judge Kuhnke is a Democrat who, when she was elected in 2012, was “the first openly LGBT judge elected by the people in Michigan.”
During Saturday’s LGBT “pride” parade in the Broward County, Florida, community of Wilton Manors, a truck went out of control and ran over two members of the Fort Lauderdale Gay Men’s Chorus (FLGMC), killing one of them and severely injuring the other. The truck, as it turns out, was driven by an elderly member of the FLGMC who, because of health problems was unable to walk the parade route, so the organizers had chosen him to drive the lead vehicle in the parade. His foot slipped and hit the accelerator — an accident — but immediately after this accident, before it was known what had happened, Democrats pounced:
Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Mayor Dean Trantalis (D) said that an incident on Saturday in which a pickup truck ran into a crowd at a Pride parade, leaving one person dead, was a “terrorist attack against the LGBT community.”
A white pickup truck ran over two people, killing one, in Wilton Manors, Fla., just outside of Fort Lauderdale. The vehicle reportedly barely missed Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D), who was riding in a convertible at the parade.
“This is a terrorist attack against the LGBT community,” Trantalis, who was in attendance at the parade, told local station WPLG. “This is exactly what it is. Hardly an accident. It was deliberate, it was premeditated, and it was targeted against a specific person. Luckily they missed that person, but unfortunately, they hit two other people.”
For a while Saturday, #DeathSantis was trending on Twitter, because of a (bizarre and irrational) belief that this alleged “terrorist attack” was somehow related to the anti-rioting bill that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed into law. But even if this had been an anti-gay “hate crime” (which it wasn’t), there was nothing about the anti-rioting bill that would have applied to such a circumstance. The whole thing was a paranoid delusion, symptomatic of the fear-based agenda of the Democratic Party, in which everything is organized around a struggle against forces of oppression. When they’re not busy shrieking about homophobia, Democrats lecture us about the insidious power of “systemic racism,” warn us that voter ID laws are “disenfranchising” black people, and claim climate change is destroying the planet.
This is the entirety of their agenda — all fear, all the time — and we should not be surprised by the hysteria it produces.
In case you didn’t see this story already, the fake “whistleblower” Rebekah Jones attempted to destroy the career of a Ph.D. student at Florida State University who only wanted to help get Florida’s COVID-19 death totals accurately counted. The word “psychopath” is now being widely used to describe the woman who was the subject of “Everybody Blog About Rebekah Jones Day” a couple months ago. Because I am a professional journalist, however, I would hesitate to use the clinical term “psychopath” because I have no credentials to make such a diagnosis and it might be construed as defamatory. Nevertheless, I have previously stated my opinion that Jones is “deranged, demented, daft, wacky, bonkers, non compos mentis, off her rocker, nuttier than a Snickers bar, a few fries short of a Happy Meal, and cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.”
Meanwhile, my podcast partner John Hoge has the latest developments in the criminal case of Florida v. Jones, in which the fake “whistleblower” is charged with “offenses against users of computers, computer systems, computer networks and electronic devices.” Lawyers for Jones filed a motion to dismiss the charge, and the prosecutor filed his response to her motion, and a judge will rule on these motions soon enough.
This means that Rebekah Jones is still at large, so be careful out there because, you know, Crazy People Are Dangerous.
P.S.: 7 p.m. ET for The Other Podcast tonight.
You might think that when 13 people are shot in downtown Austin, and the gunman is still at large, that it would be a public service to describe this murderous maniac. But you’re not “woke” enough:
Police have only released a vague description of the suspected shooter as of Saturday morning. The Austin American-Statesman is not including the description as it is too vague at this time to be useful in identifying the shooter and such publication could be harmful in perpetuating stereotypes and potentially put innocent individuals at risk.
Oh, if it was a right-wing white supremacist Trump voter who had committed this atrocity, you bet the media would have no qualms identifying the suspect, “perpetuating stereotypes” or not. Because the “woke” media have made themselves utterly useless as a source of facts, we must turn to Breitbart for the relevant information:
A statement from the Austin Police Department states . . . “It is unknown if there is one, or multiple suspects involved. There is one suspect described as a black male, with dread locks, wearing a black shirt and a skinny build.” . . . The shooting follows massive cuts in police funding by the Austin City Council. The council cut $150 million from the police budget . . .
Is it any wonder why people hate the “fake news” media?
UPDATE: One suspect is reportedly in custody, but another is still at large. Police are calling it an “isolated incident” — apparently, two guys with a beef started shooting at each other, and all the wounded victims were innocent bystanders in the crowded nightclub district.
What is the goal of the Black Lives Matter movement? To make it impossible to arrest and prosecute criminals? Because that would seem a logical inference from recent events in Minneapolis:
Burning, rioting, and looting broke out in Minneapolis on Friday night after deputies shot and killed a wanted felon who fired on them. Deputies assigned to the U.S. Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force attempted to take the man wanted for being a felon in possession of a firearm into custody.
Police officials in Minnesota say the U.S. Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force attempted to arrest 32-year-old Winston Boogie Smith on June 3 for a warrant for being a felon in possession of a firearm, the Associated Press reported. As sheriff’s office deputies assigned to the task force approached Smith’s vehicle, he reportedly refused to comply with orders and pulled a handgun. Officials confirmed Smith fired at least one shot from inside his car.
A statement from the Marshal’s Service said Smith was in a parked vehicle and “produced a handgun resulting in task force members firing upon the subject.” Smith died at the scene from wounds from two deputies’ shots.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension reported that state investigators found a gun in Smith’s car along with a spent cartridge indicating Smith fired from inside his vehicle, the AP article states.
Following the shooting on Thursday, rioters marched in the streets, set fires, and began vandalizing and looting businesses, the AP reported. Police arrested nine people on charges following the night of violent activity.
Do we want convicted felons on the street carrying firearms? No, and so an arrest warrant for Smith was issued and the officers sent to execute this warrant knew that Smith was in possession a pistol — does the phrase “armed and dangerous” ring a bell here? When cops go to arrest someone known to be armed and dangerous, what do we expect will happen if the suspect fails to cooperate with his arrest? Oh, wait:
In the aftermath of the shooting, Smith’s social media activity came under scrutiny after we found posts on his Facebook profile in which he bragged about shooting a police officer if he was shot at and would not surrender “like the rest.”
“Officer please don’t shoot at me cuz ima [I’m gonna] shoot back I ain’t so sucker like the rest I ain’t going with my hand up” Smith wrote in a Facebook post in September 2019.
In other posts, shared days after the death of George Floyd as the city of Minneapolis erupted in riots, Smith wrote about burning down police stations and starting a “war” against law enforcement. “justice is an eye for eye u kill one of mine we need one of yours that’s justice!,” he wrote in one of the posts.
Smith was sentenced to 48 months in prison in October 2018 for aggravated robbery in the first degree but the judge stayed his sentence and let him out on parole.
“We got guns and bullet proof vest too or should be able to get em … why not just rush these f–ks and start this war they keep asking for!” he raged on Facebook.
“F–k justice anyway b—h justice is an eye for eye u kill one of mine we need one of yours that’s justice! Right or wrong f–k being right cuz they keep doing us wrong.
“I’m down with the burn everything government not touch sh-t else I don’t even need to loot I’ll buy my sh-t just kill them dirty ass cops off we tired of being scared at the red light!” he wrote.
Yeah, buddy, you got the war you were asking for.
They ought to pin a medal on the cop who shot you.