Everybody is now reporting — although police have not yet officially confirmed — that Anthony Quinn Warner, 63, has been identified as a “person of interest” in Friday’s Nashville explosion. ATF and FBI agents are reportedly searching Warner’s home in the Nashville suburb of Antioch, Tennessee. He reportedly gave away his home to a woman last month, and at least to me, this would seem to suggest that Warner (who was unmarried and had no children) was in a state of suicidal despair.
A bomb planted in a recreational vehicle parked in the deserted streets of downtown Nashville exploded early Christmas morning, injuring three people and creating chaotic communications outages that took down police emergency systems.
The explosion was preceded by a chilling warning that urged people to evacuate the area.
Three people were hospitalized in stable condition Friday evening, and human remains may have been found at the scene, authorities said.
“We have found tissue that we believe could be remains,” Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said at a news conference Friday afternoon. The chief said it was unclear if the remains came from someone in the RV.
“The RV was detonated so if it was someone inside, we have no idea,” Drake said. “It was such a large explosion.”
Police were responding to a report of shots fired when they found the vehicle, with an eerie recording playing, Drake said. The voice on the recording commanded: “If you can hear this message, evacuate now.”
Police called in the bomb squad and rushed to clear nearby buildings.
“The officers immediately began knocking on doors and evacuating residents here, not knowing if the bomb was going to go off immediately, or if it was going to go off in the time that was stated,” Drake said. “The officers saved lives today, and their heroism should be noted.”
The blast occurred at 6:29 a.m. local time, before the bomb squad arrived. The explosion was near an AT&T building, causing disruptions in phone service and 911 systems up to 180 miles away. The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily stopped flights out of Nashville International Airport due to the communications problems.
AT&T said in a statement it was “putting the full force of our disaster recovery efforts into responding to this morning’s explosion in Nashville.”
That the bomb was placed next to an AT&T building suggests that this was the intended target. So who would want to take out this communication facility and why? And why Nashville, of all places?
Also, what about that recorded warning to evacuate the area? This is further evidence suggesting that the bomber sought to destroy the AT&T building, rather than seeking to maximize human casualties, as terrorist bombers normally would. Setting the bomb at 6:30 a.m. on Christmas morning, when the streets were empty, is also evidence pointing in the same direction. But that might be a red herring, an attempt to mislead investigators by creating misleading evidence. The bomb might be an elaborate cover-up to conceal another crime, as police suspected in the case of the Speedway Bomber.
The investigation will obviously begin with determining who owned that RV. Once that is known, the rest of the relevant facts will come tumbling out in a rush. Building an enormous bomb requires time and resources, as well as extensive specialized knowledge. Achieving a timed detonation, as appears to be the case here, is a difficult feat, requiring the bomb-maker to avoid a premature accidental detonation.
If the motive for this bombing is political, what sort of politics? They did not choose as their target a synagogue or a mosque, nor was the target a government building or the office of a political party. The choice of the AT&T building — what does that suggest? AT&T is a gigantic conglomerate that bought out Time-Warner a few years ago. But why would the bomber target the company’s Nashville office? This is a strange puzzle, and I’m sure when the case is solved — probably within the next 72 hours — the story behind it will be quite interesting.
It is arguably racist to invoke the “dindu nuffin” meme here, but because Raphael Warnock is a Democrat running for Senate, any criticism of him is therefore automatically racist, so it doesn’t matter. It’s probably just a matter of time until we are told Warnock could not possibly have abused his ex-wife because he was an honor student.
However, the ex-wife, Ouleye Ndoye, told police in March that Warnock ran over her foot while the couple were having a dispute over whether their children would be allowed to travel to her grandfather’s funeral in West Africa. Warnock had refused to sign for passports:
“This man’s running for United States Senate, and all he cares about right now is his reputation,” she says to the officer. “I’ve been very quiet about the way that he is for the sake of my kids and his reputation.”
“I’ve tried to keep the way that he acts under wraps for a long time, and today he crossed the line. So that is what is going on here. And he’s a great actor. He is phenomenal at putting on a really good show,” Ndoye said.
Warnock scoffed at her account.
“I barely move, and all of a sudden she’s screaming that I ran over her foot. I don’t believe it,” he said.
The question is not whether Warnock did or did not run over his wife’s foot, but rather if this video will have any effect on the outcome of the two runoff elections in Georgia. Polls show both races — Warnock against Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Joel Osoff against Sen. David Perdue — are neck-and-neck. It seems astonishing to me that these races are so close, but then again I still can’t believe Georgia was close enough for Joe Biden to steal it, so what do I know?
Perhaps the demographics of Georgia have changed so drastically, and/or Democrats have gotten so proficient at election fraud, that my native state has now gone irretrievably blue. On the other hand, maybe November was a fluke, and Georgians will repudiate Democrats in January. Either way, don’t blame me — I dindu nuffin.
Comrade DeBlasio last week declared: “I’d like to say very bluntly our mission is to redistribute wealth. . . A lot of people bristle at that phrase. That is, in fact, the phrase we need to use.”
The subject, believe it or not, was K-12 schools in New York City. How could anyone view public education as having a “mission to redistribute wealth”? And yet this is indeed what DeBlasio considers the “mission” of his city’s schools. In a remarkable press conference (and by “remarkable,” of course I mean, insane), the mayor spoke of his plan to “more equitably redistribute resources” in the city’s schools: “We can never accept a broken status quo. . . . We can never go back to a past that didn’t work.”
What is so “broken” in the status quo of New York schools? What was it about those schools that “didn’t work” in the past? Well, the outcomes were unequal and, because inequality is unfair (according to “progressives” like DeBlasio) therefore the entire system must be destroyed. This idea is summarized in a headline, “De Blasio to destroy New York’s top public schools to run an experiment in diversity.”
You see that vague goals like “equality” and “diversity” are really just a pretext for destruction, as part of a war against achievement.
Twenty years ago this week, the people of Wichita, Kansas, awakened to startling news: Four people had been murdered — shot to death, execution-style — after an ordeal of sadistic torture. The only surviving witness, a 25-year-old school teacher, had been shot in the back of the head and left for dead with her four friends. Somehow, she not only survived being shot, but walked a mile through the snow, naked and barefoot, to summon help. She was able to give police a description of the two men who had perpetrated what became known as “The Wichita Massacre,” and everyone who learned about the crime was horrified.
The thing is that most people never heard of this atrocity. The national media ignored The Wichita Massacre because the perpetrators were black and the victims were white. So it was never reported on CNN or NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR — none of the media that have devoted endless hours to promoting the Black Lives Matter movement ever gave a minute of time to the murders committed by Reginald and Jonathan Carr:
The Carr brothers were from Dodge City. Both 22-year-old Reginald and 20-year-old Jonathan had lengthy criminal records.
On December 8, 2000, having recently arrived in Wichita, they robbed and wounded 23-year-old Andrew Schreiber, an assistant baseball coach. Three days later, on December 11, they shot and mortally wounded 55-year-old cellist and librarian Ann Walenta as she tried to escape from them in her car. She died three days later in hospital from her wounds.
On December 14, the brothers broke into a house at 12727 E Birchwood Drive in Wichita.
What the Carr brothers did inside that house is so grotesque I won’t even bother summarizing it, except to say they were convicted of nearly 100 felony counts, including kidnapping and rape, in addition to multiple counts of murder. While there was no evidence that what happened was a “hate crime” — robbery appears to have been the motive — several commentators at the time noticed that the Carr brothers had targeted only white victims, which at least suggested that these two criminal predators had a distinct preference in terms of their chosen prey.
In 2014, there was outrage when the Kansas State Supreme Court overturned the death sentences against the Carr brothers. Two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 8-1 to restore those death sentences. During oral arguments, Justice Samuel Alito said the Carr brothers had commited “some of the most horrendous murders that I have seen in my 10 years here, and we see practically every death penalty case that comes up anywhere in the country. These have to rank as among the worst.” In his majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: “These defendants tortured their victims, acts of almost inconceivable cruelty and depravity described firsthand for the jury by the lone survivor.”
The point that cannot be overlooked in this case is that these murders never would have happened if Jonathan and Reginald Carr hadn’t been turned loose on the streets after their previous crimes. Anyone who pays attention to news about crime and justice recognizes the pattern — career criminals, set free on probation or parole, tend to escalate the severity of their crimes. Over and over, you see that murders are perpetrated by criminals who already had a lengthy record of “minor” crimes.
Yet we find that “progressives” believe that we are locking up too many criminals. Just pray that none of the monsters turned loose by Soros-sponsored district attorneys like L.A.’s George Gascon ever show up in your community. The national media will ignore your death.
A woman whose 13-year-old son was badly beaten after a massive brawl at Atlantic Station last month has filed a complaint against a group of Atlanta police officers who she says did nothing to stop the attack.
Iresha Ridley said she has formally asked APD’s office of professional standards to investigate why none of its officers intervened while a crowd beat her son.
Prior to that attack, another teenager was beaten and punched until he lost consciousness in a different location, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported. A 15-year-old was charged with aggravated assault in that case. Javon Ridley was attacked Nov. 28 as officers were working to disperse the crowd after the brawl that involved as many as 300 teenagers. In a news conference Wednesday, the Ridleys and their attorney said they believe as many as 10 officers were present at the time. “The officers have to be held accountable for not intervening when it was their duty to protect (Javon),” attorney Mawuli Mel Davis said.
Atlanta police confirmed that Iresha Ridley had been in touch with an investigator regarding the complaint and that “an investigation into the matter is open and active.”
“We are deeply concerned over this event and we understand and share the frustrations of Mr. Ridley and his family,” an Atlanta police spokesman said in an emailed statement to the AJC. “This incident should never have occurred and I believe it provides a glimpse into some of the challenges faced by the Atlanta Police Department and our officers. Maintaining order over hundreds of juveniles in a situation like this is nearly impossible.”
Hundreds of teens were gathered near the dining and shopping destination’s bowling alley about 5:30 p.m., and many were engaged in fights, according to an incident report obtained by the AJC. When officers tried to disperse the clusters of teens, several “became defiant and more disorderly, engaging in more fistfights,” the incident report said. One teen was severely beaten and repeatedly punched, police confirmed. When he fell to the ground, another teen repeatedly stomped on his head, the report said. . . .
According to Davis, Javon Ridley was dropped off at Atlantic Station by his mother more than two hours later. The teen, who was unaware of the brawl, had planned to meet his uncle about 8 p.m., Davis said.
“His uncle was there and waiting for him at the bowling alley,” Davis said. “When he attempted to get out of the car to go to the bowling alley, unfortunately, Atlanta police turned him away.”
Due to the violence that had erupted just hours earlier, Atlanta police told Javon and other teens to stand on the 17th Street bridge, which is just outside of Atlantic Station and about a five-minute walk from the bowling alley.
That’s where a large group of people descended on the 5-foot-3, 104-pound teen, Davis said.
Passersby captured the attack with cellphone cameras and posted the videos to social media. In one video, shared with the AJC by Davis, a crowd is seen throwing blows on one person. Davis said as many as 20 people took turns punching and kicking Javon. It is not clear why he was attacked.
“While he was being attacked, obviously, you can see videos where there are Atlanta patrol cars that are occupied by Atlanta police officers who did nothing to render aid,” Davis said, “and that, for us, is a miscarriage of justice.”
Iresha Ridley said she was “devastated” by her son’s attack. “Unfortunately, I was not there to protect him,” she said.
But Atlanta police officers were, and they did nothing to intervene, Ridley said.
“This is my only child,” she said. “He could have been killed.”
While I don’t know if the Atlanta police did everything right in this situation, it seems absurd to scapegoat them for not intervening while, at the same time, police get accused of “systemic racism” every time they do intervene. People with the “social justice” mentality always want to blame police no matter what happens. Watch this video:
What was happening in Atlanta that night was chaos — anarchy, the collapse of public order — and whose fault was that? Why blame the police because Atlanta is descending into savagery? As Hobbes said, this was bellum omnium contra omnes, “the war of all against all” which subjects its victims to “continual fear, and danger of violent death,” rendering life “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
The gunman shot dead by cops after opening fire on the steps of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Sunday had a long rap sheet that included an attempted murder bust, according to records and sources.
And it wasn’t the first time he shot at cops, sources said.
Luis Vasquez, 52, was arrested on the Upper West Side for attempted murder in 1990, and on an assault charge there a year earlier, sources said Monday.
In the first case, Vasquez was accused of firing a gun at police and an unidentified woman on Aug. 21, 1990, according to sources.
State prison records show he was sentenced to three-to-nine years after pleading guilty to a lesser felony weapons possession charge.
He was released but rearrested on a drug charge in 2007 and turned over to immigration authorities in November of that year.
Vasquez is a native of the Dominican Republic. His travel visa from the country expired on Sunday, sources said.
A violent criminal who was “turned over to immigration authorities” during the Obama administration was still on the streets of New York — where he was, no doubt, registered to vote as a Democrat.
This kind of stuff is no longer surprising. It is now routine.
If you’ve never heard of Jason Boek, that’s because the national news media is so busy indoctrinating you about “Black Lives Matter” that they don’t even notice when a white criminal gets killed in circumstances quite similar to the cases that become nationally famous. Jason Boek’s death highlighted Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law in a way reminiscent of the Trayvon Martin case. The national media always uses the word “controversial” to describe Stand Your Ground, but this is just another example of how media bias works — “controversial” is just a synonym for liberals don’t like it. In fact, polls show Americans generally favor Stand Your Ground laws, with more supporting (46%) than opposing (34%) such laws, with a majority of Republicans (65%) and independents (54%) in favor; only among Democrats is opposition (57%) a majority opinion.
Jason Boek had an extensive criminal record that included “previous arrests for aggravated battery, battery, burglary, marijuana possession, forgery, larceny, resisting arrest, and [violation of probation].” At the time of the August 2018 incident, Boek was “on felony probation for battery” and his driver’s license was suspended.
What happened was this: Around midnight, Boek was drinking at a bar with his girlfriend, Jessica. Another woman at the bar (Jasmine) was so drunk that the bartender called an Uber to give her a ride home. Boek’s girlfriend helped the bartender get Jasmine in the car. Meanwhile, inside the bar, Boek got the mistaken idea that his girlfriend had left the bar in the Uber, and began blowing up her phone with angry text messages, including a message avowing his intent to “f–k up the Uber driver.”
Boek borrowed a friend’s pickup truck and went tearing down the road in pursuit of the Uber driver, who was in a Hyundai. Boek nearly ran the Uber off the road, cut him off, stopped the truck and emerged shouting threats: “You know I got a pistol? You want me to f–king shoot you?”
Famous last words — caught on the Uber driver’s dashcam:
Boek’s history of criminal violence came to a sudden end because the Uber driver, Robert Westlake, had a concealed carry license and had recently completely training at the police academy. It is against Uber’s company policy for drivers to carry weapons, but Westlake had decided his own safety, and that of his passengers, was more important than company policy. When he was confronted by Boek shouting about a having a pistol, Westlake’s training kicked in. He fired one shot that hit Boek “center mass” and only after Boek was bleeding out did Westlake discover that his attacker wasn’t carrying a pistol, only a cellphone.
“This is a justifiable homicide all day long. You have the right to protect yourself,” Sheriff Grady Judd said Wednesday. “This was the intent of the law.” . . .
“Here’s a message for the hotheads of the community: Don’t do that stuff,” Judd said. “Good people carry guns and they will shoot you. A lot. Graveyard dead.”
Watch video of Sheriff Judd’s press conference:
What’s perhaps most interesting about this case is how closely it parallels similar incidents that get turned into national news, when the unarmed person who gets shot is black. Armed self-defense cases like Westlake’s shooting of Jason Boek, like police shootings, tend to happen so quickly that firing the gun is a split-second decision that’s easy to second-guess when you’re watching it on video in the safety of your home. How was Westlake to know that Boek, who said he had a pistol, was only carrying a cellphone? Obviously, he couldn’t know this, and Westlake told reporters, “All that went through my head was I’m not getting shot.”
Boek’s family spoke to NBC News Wednesday from their home, where they said that they were distraught and that he was a loving father who was beloved by many but made a bad choice. They also insisted the Uber driver had time to leave the scene instead of shooting. “He’s not a bad person. He needed help,” mother Michele Boek, said. “How he was portrayed in that press conference is not who he is as a person,” said Jenna Irby, Boek’s sister.
Yeah, I’m sure he was an honor student. But I’m not going to riot about it.
