When you think of law enforcement in Georgia, you might think of guys named Bubba or Roy, but probably not Pradeep Tamang, a native of Nepal, a small country wedged between India and Tibet. More than 10 years ago, when Pradeep was still a child, the Tamang family came to America and settled near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he later worked as a corrections officer at Dauphin County Prison. About a year ago, Pradeep got hired as a cop in Gwinnett County, Georgia:
A cop has died and another has been left seriously injured after they were shot allegedly by a serial criminal in what police described as an unprovoked attack in a Georgia Holiday Inn hotel room.
Pradeep Tamang, 25, died of his injuries after he was shot allegedly by Kevin Andrews, 35, on Feb. 1.
Tamang and his colleague Cpl. David Reed rushed to the Holiday Inn Express hotel in Stone Mountain, around 20 miles from Atlanta, as they probed suspected credit card fraud, according to WBRC.
The officers were invited into the room but were allegedly shot at when they tried to arrest Andrews over an outstanding warrant. “The suspect produced a handgun and in an unprovoked attack, fired at our Gwinnett County police officers,” cops said.
Both fired back in self-defense but Tamang, who was born in Nepal and was engaged, died.
Andrews, who has a lengthy rap sheet, was left with non-life-threatening injuries.
JD McClure, the Gwinnett County police chief, hailed the officers’ bravery.
“These officers are heroes. They go out to the road every day and face uncertainty,” he said.
“They also understand that at the end of the day, they provide a very valuable service and that is safety.”
Brian Kemp, the Georgia governor, alluded to the dangers cops face in the line of duty.
“This is the latest reminder of the dangers law enforcement face on a daily basis, and we are grateful for every one that puts themselves in harm’s way to protect their fellow Georgians,” he said.
The man accused of killing a Gwinnett County police officer and injuring another in a shooting has been charged, according to the sheriff’s office.
Kevin Andrews faces charges of malice murder, felony murder, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and two counts of aggravated assault against law enforcement.
Andrews had his first appearance on Monday. He did not receive bond.
On Sunday, Officer Pradeep Tamang and Cpl. David Reed were called to a Holiday Inn Express off Park Place Boulevard in Stone Mountain, where Andrews was suspected of fraudulently renting a room.
The location is about 20 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta. With nearly a million residents, Gwinnett County is the second-most populous county in Georgia, and very diverse — more than 35% of the residents area Latino or Asian, and more than 25% are black.
Police said he has an extensive criminal history, including prior felony, robbery, gun and narcotics convictions, as well as an active warrant out of DeKalb County for failure to appear.
How many times must we see different versions of the same basic story before we do something about the “revolving door” problem in the criminal justice system? Seldom does a criminal begin his career with murder. Rather, habitual felons tend to rack up this kind of “extensive criminal history” prior to finally buying themselves a ticket to permanent incarceration. The “failure to appear” warrant from neighboring DeKalb County indicates that they had him behind bars and let him out on bail, despite his prior history of violent felonies. So two cops show up at Holiday Inn where the suspect had fraudulently used a credit card (perhaps stolen) to rent a room and, after discovering he’s got an outstanding warrant, they try to put the cuffs on him and get shot because, although it’s illegal for convicted felons to possess firearms, you don’t become a convicted felon by obeying the law, do you?
Now a young immigrant from Nepal is dead and perhaps the saddest part is, nothing will change. The courts will continue letting dangerous criminals out on the street, again and again, because as a nation, we’ve simply forgotten how to protect public safety. God help us.
SOTW
After the last couple of weeks, this was a particularly bad week to be a Senators fan. First we got swept by the Cardinals at Busch Stadium, and then we came home to get whipped by the Expos, winning only one game: a comeback against Paul Lindblad that earned Roger Nelson a 5-4 win in relief of Pat Dobson. So we were 1-5 on the week; we played Pittsburgh tonight instead of Tuesday and picked up a couple of games to make us 42-51, 4.5 games behind the division-leading Twins in second place. We’ll face the Red Sox (40-50) Friday at RFK and hope for the best. Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.
If the Trump administration never accomplished anything else, this would be sufficient cause to call it an overwhelming success:
The Department of Justice (DOJ) charged former CNN host Don Lemon with federal civil rights crimes after he live streamed anti-ICE protesters storming a church in Minnesota.
Lemon, who was arrested on Thursday, was charged with “conspiracy and interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshipers during a January 18 protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul,” according to the Associated Press:
The veteran journalist is charged with conspiracy and interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshipers during a Jan. 18 protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul, where a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official serves as a pastor. Another journalist and two protest participants were also arrested in Minnesota.
In a post on X, CNN’s Jake Tapper posted photos of the “DOJ indictment v Don Lemon.”
“The DOJ indictment v Don Lemon et al was just unsealed,” Tapper wrote, adding that it was 12 pages.
Lemon, along with Nekima Valdez Levy-Armstrong, Chauntyll Louisa Allen, William Scott Kelly, Jamael Lydell Lundy, Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Ellyse Fort, and two others were charged with two counts, according to the photos of the indictment posted by Tapper.
The defendants were charged with Conspiracy Against Right of Religious Freedom at Place of Worship, and “Injure, Intimidate, and Interfere with Exercise of Right of Religious Freedom at Place of Worship.”
“Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done,” [defense attorney Abbe] Lowell said. “The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.”>”Instead of investigating the federal agents who killed two peaceful Minnesota protesters, the Trump Justice Department is devoting its time, attention and resources to this case,” Lowell said, calling the arrest an “attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration.”
Lowell called Lemon’s arrest an “unprecedented attack on the First Amendment” and said the journalist “will fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.”
Everybody’s joking about the insane argument that being a journalist provides carte blanche to defy any law whatsoever.
"It's okay I'm a journalist" is my new truck-crash-into-liquor-store alibi https://t.co/Vi4hjlpeUr
In 1986, I talked my way into my first newspaper job and instantly acquired immunity from prosecution for any so-called “crime” I might be accused of committing. Being a professional journalist (just like Don Lemon) means that your laws don’t apply to me, peons!
“Sure, officer — I admit I was doing 110 mph through a school zone, but you see, I’m a journalist and that’s why we have the First Amendment, so that I can drive as fast as I want. ‘Freedom of the press,’ see?”
Jennifer Welch (left) and her co-host Angie Sullivan
This post is not going to be one of those “look-what-the-crazy-liberal-said” exercises, as enough such work has already been done on podcaster Jennifer Welch’s most recent outburst. Sure, I’ll quote what Welch said, but my point here is to explain why she said it. First, however, the quote supplied by The Post Millennial:
Far-left podcaster Jennifer Welch has said that “white Evangelical Christianity” is a cancer. While making the comments, she named people such as Erika Kirk and cited the Christian’s tendency to vote for Trump as a reason to oppose them and claimed Christians are not getting persecuted.
“So when you think about the Erika Kirk, the Life Church, the Joel Olsteen of it all, and their desire to accumulate wealth while hood-winking their flock into thinking they’re super moral, this is a cancer. White evangelical Christianity is a cancer. These are the worst of our country,” Welch said.
“These are the worst people in our country because they use their religion in two ways, as a weapon and as a shield. They weaponize it whenever they want to, and say, ‘We’re on the moral high ground. You’re a lesbian. You deserve to die. You’re a lesbian. The cops shouldn’t have revived you. Oh, your parents are Mexicans, and they brought you over here. Yeah, you should go to jail and eat worm food.’ And then when you call them out on it, ‘Oh, my God, they’re after the Christians. How dare they, how dare they. We’re so oppressed,'” Welch added, mocking those who are Christian.
“White Christians are so oppressed in this country, and they want it both ways, because in the religion that duplicity is taught, you can be morally duplicitous. You thrive in cognitive dissonance. And so this is just a massive, massive problem. And it should come as no surprise to anyone that of this cult that I’m talking about, white evangelicals over 80 percent went and voted triple Trumped.”
Liberal podcaster Jennifer Welch: “White Evangelical Christianity is a cancer. These are the worst people in our country.” pic.twitter.com/owZv4U7Pnx
It is not enough to say that this is false and insulting, but I’m not here to document the elements of slander or to stoke outrage. No, as I said, my point is to explain why Welch said this — or, more generally, why Democrats view white evangelical Christians as an enemy who deserved to be smeared this way. Notice that at the end of the quoted excerpt, Welch claims that “over 80 percent” of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump three times — 2016, 2020 and 2024. Is this true? Or to proceed directly to my conclusion: How does Jennifer Welch know this?
IT’S THE EXIT POLLS, STUPID!
An important development of the past 30 or 40 years is exit polling, which allows political strategists and others to speak with some degree of certainty about which demographic segment voted for which candidate.
Prior to exit polling — which didn’t become a ubiquitous phenomenon until the 1990s — political candidates and parties lacked specific information about the nature of their own support or that of their opponents. For example, the term “gender gap” arose after the 1980 election from the discovery that, by a net margin of eight points, more men than women had voted for Ronald Reagan. In the years afterwards, as more questions were added to exit-poll surveys, more detailed information about patterns of voter preferences became available, and it was from this that Democratic Party strategists learned that the most committed Republican voters were white evangelical Christians.
After asking the basic religion question — Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, etc. — the question was added: Do you consider yourself a born-again Christian or evangelical Christian? This result then gets cross-tabbed with the race question, to identify the “white evangelical Christian” voters as a distinct category. It is because of this that we know such voters went for Trump by 80% in 2016, 76% in 2020, and 82% in 2024. How important are white evangelicals Christians as a voting bloc? They were 23% of the electorate, according to the 2024 exit polls.
Permit me, as someone born and raised a Southern Baptist, to explain the theological basis of “born again” and “evangelical.” The phrase “born again” is taken directly from the third chapter of the Gospel of John, with Jesus answering the Pharisee leader Nicodemus. The phrase also appears in I Peter 1:23, and the concept is also referenced in the sixth chapter of Paul’s epistle to the Romans. Repentance, baptism — death to the old sinful man, “born again” to a new and eternal life. This is just basic belief in every church I’ve ever attended, including the so-called “charismatic” services I visited with my childhood friend Phil Underwood, who is, like his father before him, a Church of God preacher. As for the phrase “evangelical,” this refers to preaching the Gospel to the uncoverted, in accordance with “the Great Commission” (Matthew 28:18-20): “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” And it is this zeal to make converts, by preaching the need for repentance, which makes the members of certain denominations and congregations identifiable as “evangelical” or “born-again” Christians, in distinction from those who for whatever reason think the Great Commission has expired.
There is a deep irony in the Democratic Party’s demonization of “white evangelical Christians” because, of course, the whole reason this phenomenon gained national attention in the first place was that, in 1976, a Georgia Baptist named Jimmy Carter ran for president and made his “born again” faith front-and-center in his campaign.
When it helped Democrats win an election — and Carter just barely beat Gerald Ford in 1976 — being “born again” was good. But when they identified it as a cause of Republicans winning elections, Democrats decided that, in the words of Jennifer Welch, “White evangelical Christianity is a cancer. . . . These are the worst people in our country.”
Every Democrat nodded in agreement with that remarkable denunciation, because they’ve all seen the same exit-poll data. And I am not here to preach, dear brothers and sisters, but I feel the need to point out that it doesn’t matter whether you’re white, or whether you’re a Christian, or whether you consider yourself “born again.” You could be an atheist or a Muslim, black or Asian, gay or straight — it doesn’t matter who you are, if you vote Republican, you’re a “cancer,” according to Democrats. The only category of sin they recognize is voting Republican.
Liberalism is the only faith they have, and they will cling to it all the way to the grave and beyond. God will judge them, as He will judge us all.
