The draft is this Saturday, and I have yet to peruse the free agent lists. Well, I’m not going anywhere this week, so I should have plenty of time in between bouts of continuing education to prepare for tax season. Illo courtesy of @ShamashAran (Sensurround) on X. Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.
People in Iowa and around the country are mystified by this situation. How did this guy get hired? And how much of his biographical information is actually true? The story from the Des Moines Register:
Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts was arrested by U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement for allegedly being in the United States illegally, according to federal officials.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed Roberts’ Friday, Sept. 26, arrest and detention and said a court had issued a “final order of removal” in May 2024 for the deportation of the Guyana native and longtime U.S. resident.
She said Roberts abandoned his car and fled from police on Friday, and was allegedly in possession of a loaded handgun, a large amount of cash and a hunting knife. He was arrested in what DHS described as a “targeted enforcement operation.”
At a 3 p.m. news conference, School Board Chair Jackie Norris said the district was still working to learn more about what happened.
“We do not have all the facts. There is much we do not know,” she said. “However, what we do know is Dr. Roberts has been an integral part of our school community since he joined two years ago.” . . .
In a statement Friday evening, the district said it “has not been formally notified by ICE about this matter, nor have we been able to talk with Dr. Roberts since his detention.” Roberts, 54, has served as Des Moines Public Schools superintendent since July 2023.
In an emailed statement, DHS called Roberts a “criminal illegal alien.”
Roberts allegedly sped away when officers approached his vehicle and identified themselves, and officers found his vehicle abandoned in a nearby wooded area. Inside was the handgun, $3,000 in cash and the hunting knife, the department said. Roberts official DMPS bio says “he enjoys hunting.”
In response to the reports of the loaded gun reportedly found in Roberts’ vehicle, the district said Friday evening that its policy dictates that weapons are “prohibited on school grounds or at a school-sponsored or school-related activity.”
DHS states that Roberts has “existing weapon possession charges” from Feb. 5, 2020. It’s not clear where those charges were filed or whether they were resolved. Records of those existing charges were not immediately available or provided Friday.
“Dr. Roberts has a previous firearm charge related to a hunting rifle, which he disclosed to the DMPS Board during the hiring process. He provided sufficient context and explanation of the situation to move forward in the hiring process. He has also spoken publicly about this experience,” DMPS said in a release.
However, that charge was from 2021 in Pennsylvania.
(Raising the question, was his previous explanation true? Or did he come up with this story about a hunting rifle — as if there had been some kind of misunderstanding — to cover up something else?)
In its statement Friday evening, the district said a third-party comprehensive background check had been conducted on Roberts and he would have been required to verify employment eligibility for all employees.
“In this case, Dr. Roberts completed the I-9 employment eligibility verification form and submitted the required documentation,” reads the statement from Phil Roeder, the districts’ director of communications and public affairs.
The statement also said the district had no knowledge of Roberts’ order of removal. Roberts grew up in Brooklyn, New York City. Federal records and previous reporting said he was born in Guyana. Before a career in education, Roberts competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games in track and field for Guyana as a mid-distance runner.
(Really? Do we believe any of that now?)
Roberts became the superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools in July 2023. He succeeded longtime Superintendent Tom Ahart, who resigned at the end of the 2021-2022 school year. The DHS statement says Roberts entered the United States on a student visa in 1999. It also states that Roberts was working for the school district despite having no work authorization.
“This suspect was arrested in possession of a loaded weapon in a vehicle provided by Des Moines Public Schools after fleeing federal law enforcement,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations St. Paul Field Office Director Sam Olson said. “This should be a wake-up call for our communities to the great work that our officers are doing every day to remove public safety threats. How this illegal alien was hired without work authorization, a final order of removal, and a prior weapons charge is beyond comprehension and should alarm the parents of that school district.”
DHS also accused Roberts of violating federal law by possessing a handgun while in the U.S. without legal authorization, and said it was referring him to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for further investigation.
Norris, the chair of the Des Moines Public Schools board, said Roberts received a valid license from the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners in 2023 before beginning his tenure with Des Moines. She said there is “new information that has been made public” but said the board has not yet been able to verify additional details.
Let’s do some math here: Ian Roberts is now reported to be 54 years old. That means he would have been about 28 when he obtained a student visa in 1999, and nearly 30 at the time he claims to have completed in the Sydney Olympics. Do we really believe that Roberts was such an Olympic-caliber runner that he was still on the Guyana national team at age 29? Also, what about the claim that he “grew up in Brooklyn”? Is there any evidence of that? Or is it just something Roberts wove into his personal narrative — like his alleged love of hunting — to conceal the more likely reality that he overstayed his student visa, fraudulently obtained a Social Security number and has been working illegally in the U.S. for more than 20 years? Does he actually have a doctorate degree, even?
The report that Roberts “received a valid license from the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners” doesn’t do anything to clarify matters. If Roberts is an imposter — essentially engaging in fraud for two decades — it might be difficult for any licensing board to detect such a fraud, once he obtains his first teaching license. We don’t have enough documented facts at this point to know what actually happened in the years since Roberts arrived on a student visa. Where did he begin his teaching career? How was he able to get hired to that first job? Did he have a legal work permit?
Something is clearly off in this story, but I doubt anyone at the Des Moines school board is interested in doing the kind of investigation that would discover the truth about who “Doctor Roberts” really is.
Cuban officials on Friday said that Joanne Chesimard, who was convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper, has died in Havana decades after breaking out of prison and escaping to the communist island.
Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Chesimard, who was born JoAnne Deborah Byron and was also known as Assata Olugbala Shakur, passed away after living there for years under asylum granted by the Cuban government.
“On September 25, 2025, American citizen Joanne Deborah Byron, ‘Assata Shakur,’ passed away in Havana, Cuba, due to health conditions and advanced age,” the ministry’s statement said.
In 1977, Chesimard was convicted of the murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster, who left behind a wife and 3-year-old son, during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973.
In 1977, she was found guilty of first-degree murder, armed robbery, and other crimes and was sentenced to life in prison. She escaped from prison in 1979 and lived underground before surfacing in Cuba in 1984.
The FBI and the New Jersey attorney general each offered a $1 million reward for her capture.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and New Jersey State Police Superintendent Colonel Patrick Callahan said they spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio about Chesimard’s reported passing.
“For years, we have worked with the State Department to bring Chesimard back to New Jersey, so she could face justice for the cold-blooded murder of an American hero,” both said in a joint statement. “Sadly, it appears she has passed without being held fully accountable for her heinous crimes.”
“We mourn Trooper Foerster’s loss every day, and we extend our deepest sympathies to his widow, Rosie, their son, Eric, and the entire New Jersey State Police family,” they added. “Unlike his killer, Trooper Foerster never had a chance to live out his days in peace. But we remain fully committed to honoring his memory and sacrifice. We will vigorously oppose any attempt to repatriate Chesimard’s remains to the United States.”
Chesimard, who regarded herself as a godmother and step-aunt to late rapper Tupac Shakur, was added to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List in 2013.
She was a member of the Black Liberation Army, which the FBI describes as “one of the most violent militant organizations of the 1970s.”
Given the extraordinary craziness of our own era, with political violence rampant and apparently increasing, many people have forgotten how crazy things were in the 1970s. Back when I was in middle school and high school, you had all kinds of wacky radicals running around. The nation had gone through a series of crises — the drama of the Civil Rights Era, the assassination of JFK, the Vietnam War, etc. — and a lot of people couldn’t handle the stress and just lost their minds.
You had the Manson Gang murders in 1969, then the Weather Undeground bombers, the Patty Hearst kidnapping and the Symbionese Liberation Army, and let’s not forget the Peoples Temple and Jonestown. It was during that decade-long national nervous breakdown that JoAnn Chesimard assumed the moniker “Assata Shakur” and decided that the Black Panthers weren’t radical enough for her tastes.
The Black Liberation Army (BLA) emerged as an ultra-violent splinter of the Panthers, in association with other black radicals, spewing Marxist-Leninist jargon as a pretext for killing cops and committing robberies. “According to a Justice Department report on BLA activity, the Black Liberation Army was suspected of involvement in over 70 incidents of violence between 1970 and 1976. The Fraternal Order of Police blamed the BLA for the murders of 13 police officers.” Arguably the most infamous of their crimes was the 1981 Brinks robbery in Nyack, New York, where BLA members joined forces with Weather Underground radicals calling themselves the May 19th Communist Organization. In the Nyack robbery, this radical gang killed Brinks guard Peter Paige and police officers Edward O’Grady and Waverly Brown.
Police on scene after the Brinks robbery, 1981
By the time of the 1981 Brinks robbery, “Assata Shakur” had already been convicted of murder, escaped from prison and fled the country, apparently going first to Mexico before eventually ending up in Cuba. She was among dozens of American fugitives harbored by the Communist regime in Cuba. In June 2017, during President Trump’s first term, he called for Cuba to extradite her. Jordan Schactel wrote at that time:
Chesimard has become a folk hero among the fringe Left. Because of her background in far-left activism, some in movements like Black Lives Matter see her as a hero, and not the terrorist cop-killer that she really is.
The Black Liberation Army, which rose to prominence in the 1970s, was known for its ruthless methods. In one incident showcasing their carnage, three BLA militants killed two NYPD officers in the East Village. But that wasn’t the worst part. The assailants stood over the officers and continued to shoot into their bodies repeatedly.
By 1973, Shakur was the subject of a multi-state manhunt. The FBI labeled her the “revolutionary mother hen” of the cell that had carried out the murders of NYPD officers. Later that year, Shakur bolted New York City with fellow BLA members.
On her escape down the New Jersey turnpike, she was pulled over by state troopers. At that time, her accomplice, Zayd Shakur, was killed in a gunfire battle. A police officer was also killed in the incident, with help from Chesimard, who again sped away in her vehicle
But ultimately, she was captured sitting on the side of the highway after being wounded in the gun battle.
In 1977, Chesimard was charged with murder and convicted of firing the shots that killed New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster. She was also convicted of seven other felonies. She was sentenced to life in prison plus thirty years for her crimes.
Ruthless cop-killer, “folk hero.” We could extend this with a detailed examination of the cause-and-effect puzzle of left-wing craziness — do these radical movements just act as a magnet for psychopaths, or does radicalism turn otherwise ordinary people into dangerous lunatics? But let’s not belabor the point. At any rate, there’s only one kind of good Communist and it’s the kind that “Assata Shakur” has now become.
The coverage on CNN — and all the other mainstream media — frames the story the same way: Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted by a grand jury because of “Trump’s revenge.” The context of what Comey actually did is an afterthought, if mentioned at all, and the accusation of perjury and obstruction is treated as if were just commonplace for senior government officials to lie under oath and attempt to conceal evidence. Oh, and this was five years ago, they emphasize, without even a hint of recollection about what year it was that E. Jean Carroll claims she got raped in the dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman — The Crime of the Century, but not this century. Anyway . . .
