Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

One of the most annoying, yet entirely predictable facets of media coverage of the Parkland attack is ignoring the ROTC cadets that died to save others, and one other student, who acted with great selflessness and valor, while depicting several kids willing to parrot anti-liberty/gun talking points as heroic. Fox News reports:

A student who was gravely wounded after being shot five times while shielding classmates during the Florida high school shooting in February criticized the county sheriff and school superintendent Friday saying they failed the victims by not arresting the shooter before the massacre.

Anthony Borges, 15, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., was hailed a hero after he used his body to protect the lives of 20 others students after accused gunman Nikolas Cruz opened fire at the school on Feb. 14, 2018, killing 17 people.

He was released from the hospital Wednesday after suffering wounds to the lungs, abdomen and legs.

Borges’ attorney read a statement from the teen during a news conference criticizing Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel and Superintendent Robert Runcie for the massacre.  Borges, too weak to talk, sat silently in a wheelchair with his right leg propped up. His statement specifically attacked the Promise program, a school district and sheriff office initiative that allows students who commit minor crimes on campus to avoid arrest if they complete rehabilitation. Runcie has said Cruz, a former Stoneman Douglas student, was never in the program, but Borges and his attorney, Alex Arreaza, said school and sheriff’s officials knew Cruz was dangerous.

This Obamite program that lowers Black and Hispanic arrest statistics by simply ignoring their crimes, has been, finally, getting some media attention, but mostly on conservative sites.

Deputies received at least a dozen calls about Cruz, 19, over the years and he spent two years in a school for children with emotional and disciplinary problems before being allowed to transfer to Stoneman Douglas. Last year, records show he was forced to leave after incidents – other students said he abused an ex-girlfriend and fought her new boyfriend. Weeks before the shooting, both the FBI and the sheriff’s office received calls saying Cruz could become a school shooter but neither took action.

Runcie and Israel ‘failed us students, teachers and parents alike on so many levels,’ Arreaza read for Borges, who sat next to his father, Roger. ‘I want all of us to move forward to end the environment that allowed people like Nikolas Cruz to fall through the cracks. You knew he was a problem years ago and you did nothing. He should have never been in school with us.

The Borges family intends to sue.  They should. And now, David Hogg, the juvenile face of post-Parkland anti-gun rage and self-righteousness has a book deal, as PJ media reports:

David Hogg and Lauren Hogg, students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and survivors of February’s deadly mass shooting in Parkland, Florida have signed a deal with Random House for a book to be published in June, EW has confirmed.

The siblings have been leaders in the gun control movement that took shape among students, in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting. Their book, #NeverAgain, is described as “a statement of generational purpose, and a moving portrait of the birth of a new movement.” The book will explore their efforts taking on some of the most powerful forces in Washington and beyond, and will detail their commitment to new legislation aiming to prevent future tragedies.

‘In times of struggle and tragedy, we can come together in love and compassion for each other,’ David Hogg said in a statement. ‘We can see each other not as political symbols, but as human beings. And then, of course, there will be times when we simply must fight for what is right.

Thus spake the child whose venomous rhetoric routinely portrays the NRA,its five million plus members, and by implication, all law-abiding gun owners, as bloodthirsty monsters with blood on their hands for daring to support the Constitution and disagree with Hogg and his leftist promoters/puppet masters.

If anyone needed proof that Hogg and his peers are entirely creatures of cynical leftist manipulation, this is it.  Having personal experience in the difficulties of getting a book published, I know it’s virtually impossible to get a work published by a major house these days.  What are the chances an entirely unknown teenager, without any apparent writing talent, would secure a book contract?  What are the chances Hogg will have more than the most minimal role in actually writing it?  This alone puts the lie to the idea that the Parkland media circus is a grassroots, teenager inspired, led and fuel protest.

Of course, for the left, it’s currently important to keep Hogg in the media spotlight.  He is, for them, the vanguard of their anti-gun movement—for the moment.  The book will keep their campaign alive at least a little longer.  Fortunately, with the exception of a few states, it seems most of America has caught onto the scam.  In the meantime, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel is facing blowback for his hubris and incompetence.  CNN reports:

Sheriff Scott Israel

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, who touted his own ‘amazing leadership’ after the Parkland school shooting, is facing a no-confidence vote from the union representing his deputies.

Jeff Bell, the president of the Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputies Association, told CNN Friday that union members had decided to move forward with the vote, which will begin electronically tonight and will close on April 26.

‘There is a complete failure at the sheriff’s office and he doesn’t recognize it,’ Bell said.

‘The move follows many instances of suspected malfeasance … and the lack of leadership that has crushed morale throughout the agency,’ the announcement from the deputies association says.

Bell says the historic move is due to the dysfunction of the office, which has been piling up for years. But it was Israel’s behavior after the school shooting that left 17 people dead that pushed the rank and file over the edge, he says. Especially when Israel swiftly blamed school resource officer Scot Peterson for not entering the building and stopping the shooter.

Pre-Posting Update:  The union did vote no confidence in Israel.  This vote is not binding on Israel, but they plan to approach the governor to demand Israel ouster.

Considering Israel’s public behavior post-Parkland, this is hardly surprising.  Police officers often disagree with their leaders, but seldom are their differences so serious as to compel public dirty laundry airing.  This is not, however, Israel’s only problem:

Eleven days after the February 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran and 73 other Republican representatives sent a letter to Gov. Rick Scott, asking him to suspend the sheriff for what they called his ‘incompetence and neglect of duty.’ The lawmakers also cited the failure of Scott and his deputies to enter the school building to stop the shooter, and their failure to act on warning signs about the shooter for years.

The governor did not suspend the sheriff but did launch a state investigation, which is being conducted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

It will be interesting to see the results of that investigation.  Remember that Gov. Scott is the man that authorized Florida Attorney General Pam Bondy to appoint an egomaniacal, corrupt political hack—Angel Corey–to persecute George Zimmerman, despite local police and prosecutors refusing to charge him in the death of Trayvon Martin.  They recognized an unremarkable case of self-defense when they saw it. It was an effort that ended badly for Bondy with Zimmerman’s exoneration, and the exposure of the Florida criminal justice system as nearly as corrupt as Corey. Political hackery seems alive and well in Florida.

In the sixth article in the Parkland series, I wrote of the faux-security measures being taken at Douglas High School, including forcing all students to carry clear plastic backpacks, supplied at public expense.

Every measure that has been thus far implemented is either unsustainable, entirely ineffective—of both—or so interferes with actually conducting school on a daily basis, they’ll inevitably, and quickly, be abandoned. As with all idiotic fads schools adopt, they’ll just quietly go away, with no notice to the public.  It therefore is entirely appropriate and predictable that the school has recently harassed a student for daring to visit a range and post photos on social media to memorialize the event, as the Daily Wire reports:

According to Kyle, ‘My dad was there and I shot with an AR-15. After, I posted a few pictures and videos.’

Kashuv was quickly called out for visiting a gun range and posting about it by a variety of other students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. But that wasn’t the end of the story. When Kyle went to school today, his principal informed him that other students had been upset by his posts, but that he hadn’t done anything wrong. But according to Kyle, in the middle of the morning, events took a different turn:

Near the end of third period, my teacher got a call from the office saying I need to go down and see a Mr. Greenleaf. I didn’t know Mr. Greenleaf, but it turned out that he was an armed school resource officer. I went down and found him, and he escorted me to his office. Then a second security officer walked in and sat behind me. Both began questioning me intensely. First, they began berating my tweet, although neither of them had read it; then they began aggressively asking questions about who I went to the range with, whose gun we used, about my father, etc. They were incredibly condescending and rude.

Then a third officer from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office walked in, and began asking me the same questions again. At that point, I asked whether I could record the interview. They said no. I asked if I had done anything wrong. Again, they answered no. I asked why I was there. One said, ‘Don’t get snappy with me, do you not remember what happened here a few months ago?

Kashev did, but the attack has no relationship whatever to an unremarkable visit to a range.

They continued to question me aggressively, though they could cite nothing I had done wrong. They kept calling me ‘the pro-Second Amendment kid.’ I was shocked and honestly, scared. It definitely felt like they were attempting to intimidate me.

I was treated like a criminal for no reason other than having gone to the gun range and posted on social media about it.

“The pro-Second Amendment kid.” How dare he ask the police why they were questioning him!  We certainly wouldn’t want teenagers to develop an appreciation of the Bill of Rights, would we?  That could lead to a belief in the rule of law and limited government.

Some might suggest Kashev and others are being somewhat hypocritical by complaining about the failure of the police in preventing the Parkland massacre, and for their less than competent response to the attack. A lawyer certainly did:

The Parkland shooter made it publically known, and more than once, that he wanted to be a school shooter. He was ignored, possibly due to incompetence, but likely because he was already caught up in the school’s program to keep junior felons from suffering any consequence for their crimes.  Once in, the school could not admit he was a dangerous criminal without exposing their fraud of a program.

What should the police have done regarding Kashev?  Nothing.  It’s possible there is additional information not provided in media accounts, but from what is available, there is nothing that would cause a competent police officer to, for a moment, think Kashev might pose a danger to anyone.  But perhaps they were motivated by anger or a need to maintain the “no minority crime in our school” narrative?  Kashev, after all, is not adhering to the leftist party line.  Even if an officer were so lacking in analytical ability as to be suspicious, a call to Kashev’s father should have dispelled that suspicion. Three cops grilling an entirely innocent student accomplish nothing for school safety, but greatly contribute to public distrust of the police, and further discredit the Left.

And if the police interest in Kashuv wasn’t bad enough, a Parkland teacher–Greg Pittman–had to pipe up:

Stung when not everyone on social media agreed with, Pittman kept digging the hole:

Of course no one would ever post a photograph on social media of something they’ve done and found interesting unless they were trying to get attention and disrupt the progressive narrative.  And digging:

Notice Pittman’s appeal, very much the same narrative as that of the juvenile “survivors”: Parkland is special, and anyone that is not a survivor can’t possibly understand, and should just shut up.  But Pittman is just a neutral observer:

And the phony school security parade lurches on.

The Parkland Case archive may be found here.

UPDATE, 04-27-18 2100 CST:  It now seems that Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School teacher Gregory Pittman was not content with Twitter, as Fox News reports:  

Officials at the Florida school where 17 students were gunned down during a mass shooting on Valentine’s Day are investigating allegations a teacher compared pro-Second Amendment student Kyle Kashuv to ‘Hitler’ and called him ‘dangerous.’

The comments were allegedly made by… High School American history teacher Gregory Pittman, an outspoken gun control advocate. Pittman’s reported remarks came after photos posted to social media showed Kashuv visiting a gun range with his father.

Why is everyone that disagrees with a leftist always Hitler? America is apparently overrun with Hitlers.  Kashuv is “dangerous”?  Because he visited a range with his father and fired a gun or two?  America is obviously full of tens, even hundreds of millions of dangerous people too, perhaps even dangerous Hitlers who are dangerous because they’re Hitler. Clones, perhaps?

A junior who witnessed the rant told Fox News that Pittman ‘was a bit angry’ and launched into a tirade Wednesday during the last 10 minutes of class after one student brought up the Twitter exchange.

‘It was basically a hate fest,’ the student said. ‘They were just saying means things about Kyle. He talked about how he was right, and how Kyle was making an ass of himself. He did say he ‘was the Hitler type.’ I don’t really know what that means exactly, but I think he was just being crazy.

I think so too, anonymous student. Kashev wasn’t in class that day, but by comparison, he is a paragon of calm reason:

I find it utterly vile that he’d call a Jew the next Hitler,’ said Kashuv, whose family emigrated from Israel in the 1990s. ‘It’s also quite telling that he doesn’t know that Hitler took the people’s weaponry and I want more law-abiding citizens to have firearms.’

Pittman did not respond to requests for comment.

I’ll bet.  Of course a Jew is Hitler.  To what other logical conclusion could any rational being come?  Why do Jews need guns?  I mean, any history teacher should know…oh.  Right.  The Holocaust, and untold millions who want to murder every Jew, etc.  Guess Pittman sort of forgot that, being so busy delivering hateful rants against students and all.

The school district claims to be investigating the matter. Considering their solution to school shootings is transparent backpacks, it might not be wise to hold one’s breath waiting for a rational resolution.