Some headlines and incidents caught my eye this week. They don’t pass the sniff test so I’m going to parse this out as clearly as I can for you to follow while I do my very best to engage my over-worked critically thinking efforts and pick these stories apart.
SWAT
It all started for me on Tuesday, July 12, 2022. The stench of a news item involving SWAT wafted across my feed. The story is that SWAT was deployed in Salem, MA. Apparently a suspected armed robber allegedly stole a bike and then barricaded himself in a house and SWAT was deployed to defuse the situation.
Since when is SWAT called out on SUSPECTED armed robbers? Since when is SWAT called out when someone steals a bike? Ok, so maybe there’s more to the story than the headlines are telling me.
Nevertheless, it didn’t sit right with me.
The algorithms are hot on my trail so they decided to feed my curiosity. About a week prior to the alleged SWAT incident on July 12, another story broke out of a SWAT incident in Albuquerque, NM on July 6.
Story here: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/07/15/oxni-j15.html
This story tells us the stand-off ended in tragedy with the death of a 15-year- old boy dying of smoke inhalation after SWAT had bombarded the house with their flash bang grenades. This seems incredibly irresponsible of SWAT to start tossing flash bang grenades without checking to make sure there were no children in the household. All of this started because of some bad information that was shared. Apparently police were looking for Qiaunt Kelley who “had some felony warrants, one from the state level, one from the federal level.” Ok, federal warrants are bad, sure, but do they justify deployment of SWAT? Even if he had violated his parole, would a SWAT team normally be deployed?
Read about their OOOOPS here:
One day before we were told the story of the Salem, MA incident, we were told a SWAT team was deployed to a San Francisco home, on July 11, 2022 for the exact same reason as the Salem reason: a SUSPECTED armed robber had barricaded himself in his home. In this case, SWAT launched smoke bombs to lure the suspect out.
Unfortunately, the demands by the police may have been lost in translation since their demands literally had to be translated to Chinese.
“It was unnerving,” said Mattarozzi. “You see all these cops with all these weapons, and the first thing you think is: ‘Oh, they’re gonna break the door down then they’re gonna start shooting.’ But it ended peacefully.”
This bolded line above from the story is salient.
Let’s pause for a minute and remember where we are right now.
In Summer of 2020 there was a “Defund the Police” campaign going on. Then in Summer of 2022, the highest paid mayor in the United States, London Breed (San Francisco) pisses off her liberal base and sides with the police when the police refuse to comply with a request from the San Francisco Pride Parade organizers to not wear uniforms during the June 2022 festivities. This is a far cry from two years prior when just about every liberal city in America was shouting for police removal and police reform and to defund the police. Now, suddenly, two years later the same liberal politicians who were calling for defunding the police and kneeling (remember that?) are now in solidarity with police?
Moving forward to the acrimonious and ongoing debate on gun legislation. First, the Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision upholding New York’s 108-year-old law limiting who can obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun in public. But not so fast, no time to celebrate! Hochul (NY Governor) supports New York state rolling out a novel strategy to screen applicants for gun permits. People seeking to carry concealed handguns will be required to hand over their social media accounts for a review of their “character and conduct” and take a safety training class. Inching up the ladder, House Democrats will soon vote to move an assault weapons ban to the floor, marking the first time in decades that Congress has put lawmakers on record barring the popular firearms.
I’m looking at the SWAT stories and I’m looking at the inching forward of gun rights grabs or at the very least, gun rights challenges and I’m wondering if anyone else is connecting the dots and seeing the story play out as I am.
Were any of the suspects armed to protect themselves from SWAT?
Let’s go back to that bolded quote above. Mattarozzi describes being intimidated and afraid but all in all, things ended peacefully.
It feels like our take-away from these stories, and from the constant assault to curtail gun ownership, is that we are supposed to trust heavily armed SWAT teams to end things “peacefully” while we are defenseless against them?
Switching gears a bit but I’m going somewhere with this:
Military Style Helicopter Theatrics
On Friday, July 15, 2022 two non military helicopters were circling and buzzing over my own home for most of the morning. They were State of Maryland helicopters engaging in what looked like military-like tactics directly overhead. They would leapfrog over each other, criss cross, make a complete circling of my neighborhood, cross paths and do it again.
Mayor of Kingstown
On Thursday, July 14, 2022, an announcement was made on the local Block Watch page for my neighborhood that the popular series, “Mayor of Kingstown” would be filming in our neighborhood. Production for this show has been occurring for the better part of a year throughout the city of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. So, this announcement didn’t come as a big surprise. The announcement warned us to stay out of the production crew’s way. There would be road closures and a heavy police presence, all typical language when filming takes place in a neighborhood.
Helicopters
So, the following morning when I witnessed these precision-like theatrics and military style tactics taking place overhead from State of Maryland helicopters, I immediately wondered if it had something to do with production. However, I remember reading about helicopters appearing in other cities throughout the country this week, and even on the same day. On Thursday morning, helicopters were buzzing around a neighborhood in Chicago. There is also footage of Ted Cruz (Florida) announcing he would be taking a helicopter ride around the southern border to investigate “chaos at the border.” On the same morning that my neighborhood was pelted with chopper sounds overhead, Los Angeles was as well. Lansing, MI also noticed helicopters flying overhead on the same day. In a bizarre twist, that has Soros written all over it, activists blocked the entrance to East Hampton airport, where the ultra wealthy take their exclusive flights, jets and helicopters for a day at the beach. My best guess is because of all the helicopter action happening in mid to major cities, no private helicopter rides could clog up the skies. After all, in every case of people witnessing helicopters over their cities, they all described it as a military or police presence. Whether it was or wasn’t doesn’t really matter. It’s what they assumed.
But I assumed something different.
A Dangerous Criminal, I mean Suspect, I mean Person of Interest May or May Not Be On the Loose
On the same morning that the helicopters were performing their theatrics in the sky above my house, the local police department announced that a possible suspect involved in an alleged murder that may have taken place in May in a local housing project in my neighborhood, escaped somehow and was on the loose! We are told that on this particular morning, Friday, July 15, US Marshals, Pittsburgh Police, Allegheny County Housing Authority Police, Allegheny County Police Department and the Attorney General’s Office were all attempting to serve a warrant on this persona, I mean suspect, I mean person of interest. The local police department Facebook page (yes, this is how we get all our announcements around here, through Facebook) announced that the McKees Rocks Police, Stowe Township Police, Robinson Township Police, Allegheny County Sheriffs Office, Allegheny County Police Department and the Pennsylvania State Police were all on the hunt for this suspect, er, person of interest. Announcing he was still on the run and could be in our very neighborhood, the locals took no time reminding us all to stay inside and stay safe on one of the most beautiful summer days in existence. Outside of the choppers overhead making a racket and scaring my little cat, the birds were chirping, the sky was a beautiful blue, the wind wasn’t too warm or too cool. It was an absolutely perfect day.
What does all of this mean?
Well, if you’ve been paying attention to the audios I’ve been posting on this blog the last couple of days, it simply means the police and military are spending down their budgets. Every January, March, July and October corporate budgets reset and even if civic or military budgets don’t follow that exact time frame, it still makes the most sense.
SWAT wants to get paid for being SWAT. SWAT teams need job security. So, we’d better gin up some stories to make them necessary. The same goes for your local police, your local housing authority police, your US Marshalls, your state police and even your production costs for local tv shows.
Maybe there is something more to the stories I’ve witnessed and the personal accounts I’ve witnessed right outside my front door. But, the simplest most practical answer is usually the right one.
It doesn’t mean, though, that I’m not gearing up for that ever looming October Surprise.
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