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As long as people have been venturing out into the wilderness and getting lost, there have been those that have felt compelled to go save them. Usually these are individuals that have specialized training, skills, equipment, and the courage to venture into the worst possible terrain, at the worst possible times, in the worst possible weather. As with a lot of our first responder organizations, the systematic approach we have here in the US was born out of war. Early in the 20th century, several nations needed to develop an approach to find and recover downed aircraft, ships, and missing soldiers. According to NASAR; “Contemporary SAR systems provide response for overdue, lost, injured, or stranded people in many environments.” My experience has all been in rural “wilderness” which is generally considered to be a region that is generally uninhabited and devoid of any manmade amenities. However, this can also describe other locations (even urban) that have suffered a disaster either manmade or natural, or a terrorist attack.
Search and Rescue was my first foray into my life as a first responder and it remains one of my favorites. There are SAR Teams (Search and Rescue) throughout the world, most of them run by the national military or government agencies. Here, in the US, we have a combination of local county, state, and federal agencies that work in a mutual support model for search and rescue responsibilities. According to Wikipedia; “In January 2008, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released the National Response Framework (NRF) which serves as the guiding document for a federal response during a national emergency. In addition to the NRF there are 15 annexes relating to Emergency Support Functions (ESF) which includes other federal agencies that contain resources or expertise to support an emergency. Search and Rescue is included as ESF-9 and divides SAR into 4 primary elements while assigning a federal agency with the lead role for each of the 4 elements.
In the US SAR standards are developed primarily by ASTM International and the US NFPA which are then used by organizations such as NASAR (National Association of Search and Rescue) to develop training that will meet or exceed those standards.”
In all reality, it would take a HUGE event for the federal agencies to step in and take over the incident command of a local SAR operation, possibly a Yellowstone caldera eruption or 9-11 type event. Usually, it is the local SAR teams in conjunction with other local first responder agencies that will be involved in a mutual aid scenario . In my neck of the woods, that can include local EMS, city PD, county sheriff deputies, border patrol, US Forest Service, and maybe the state patrol. We also have access to a couple of helicopter units, one that is a part of a life flight type service and one that specializes in SAR operations.
OK OK OK…. I know that was very dry, but we had to get that out of the way. Because in all reality being part of a local volunteer SAR team can be one of the most exciting parts of your life! Seriously, where else are you going to get to train and work with 4×4’s, quads, horses, K9’s, jet boats, snow mobiles, snow cats, rappelling, land navigation, austere emergency medicine, tracking, and maybe get to possibly save lives? You get this training from some of the best sources out there. I myself, have trained with county sheriff, local PD, EMS (to be fair I am on both teams), US Border Patrol, US Forest Service, and the Joel Hardin Visual Tracking System. These activities/trainings are things that many adrenaline-fueled personalities (like myself) would actually pay money for and yet they are almost always paid for by the team!
So, each SAR team in each local area is going to be organized differently as far as equipment and skill sets depending on their unique needs for their local area. I can only speak upon my experience on my own SAR team. Generally, a local volunteer SAR team is going to be a non-profit that falls under the jurisdiction of the local Sherriff as a volunteer organization. Being a non-profit it will have a board of directors, a training officer, and a safety officer. It will then be broken down into teams. For our team this consists of:
In order to become involved in my local SAR team, I first talked with a friend of mine that was already on the team. From him, I learned when the monthly membership meeting was and also found their web site. On the website, I down loaded and filled out a membership application. I would suggest going to any of the meetings or trainings that they may have, that are open to the public. As part of my application process I had to go through a background check. Generally, if you have no felonies or recent lesser convictions you should be ok, but check with your local SAR team for their local protocols. I then went through an interview process talking about what sort of relevant experience I already had. For me most of that experience came from my involvement and training with the local CPT team in our area where we had covered land navigation, wilderness first aid, etc. They also asked if I would commit to getting my first aid/CPR certification and also study and test for my SAR Tech III certification and go through a year long probationary period before I would become a full voting member of the team. The SAR Tech certification system was first developed in 1991 by NASAR to evaluate three levels of search responders to that a measureable, consistent set of standards, and skills for both individual responders and teams could be had by incident commanders. The three levels are SAR Tech III, SAR Tech II and SAR Tech I / Crew-leader 3.
Again, the decision to join my local SAR team has been one of the most rewarding life choices I have made. It has lead me to a career as first responder among several teams. If you are already a member of your local CPT team I would strongly encourage you to look into plugging in and volunteering with one of your own local volunteer first responder teams.
I will be discussing in further articles the fundamentals that actually go into a Search and Rescue call out.
Spyder Thompson
The post CODE 3 Introduction to a SAR team – Search and Rescue appeared first on Oath Keepers.
Stewart Rhodes was interviewed on the SGT Report concerning a variety of subjects, but mostly on the recent attack at the Florida school where 17 young people were killed. While the gun-grabbers immediately screamed for more gun laws, few people had ideas on how to protect our children in school. Making them Gun Free Zones has not worked, as the terrorists know they have a target rich environment of unarmed victims. Stewart, and Oath Keepers, proposes to have armed and trained former military and police at the schools to protect the students, as is done in Israel. It takes time for police to respond to these attacks. Precious time. Armed personnel on site can respond quickly, thereby saving lives.
The post THE LINE IN THE SAND. PERIOD. – Stewart Rhodes on SGT Report appeared first on Oath Keepers.
by Spyder Thompson
There is an unsung warrior class right here amongst us. They answer the call of duty at the worst possible times, traveling to the worst possible places, quite often during the worst weather that mother nature can muster. They are the ones that run towards the columns of smoke and disaster, are ushered through road blocks to go do battle with the dragons of accidents, attacks, and natural disasters. All “so that others may live,” and while these warriors do wear uniforms, they are not multi-cam. There are no holidays dinners, birthday parties of loved ones, or Christmas mornings that are off duty. Many of them are not paid for their service, yet they put their lives on the line every time they are called out.
They are the men and women of the EMS (Emergency Medical Services,) SAR (Search and Rescue,) Firefighters (both structural and wild-land,) and Police. They are America’s first responder communities.
I, at one time, came from the mindset that all government employees were to be looked at with suspicion and mistrust. That was before I joined the ranks of the 1st responders. But now, I have knowledge from direct experience, and it has dramatically changed my view of the men and women who serve these agencies. That’s not to say that there are not bad people who are members of these communities, it just means that we must look at the greater picture and recognize them as the bad apples that they are. That, and we must be diligent in calling out the bad apples and hold them to account for their actions.
My journey started a couple of years back when I was working as a writer for a political website. In my work, I had come across Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers, after he had just launched his CPT (Community Preparedness Teams) initiative. This, I thought, was a great idea. I joined my local CPT and began training regularly with them. The Oath Keepers national call to action and official guidance on CPT urges them to join their local first responder community and integrate with it. This, I think, is crucial and there are CPT teams across the country that do this very well and those where it really needs to be focused on.
The original purpose and intent of the CPT program is to prepare the community, not just the teams. This is the driving concept that each CPT team across the country needs to keep in the forefront of their training and activities. If they (the CPT team) do not keep this as part of the mission it can cause problems at the local level. If there has been not enough, or no contact with the existing first responder teams before an event happens it can, for all intense purposes, cause the 1st responder community to look at CPT with suspicion and possibly worse – believe the erroneous message of the main stream media that CPT and the Oath Keepers are “anti-government.” If this were the case, then when a large-scale incident were to happen, there would not be the trust and rapport needed to call on them for assistance. How could we fix this problem? By taking our existing skill sets and eagerness to learn and join the existing first responder communities.
Living in the mountains of the west, I thought that joining my local Search and Rescue team might be a good start. It would further the skills I already had in land navigation, communications, wilderness survival, and medical care, all while helping me to get into better shape, which at the time I was in desperate need of. The process was pretty straight forward, I found their website and submitted an online application. Within a month, I was contacted by the team’s president and an interview was set up for after the next monthly meeting of the membership. During the interview, they asked about my past experience and what my motivation was for wanting to join the team. Really, for me, my main motivation was to give back to my local community in a tangible way. I remember thinking that if one of my three daughters was cold, hurt, alone, and lost in the wilderness, what kind of person would I want to be out there searching for her and in the end the answer to that question was someone like me.
It was in the next month, I was made a probationary member of the team. I needed to get my CPR license updated and also needed to take and pass the SAR Tech 1 certification through NASAR (The National Association for Search and Rescue.) NASAR was founded in 1972 for the training of search and rescue, disaster relief, emergency medicine, and awareness education. NASAR is interested in search and rescue as a humanitarian mission. They also provide a national standard for training and skills. Once I accomplished these, I was able to be called out for missions.
I really cannot believe that more people are not interested in being a part of their local SAR team. During the first year of training, I was able to train with and become competent in several areas that are incredibly exciting. Rappelling, 4×4 riding, snowmobiles/snow cats, and boats are just a few of the types of experiences you will get to have. All this while building team dynamics and really getting a sense that you are really helping people on some of the worst days of their lives.
After being a member of the SAR team for about a year, I went on to join the local ambulance service. This, I really kind of fell into. I had heard from a fellow member of the CPT team that the ambulance service was having their 24-hour refresher course once a week and that it was free and open to the public. I began attending their trainings, hoping just to get some emergency medical training that would be of use in my SAR callouts. I found that I had a keen interest in Emergency Medicine and within in 2 months of training I began driving for the ambulance service. A month later I was working on attaining my own EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) license. That summer I was brought on to the service as a full member. That would be a very busy summer for me as I also applied for, and was accepted to be a wildland fire fighter (as a fire-line qualified EMT). A week after passing my NREMT (National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians,) I was living out of a tent on an isolated mountain side going through the USFS (United States Forest Service) Guard School. This is the training one must go through to become a type 2 wildland fire fighter. That summer would prove to be one of the most intense fire seasons in history and I would travel to 6 different fires.
I now have an immense feeling of pride in serving and giving back what I can to my community. I have an ever-evolving skill set that is continuously being added to and I am in the best shape of my life!
In this new series of articles “Code 3”, I will be discussing different aspects of the first responder communities and what it is like to live the life of a first responder. Additionally, I will also be putting out gear reviews, going over new tools and tech that can help in the fight “so that others may live.”
The post The Code 3, Beginning My Journey as a 1st Responder appeared first on Oath Keepers.
Churches all over Texas were compelled to tell their retired law enforcement professionals, and others, who made up their volunteer teams, that they could no longer serve. Now, only active duty LEO’s, and/or level 4 (armed, 40 hours training) security officers could participate. Not surprisingly, many or most law enforcement retirees, with thousands of hours of training and experience, refused to become a private security guard for that purpose. Several of those honorably retired law enforcement professionals testified at various hearings during the past two legislative sessions. Additionally, not many of the approximately 24,000 evangelical Christian churches in Texas could afford to pay for this scheme… and the results were: a) Churches ignored the opinion and continued to operate their teams, b) They complied, or, c) They disbanded their armed teams or never formed one.
The post Texas Churches May Establish and Maintain Their Own Security Teams appeared first on Oath Keepers.
by Brian Krogmann
One September morning a few years ago I entered an office building in Washington DC. I immediately was faced with thousands of employees running out the doors I was trying to get in.
Strobing fire alarm lights, the klaxon of the alarm and screams nearly overwhelmed the senses. I began to square breathe as I was trained to do, and picked out the sounds of a shotgun coming from the floors above.
I went hunting for a killer.
Was I scared? More like anger that someone would come to MY city with this destruction. I took the stairs three at a time, and not once in four flights did I stop to think about what I had to lose. I thought about closing with the killer and stopping the death.
Since Columbine, we don’t form perimeters and hunker down waiting for a SWAT team. It’s too costly. In lives.
We may take a second and don a plate carrier with extra magazines and a blow out kit and grab our helmets but goddammit we don’t hunker down behind our patrol cars while our children are murdered! Some things are just bigger than us and dammit that’s one of them.
When you put that uniform on, you better damn well be ready to stand and deliver every single time. If you’re marking time until retirement put your damn papers in and make way, but until then you better be ready.
I call for the resignation of the sheriff, whoever runs the school police department and all their supervisors.
Make way for warriors. Men and women who run to the sound of the guns in shorts and t shirts with an off duty weapon.
Warriors.
Lieutenant Brian Krogmann
USA (RET)
Retired Police Lieutenant
The post Florida Rapid Motion Murder – The Need for More Warriors appeared first on Oath Keepers.
An Ohio sheriff who offered free firearms training to 50 teachers was forced to cap his offer at 300, after a flood of local school employees signed up in the wake of a Florida high school shooting that left 17 people dead.
“We put it online, we thought we’d get 20 school teachers maybe. Within 20 minutes we had 40. Within an hour we had 100. Within four hours we had 200. By the next morning, at 300, we cut it off,” Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones said on “Fox & Friends.”
The Parkland, FL shooting has renewed a national debate on the Second Amendment. Sheriff Jones noted that only a few schools in Ohio allow the concealed carry of a firearm, and that the plan to arm teachers would only work if “the school boards have the guts to make it a reality.” Jones suggested that school staffers should go through mandatory firearms training to help them identify the sounds of gunfire.
“We have to do something here because we can’t wait for our government to do anything. All they do is fight, they get nothing done,” he said.
The post Ohio Sheriff Offers Free Gun Training To 50 Teachers appeared first on Oath Keepers.
If these allegations are proved to be true, then the Sheriff and the School Board are guilty of trading financial gain for the safety of our children. They should both be removed from office and immediately charged as accessories to the murder of seventeen innocent children because they manipulated the very system put in place to protect them.
As a former law enforcement officer whose last serving post was in the state of Florida, I do not condemn nor make allegations against fellow officers lightly. I do however, believe we are not above law and have been entrusted with a duty not to be taken lightly. When one of our own neglects the Oath of Office which was given before God as one of the most sacred oaths and honors to be deemed upon a man or woman, and breaks the law or demonstrates the inability to carry out the responsibilities that he is been given, he should be removed.
The post Lessons Learned from the Broward County Florida High School Shooting appeared first on Oath Keepers.
This was an incredibly heart-breaking event. Hearts and prayers across the nation are lifted up to these children and their parents/families. Every day across the nation, parents send their children off to school, as they have for centuries. Up until recently, it has never been even a fleeting concern that their children may not return home at the end of the day. Why now? What has changed?
As more and more details emerge regarding this most recent event; a picture is developing. It is a shocking, devastating, hard to accept picture. We see failures and mistakes that would ultimately culminate into an unimaginable tragedy – Failures and mistakes; or are they?
Let’s venture back to 2013. Here is a quote from Nikolas Cruz’s disciplinary reports, obtained by Miami Herald:
Westglades Middle School, which he attended in 2013, he’d been cited numerous times for disrupting class, unruly behavior, insulting or profane language, profanity toward staff, disobedience and other rules violations.
Records show the behaviors continued at Marjory Stoneman Douglas [High School], which he attended in 2016 and 2017 before being transferred, with discipline being dispensed for fighting, profanity, and an “assault.” It appears the Jan. 19, 2017 assault resulted in a referral for a “threat assessment.” A few months later, Cruz landed at an Off Campus Learning Center, where he remained for only about five months.
Why do you suppose this boy fell through the disciplinary cracks so many times? Was it by design?
Let’s go back a little further, to 2011. A familiar name appears – Trayvon Martin. In neighboring Miami-Dade School District. Trayvon was observed on surveillance cameras in 2011, in an unauthorized area “hiding and being suspicious” – Immediately after, he was observed “marking up” a door. The next day, his backpack was searched, looking for a graffiti marker. Instead, what was found was a bunch of womens’ jewelry and a screwdriver that was described as, “a burglary tool”. Without going into a lot of detail; let’s just say that this crime and others were lied about, police reports falsified and evidence hidden, in order to cover up the crimes.
Why?
Here is a Conservative Treehouse article outlining the “backpack incident of Trayvon Martin
Here are the Sworn affidavits of police officers claiming they are instructed to look the other way, destroy/hide evidence, and falsify reports:
1.) Affidavit of Sergeant William Tagle
2.) Affidavit of Detective Steven Hadley
3.) Affidavit of Commander Deanna Fox-Williams
4.) Affidavit of Sergeant Lourdes Hodges
5.) Affidavit of Detective Gylamar Ochoa
6.) Affidavit of Sergeant Bradley Rosh
Apparently, in order to improve criminal statistics within the school systems of Miami-Dade and Broward counties; the schools intentionally created policies that would culminate into the mass shooting that occurred. Why??
In August of 2012 President Obama had issued an Executive Order and Federal Education Policy establishing the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence. Effectively placing “quotas” on school discipline based on race and financially rewarding schools with federal grants who bring down their disciplinary and arrest numbers.
Broward county went even further by completely halting arresting students and changing their policy of suspension.
To put it in perspective:
In 2011/2012 Broward County School Administration made a policy decision to block the arrests of students in order to improve their education statistics.
In 2013 Broward County School Administration was warned what was happening as a result of the policy as more and more serious crimes were being committed and overlooked.
In 2015 The school continued with their “Diversionary Policies” and allowed students to break the law without legal consequence
In 2017 Nikolas Cruz criminally assaulted someone – law enforcement was blocked, repeatedly, by school policy. The sheriffs’ department was contacted over 20 times regarding concerns over Nikolas Cruz.
In 2018 Nikolas Cruz shot and killed 17 students/faculty at Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS and injured several more.
Again, why? Why would a school superintendent and a sheriffs’ department blatantly ignore crime and avoid the prosecution of criminal offenders? Nikolas Cruz had shown violent tendencies repeatedly – police were called to his home, repeatedly.
One month before the shooting, there were even phone calls to the FBI tip line – twice – warning that Nikolas Cruz was “going to explode” FBI transcripts show that a girl close to Cruz had called and said she was terrified that Cruz would “get into a school and just shoot the place up”. Cruz had been posting violent messages on his instagram – at first saying he wanted to kill himself; and then switching to a desire to kill other people. The caller went on to describe that Cruz had been cutting up frogs and birds; which she called “a red flag” Why would they ignore this?
One of the motivations to “ignore” illegal activities in the schools, is funding and grants. The school administrators wanted to improve their statistics in order to qualify for state and federal grant money. So, they entered into an agreement with the top LEO officials to stop arresting students for crimes; as noted by the 6 LEO whistle blowers previously linked.
As if things were not bad enough with a school administration and sheriffs’ department adopting policies of “look the other way”; We find out that not just one, but a total of 4 Sheriffs’ Deputies were outside of the school at the time of the shooting. 1 by the front of the building with a clear view of the lobby and 3 others hiding behind their cars, with their guns drawn. Why? Why did they not go in and confront the shooter?
When Coral Springs police officer showed up on the scene, they said they were “stunned and upset” to learn that 4 Broward County Sheriffs’ deputies were stationed outside the building and had not gone inside to engage the shooter. Some even went so far as to call it a “derilection of duty”. Even when the Coral Springs officers went inside the building, the Broward county officers did not join them. Why?
The question needs to be asked; why was there disciplinary action against one deputy and not the other 3? Could it have been because only one was caught on camera?
Where is the CCTV camera footage from the school and what does it show? Where is the Uber driver who supposedly dropped Nikolas Cruz off at the school the morning of the shooting? What was in the large black bodybag that police carried from the building during the shooting and threw in the back of a truck? What happened to Alexa Miednik who was interviewed the day of the shooting and claimed to have been walking down the hall with Nikolas Cruz as gunshots were going off in another part of the building? Why are there several witnesses claiming there was more than one shooter? Who is paying for these kids to travel around the nation in expensive charter buses to rally and demand gun control? Why are they wearing ear-pieces when they speak-who is giving them talking points? These are all relevant questions we need to be demanding answers to because as more information comes out; the official narrative is looking less and less believable.
Lastly, does it seem even slightly suspicious that this sheriff:
A) Allowed crime within his county school system to be actively covered up and to go unpunished and therefore escalate.
B) Ignored multiple warnings of a violently troubled individual within the Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS. Including warnings that he had bought a gun and had made open threats to “shoot up the school”
C) Supervised 4 deputies who failed to engage an active shooter as he took aim at over 20 innocent children and unarmed faculty.
D) Refused to accept any responsibility and instead placed the blame on the shoulders of the NRA organization and on top of that, openly calls for gun restriction and confiscation laws, immediately after the shooting.
Is it surprising that this sheriff has been referred to as “best friends” with Debbie Wasserman-Shultz? Is it surprising that this sheriff actively volunteered for the HRC presidential campaign and has been pictured with numerous vocal anti-gun politicians? Curiously, there are no corresponding pictures of the sheriff with conservative politicians.
There are numerous inconsistencies emerging in regards to this tragic event; with each piece of the puzzle being even more alarming than the last. We need to deeply question this situation. We need to locate and follow the money trail and ask some really tough questions about not only how and why this tragedy was permitted to occur; but what events lead up to it, who is profiting from it and what political agenda motives may have played a part.
The post Let’s Talk About The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting appeared first on Oath Keepers.
The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last week has brought into sharp focus the way warning signs were ignored. Yet, as more details emerge, authorities are having to explain why some armed deputies didn’t confront the shooter. While the sheriff is issuing profuse apologies for his deputies’ actions, another agency is looking exceptionally heroic.
A second department responded to the emergency, though. The Coral Springs Police Department arrived at the high school and found the sheriff’s deputies hiding behind their cars. So Coral Springs led the way.
As word of this spread, tensions are rising. The day after the shooting, officers from Coral Springs and Broward Country attended a candlelit vigil for victims.
“Coral Springs City Manager Mike Goodrum angrily confronted Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel,” The Daily Mail reports, “in front of a dozen witnesses, over the claims that Israel’s officers had remained outside the high school while students could have been bleeding out inside.”
“Given the horrific events of that day, emotions were running high and the sheriff and I had a heated moment the following evening,” Goodrum told CNN.
“Sheriff Israel and I have spoken several times since and I can assure you that our departments have a good working relationship and the utmost respect for each other.”
That, though, seems to be an effort to calm tensions that are continuing to escalate.
Coral Springs Police Chief Tony Pustizzi (above) sent an internal email that expressed his department’s frustrations.
“I understand that another agency has given the impression that it had provided the majority of the rescue efforts, and that the tremendous work of the Coral Springs Police and Fire Departments has not been recognized,” he said in the email.
“Please know that this issue will be addressed, and the truth will come out in time.”
Well now the truth is out, and the heroism of the Coral Springs Police deserves to be mentioned.
We can now thank Sgt. Jeff Heinrich of the Coral Springs Police Department. Sgt. Heinrich was off duty and unarmed at the time of the shooting. He has close ties to the school, and was actually on campus, watering a baseball field, when the shooting started.
Sgt. Heinrich’s wife is an assistant athletic director at the school. His son is a student. Sgt. Heinrich was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and was unarmed.
When the fire alarm went off, he didn’t think it was unusual. The panic that ensued changed his mind. When he heard shots, he ran toward the sound of the gunfire. On his way to the school, he found a student who had been shot in the leg. Sgt. Heinrich moved the boy to a dugout and stabilized him with supplies in the baseball team’s first-aid kit.
He then ran back to the school. There, he met a Coral Springs SWAT team member who had extra gear. Sgt. Heinrich threw on an extra vest (one that wasn’t rated to stop rifle fire). The SWAT officer handed over his sidearm so Sgt. Heinrich wouldn’t be unarmed, and they entered the building.
Sgt. Heinrich ran into the chaos. He didn’t wait outside. The officers from Coral Springs led the way. Behind them, paramedics were able to triage and treat the wounded. The SWAT medics from Coral Springs provided crucial support.
The Broward County Sheriff’s Department went in after Coral Springs. This isn’t an attempt to minimize the contributions of those deputies, but to celebrate the heroism of those that took the lead.
Here’s the video of Sgt. Heinrich talking through his actions. It takes him a while to regain his composure.
The post Heroic Police Officer Charged into Douglas High School in Shorts and T-Shirt to Save Lives appeared first on Oath Keepers.
Read more at Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children
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FEBRUARY 23, 2018
According to information currently available, Parkland mass shooter Nikolas Cruz was visited by local law enforcement 39 times over the course of seven years and was also reported to the FBI at least twice, leaving many to wonder how he slipped through the cracks, evaded arrest, continued attending school, and legally purchased firearms that he would later use to kill 17 of his former classmates and teachers.
Some clues may have emerged from a report chronicled by the editors of the Conservative Treehouse (CTH), an independent blog, who have provided corroborating documentation that paint a very convincing picture for the circumstances that may have enabled Cruz to slip through the cracks.
Broward County Sheriff’s Office Did Not “Miss Warning Signs” or Make “Mistakes”… http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/23/broward-county-sheriffs-office-did-not-miss-warning-signs-or-make-mistakes/ …
“I spent about 18 months in 2012, 2013 and 2014 investigating Broward and Miami-Dade school policies and how those policies transfer to law enforcement practices,” CTH explains. “What I stumbled upon was a Broward County law enforcement system in a state of conflict. The Broward County School Board and District Superintendent, entered into a political agreement with Broward County Law enforcement officials to stop arresting students for crimes.”
“The motive was simple. The school system administrators wanted to ‘improve their statistics’ and gain state and federal grant money for improvements therein.”
The 2013 “Collaborative Agreement On School Discipline” between the School Board of Broward County and the Sheriff of Broward Country, as well as the Fort Lauderdale Branch of the NAACP and a variety of other state and local legal bodies, can be found HERE.
In short, the agreement established new standards and practices by which law enforcement would seek alternatives to arresting students who had committed crimes or “minor disturbances,” with a specific focus on “students of color, students with disabilities and LGBTQ students,” who were “disproportionately impacted by school-based arrests for the same behavior as their peers.”
CTH asserts that the types of lawbreaking being swept under the rug quickly escalated from minor offenses to serious felonies.
“The need to continue lowering the arrests year-over-year meant that increasingly more severe unlawful behavior had to be ignored. Over time even the most severe of unlawful conduct was being filtered by responding police,” CTH writes. “We found out about it, when six cops blew the whistle on severe criminal conduct they were being instructed to hide.”
The Miami Herald alluded to the types of oversights and ‘missed’ signs that enabled Nikolas Cruz to glide through the system in a report on Wednesday.
“And long before Cruz embarked on the worst school shooting in Florida history, Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies had multiple warnings that the 19-year-old was a violent threat and a potential school shooter, according to records released Thursday.”
“In November, a tipster called BSO to say Cruz ‘could be a school shooter in the making,’ but deputies did not write up a report on that warning. It came just weeks after a relative called urging BSO to seize his weapons. Two years ago, according to a newly released timeline of interactions with Cruz’s family, a deputy investigated a report that Cruz ‘planned to shoot up the school’ — intelligence that was forwarded to the school’s resource officer, with no apparent result.”
On Wednesday, Broward Sheriff Scott Israel revealed that an armed Parkland school officer, Scot Peterson, arrived on the scene at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School as Cruz was in the process of killing 17 innocent victims, but never went inside the building to render aid.
The post BOMBSHELL REPORT: Broward County Schools and Police Colluded to Shield Criminal Students appeared first on Oath Keepers.
The Left has since turned-up the volume on calls for a crackdown on Secondment Amendment rights, quickly exploiting teens who attend the targeted school to makes the case for them. They have also slammed the suggestion that schools should have armed security, or perhaps well-trained, voluntarily armed teachers.
But what does the evidence say about “gun free zones”?
According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, “gun free zones” (areas where guns are prohibited) have been the target of more than 98% of all mass shootings. This staggering number is why such designated areas are often referred to as “soft targets,” meaning unprotected and vulnerable.
“According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, only a little more than 1% of mass public shootings since 1950 have occurred in places that were not considered to be a gun-free zone,” reports The Blaze. “In fact, as Crime Prevention Research Center President John Lott Jr. noted in October 2015, only two mass shootings in the U.S. since 1950 have occurred in an area where citizens were not prohibited from carrying a gun.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat, introduced the Gun-Free School Zones Act (GFSZA) to the U.S. Senate in 1990, and it was signed into law by then-President George H.W. Bush, a Republican. The act was clearly proposed with the intent to prevent mass shootings at such precious areas as schools. But the act, as the statistic proves, did not result in the desired outcome.
Read more at Daily Wire
The post What Percentage Of Mass Shootings Happen In ‘Gun Free Zones’? The Number Is Stunning. appeared first on Oath Keepers.
By Craig Bannister | February 21, 2018
A mother and daughter say a Good Samaritan with a gun saved their lives, Albuquerque, NM, police report.
According to police, on Monday, Qian Ming, 66, intentionally crashed his truck into a car carrying his estranged wife and daughter. He then got out, fired shots, hitting his daughter – then began pistol-whipping her in the street.
That’s when a 34 year-old man, a 12-year National Guard veteran, pulled over and intervened, KRQE reports:
“Once he started walking up, he saw that there was a male violently pistol-whipping a female in the street,” Officer [Simon] Drobik said. “He got out of his vehicle and had his firearm on him and told that male to stop.”
But, Ming didn’t stop, police say. Instead, he turned his gun on the Good Samaritan, who then shot and killed Ming:
“Mom in the hospital said, ‘He saved our lives,’” Officer Drobik said. “You can’t get a stronger statement than that. So she knew it. Daughter knows it and good thing he took that type of action.”
The daughter is expected to make a full recovery and the Good Samaritan is not being named because he has not been charged with any crime.
Read more at CNS News
From KRQE News
Officers did detain the man for questioning. He was released later that night. Officer Drobik said the man is a 12-year veteran of the National Guard.
Police did not say if the reason Ming’s estranged wife and daughter were headed to the airport was to get away from him.
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Photo: Protecting children in Israel. If it’s right for Israel, why isn’t it right for America?
David Codrea of The War on Guns blog (David also writes for Oath Keepers and for Ammoland.com)
Matt Bracken, US Navy SEAL veteran and accurate predictor of the “Tet Take Two” wave of terrorism now hitting Europe and the US.
Stewart Rhodes, Founder of Oath Keepers.
Please register for a webinar presentation on The Florida School Shooting and the Renewed Efforts to Disarm Us on Monday, Feb 26, 2018 8:00 PM CST at:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
Please join us for this critical webinar with recognized experts on the war on guns and the war on the Constitution. The recent school shooting in Florida is now being used by the leftist “blood dancers” to push for more infringements on our right to keep and bear arms. We will discuss the false choice that has been intentionally set up by turning America’s schools into disarmed victim killing zones where mass murderers and terrorists are guaranteed a large concentration of children with no armed adults to protect them, with the only “solution” offered by the left and sell-out Republicans being the further infringement on our right to keep and bear arms, with those infringements doing nothing to actually stop further mass murder of children, leading to more deaths, and then more infringements, in a deadly cycle of rinse (in blood) and repeat, of repeated murder of children and raping of the Bill of Rights.
As President Trump recently alluded to, the obvious answer is to arm and train the teachers and the school staff, just as is done in Israel.
Another Armed teacher in Israel. Again, why is it OK there, but not OK here?
And another part of the answer is to allow well trained military and police veterans to serve as unpaid armed volunteer guardians in our schools to protect the children against mass murder, and to help train the teachers and staff. That is how you stop this from happening. In fact, that is the only way to stop the killing since the average police response time is six minutes, which is an eternity when a madman or terrorist is killing as many as he can as fast as he can.
We’ve done it before. We’ll do it again.
We will discuss what you can and must do to fix this problem effectively in your community and counter this bloodthirsty and calculated conspiracy to aid and abet mass murder. The time to step up and answer the call is now. And the time to dig in our heels and take a firm “three percenter” type stand against any further restriction on our right to keep and bear arms is now.
Our presenters, in the order in which they will speak:
A long-time grassroots armed citizen advocate, David Codrea has been writing professionally about the right to keep and bear arms since 1999, initially for GUNS & AMMO magazine, then moving on to HANDGUNS, and for the last nine years at GUNS, where he is a field editor producing the monthly “Rights Watch” column.
A panelist selected by The New York Times blog to discuss the Virginia Tech shootings, he has been written about in various news reports, including by The New York Times, the Associated Press, The Arizona Republic, WorldNetDaily, BuzzFeed, the Romanian newspaper, Adevărul, and even the science journal Nature.
Blogging at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance, Codrea has also been a frequent (and frequently invited back) guest on national and major market radio and television programs, most recently with appearances on Lou Dobbs Tonight.
Matt was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1957 and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1979 with a degree in Russian Studies. He was commissioned in the US Navy through the NROTC program at UVA, and then graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training class 105 in Coronado California. He served on east coast UDT and SEAL teams, taking a Naval Special Warfare detachment to Beirut in 1983. Mr. Bracken left active duty after Lebanon, upon completion of his obligated military service, but he remained in an active reserve status through the remainder of the 1980s. Since then he has lived in Florida, Virginia, South Carolina, Guam and California. In 1993 Mr. Bracken finished building a 48-foot steel sailing cutter of his own design, on which he has done extensive ocean cruising, including a solo voyage 9,000 miles from Panama to Guam and two Panama Canal transits.
NOTE: You must use a computer if you want to be able to speak and ask questions. If you call in by phone, you can only listen. If you join by computer, you can also join in on the running chat feature during the webinar.
The webinar is expected to last between 1.5 and 2 hours, and you will have an opportunity to ask questions of each presenter.
The post Oath Keepers Webinar Monday Feb 26, 2018 8:00 PM CST appeared first on Oath Keepers.
Sheriff Tom Knight said Tuesday that his agency already supplies manpower and training to the district, but he believes more can still be done.
“We have been looking at opportunities over the last two years to help school officials develop a practical and achievable safety plan for the district,” the sheriff said in a press release outlining his plan. “My recommendation is for the school to consider implementing a quasi-school security program that puts retired law enforcement and military veterans on Sarasota County campuses.”
The sheriff said specially trained deputies are already available as school resource officers to every middle and high school in the county. It was not immediately clear how this new suggestion would impact that program.
In Knight’s plan, it would still be up to every school to select and hire the security personnel, with his deputies providing specialized training in firearms, defensive tactics and active-shooter scenarios.
“This is not an overnight solution but it’s a good place to start,” the sheriff continued. “Many of these veterans have basic training, have managed major incidents and have knowledge of weaponry and tactics. More often than not, these retirees are looking for a way to care for the children in their community and this program is a sustainable solution.”
Read more at FOX32Chicago
The post Sarasota sheriff calls for armed veterans, retired officers in schools appeared first on Oath Keepers.
We offer our sincere condolences and prayers to the families and friends of the students killed in this horrific shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. We offer our best wishes and prayers for a full recovery for all of the students who were injured. We are heartbroken at the magnitude of this tragedy. One injured student is too many. Oath Keepers
BY CHARLES RABIN, CARLI TEPROFF, KYRA GURNEY AND DAVID SMILEY February 14, 2018
An American nightmare unfolded Wednesday afternoon at a South Florida high school after police say an expelled teenager returned to campus and opened fire with an assault rifle, killing 17 and wounding 15 more in the worst school shooting in Florida history.
Just before dismissal at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, thousands of students puzzled at the sound of an unexpected fire alarm were launched into a panic when gunfire punctuated the din. As teachers and students fled through hallways and hid under desks, a gunman opened fire, leaving a trail of bodies and chaos in his wake.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office says Nikolas Cruz, 19, walked the halls of the high school wielding an AR-15 and multiple magazines. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson told reporters that Cruz pulled a fire alarm and then, wearing a gas mask, began tossing smoke bombs and shooting people as they ran through the haze.
Police say Cruz, known to other students as a loner obsessed with weapons, shot his way onto campus. He gunned down a dozen people inside buildings on the school’s sprawling campus, two more on the grounds, and one more on the corner of Pine Island Road as he fled. Two more died at the hospital. Many underwent surgery at Broward Health hospitals.
The shooter managed to make it off campus before he was taken into custody by police near the community entrance to Pelican Pointe at Wyndham Lakes in Coral Springs. He was transported to Broward Health North, and then sped away from the hospital in a police escort.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office says the school, home to about 3,200 students, had been cleared by early evening. They did not identify any victims.
“It’s a day that you pray, every day when you get up, that you will never have to see. It is in front of us. I ask the community for prayers and their support for the children and their families,” said Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie, appearing at a media staging area near the school. “Potentially there could have been signs out there. But we didn’t have any warning or phone calls or threats that were made.”
The shooting began just before dismissal around 3 p.m. Police say Cruz walked onto campus, and shot his way into a school building. Then he pulled a fire alarm.
Students and teachers were puzzled because the school had already held a fire drill that day. Still, some left their bags by their desk and walked out of their classrooms.
“Six kids ran back into my room, and I locked the door, turned out the lights and had the kids go to the back of the room,” math teacher Jim Gard said. “I told the kids to hang in there, it may still be a drill.”
It wasn’t.
On the first floor, Rebecca Bogart was in holocaust class when bullets shattered a window into the room and struck at least one classmate. Rebecca, 17, said she hid under her teachers desk.
“Four kids in my class were hurt. There was blood everywhere. I’m so glad to be living right now,” she said. “I knew what gunshots sounded like, but not that loud or extreme. It smelled Smokey.”
Police say Cruz was all over the campus during the assault. One student told Miami Herald news partner WFOR-CBS4 that at one point he ascended to the third floor. In a theater class bathroom, Sarah Crescitelli typed a text to her parents: “If I don’t make it I love you and I appreciated everything you did for me.”
A video posted to social media showed students hiding under desks, screaming as at least 20 gun shots rang out. Some students believed there was a second shooter at the school. Some at the school said a football coach and security guard, Aaron Feis, was shot when he jumped in front of several students, although that report remains unconfirmed.
Geovanni Vilsant, 15, said he was in a Spanish classroom in the three-floor 1200 building when the fire alarm went off. Two minutes later, gun shots rang out enveloping the building in explosions, he said.
Geovanni, a freshman, said he saw three bloody bodies on the floor as he was fleeing the school.
“There was blood everywhere,” he said. “They weren’t moving.”
Israel, whose triplets once attended the high school, called the shooting a “detestable act” and “catastrophic.”
He did not name a motive for the shooting, which he said doesn’t immediately appear to have been prompted by any confrontation and federal authorities don’t believe is related to terrorism. Nor did Israel explain why Cruz was expelled from school beyond saying that it was for disciplinary reasons.
But Gard, the math teacher, told the Miami Herald that Cruz, 19, had been identified as a potential threat to fellow students in the past. He believes the school administration had sent out an email warning teachers that Cruz had made threats against other teenagers in the past. Another student interviewed by the Miami Herald said Cruz was punished once for having bullet casings at school.
“We were told last year that he wasn’t allowed on campus with a backpack on him,” said Gard, who said Cruz had been in his class last year. “There were problems with him last year threatening students, and I guess he was asked to leave campus.”
But he returned Wednesday, re-upping America’s troubled history with guns and forcing police and parents to confront their worst fears.
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