Three Police Officers Killed, Multiple Others Injured, In Baton Rouge

Another targeted killing aimed at police.

Three police officers have been killed, and several more wounded, in what appears to have been an ambush-style attack in Baton Rouge, Louisiana:

Three police officers were shot dead and at least three others wounded in Baton Rouge, La., on Sunday, the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

One suspect had been killed, most likely by police gunfire, and two others, described as wearing all black, were being sought, said Cpl. L’Jean McKneely, a police spokesman. “We do believe there is more than one suspect,” he said.

Speaking to reporters in Baton Rouge, Corporal McKneely said officers responding to the shooting were checking the area for possible explosives. “We’re going to check the scene thoroughly to protect ourselves,” he said.

Sunday’s shooting is the latest episode in a month of violence and extraordinary racial tension in the country, and took place less than two weeks after two police officers in Baton Rouge fatally shot Alton Sterling, a black man 000who was selling CDs outside a convenience store. The night after Mr. Sterling was killed, a black man was killed by the police during a traffic stop in a Minneapolis suburb, and then the next night, five police officers were killed by a gunman in Dallas who said he wanted to kill police officers, particularly white officers.

Corporal McKneely asked people in the area to watch for anything suspicious.

“Just be on the lookout,” he said. “Anybody in this area saw anything suspicious, please give law enforcement a call.

Details about the shooting remained sketchy Sunday afternoon and there were varying reports about the number of officers wounded. Earlier reports said that seven had been wounded.

The authorities said the shooting unfolded at about 9 a.m. Sunday near the Hammond Aire Plaza shopping center on Airline Highway. Officers from both the sheriff’s office and the Baton Rouge Police Department were wounded, the statement said.

Protests have been held along Airline Highway, which also runs in front of Police Headquarters, since the police shooting of Mr. Sterling on July 5.

Corporal McKneely said it was unclear if the shooting on Sunday was connected to the protests, which had been losing their intensity over the last few nights. “We are not sure of anything right now,” he said.

Mark Clements, who lives near the shopping center, said he was in his backyard when he heard shots ring out.

“I heard probably 10 to 12 gunshots go off,” he said in a telephone interview. “We heard a bunch of sirens and choppers and everything since then.”

In a statement, Gov. John Bel Edwards of Louisiana called the shooting “an unspeakable and unjustified attack.”

“Rest assured,” he said, “every resource available to the State of Louisiana will be used to ensure the perpetrators are swiftly brought to justice.

More from NBC News:

At least three Baton Rouge police officers were killed and three others injured in an apparent ambush shooting Sunday morning, the city’s mayor and the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office said.

At least one suspect is dead, but law enforcement officials believe two others may be at large, the sheriff’s office said.

The ambush comes less than two weeks after the fatal shooting of a black man by police sparked protests in Baton Rouge, turning the city into the latest flashpoint in the ongoing debate over law enforcement tactics.

The officers were responding to a call of shots fired when they were gunned down around 9 a.m. local time, Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden told MSNBC.

At least three Baton Rouge police officers were killed and three others injured in an apparent ambush shooting Sunday morning, the city’s mayor and the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office said.

At least one suspect is dead, but law enforcement officials believe two others may be at large, the sheriff’s office said.

The ambush comes less than two weeks after the fatal shooting of a black man by police sparked protests in Baton Rouge, turning the city into the latest flashpoint in the ongoing debate over law enforcement tactics.

The officers were responding to a call of shots fired when they were gunned down around 9 a.m. local time, Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden told MSNBC.

Multiple police units were stationed at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, where the stricken officers were believed to be undergoing treatment at a trauma center, The Associated Press reported.

An AP reporter who was at the scene saw police vehicles with lights flashing massed about a half mile from the police headquarters on Airline Highway. Police armed with long guns on the road stopped at least two vehicles driving away from the scene and checked their trunks and vehicles before allowing them to drive away, the reporter said.

Marquis Gibson, an eyewitness, was at the Hammond Aire Plaza mall when he heard shots and ran inside. “Officers were falling down and hiding,” he told NBC News.

This incident, of course, comes less than two weeks after eleven police officers were shot and five killed by a gunman who opened fire on a protest march in response to recent police shooting incidents across the country. One of those incidents, of course, was the shooting death of an African-American man named Alton Sterling,  who had been confronted by Baton Rouge police while selling DVDs and Compact Discs outside a local market. That shooting has been the subject of ongoing protests while police and prosecutors investigate the shooting to determine whether or not there was any wrong doing on the part of officers. To date, though, those protests had been largely peaceful, with no indication of a threat of violence against police officers in the city. As is always the case in these situations, it is always worthwhile to be careful with early news reports since they often tend to be based on incomplete or mistaken information. In Dallas, for example, it was initially believed that there were multiple suspects and multiple shooters based both on the fact that police were reporting the shootings that way and because,, as eyewitness reports seemed to indicate, the shots at officers seemed to be coming from multiple directions. As it turned out, that entire sad massacre was carried out by one man. The same may end up being true about today’s shootings in Baton Rouge, but police must first eliminate the possibility of multiple suspects.

Additionally, as President Obama said in a statement released today, we have no idea what the motivation for today’s shootings may have been, but on some level that hardly matters. Whether or not the suspect(s) in Baton Rouge acted because they believed they were motivated by the protests over Sterling’s death, or for some other reason, there is no justification for cold-blooded murder of any individual such as what happened today, and that is especially true of police officers acting to preserve law and order on the streets of the nation. Unfortunately, it is likely that incidents like this are likely to increase tensions that are already at a fever pitch. Police officers that head out onto the streets every day facing the possibility that they might not come home at the end of their shift are likely to become simultaneously more cautious about responding to perceived threats and more likely to adopt the ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ attitude that so often leads to improper action on their part. At the same time, members of minority communities that have a history of negative encounters with the police are likely to become more entrenched in their belief that they are being targeted and that police are often willfully neglecting criminal behavior in minority communities. None of this is a recipe for solving the very real problems that exist regarding the relationship between minorities and law enforcement. Until we do that, there’s likely to be a never ending cycle of violence.

Update: At a late afternoon news conference, law enforcement authorities stated that it now appeared that there was only one shooter, and he was shot and killed by police during the initial shootout, although that person remains unidentified at this time.

Update #2: The shooter has apparently been identified:

More to come, I’m sure.

FILED UNDER: Crime, Law and the Courts, Policing, , , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Gustopher says:

    Additionally, as President Obama said in a statement released today, we have no idea what the motivation for today’s shootings may have been, but on some level that hardly matters.

    If this really was multiple shooters, and they were targeting the police, that matters a lot.

    We mostly assume that lone gunmen are irrational nut jobs. If we have people collaborating and cooperating, this means that there is an ideology that makes some degree of sense to people, which is much more dangerous. Ideology is the wrong word — not sure what the right word should be.

    We are a country with a lot of guns, and a lot of mentally unbalanced people on the fringes of society. We expect a certain number of mass shootings by lone nuts, and are apparently fine with that (thanks, NRA!). This would be something very different.

    Of course, reports are still very sketchy right now. There might not be multiple shooters. The police might have wandered into a drug deal.

  2. steve s says:

    around a decade or so ago, one summer there was a shark craze. Report after report of shark attacks. You couldn’t get away from it. Every day, media reports about sharks. Thing was, there were no more shark attacks that summer than any other time. It was just that the media talked about it a lot for a while.

    That’s what’s happening here. I see no evidence that the murder rate is even as high as it was 5 years ago, or 10, or 15. Maybe a slight blip this year or that, but in general it’s much less than it was a few years ago. The rate of shootings that is getting all this coverage isn’t unusual, or a huge increase. 80-90 people are shot every day in america, day in, day out. That’s the price we pay in order for some citizens to LARP as James Bond and Dirty Harry. The media is just paying attention a little more at the moment. It’ll pass, and in a few months people won’t even remember.

  3. Gustopher says:

    Also, the Mr. Thacker referenced here — https://www.balloon-juice.com/2016/07/17/stupidevil-venn-diagram/ — is an asshole.

    Only tangentially related, but entirely true. Openly displaying a tool that serves no other purpose than killing people is an asshole thing to do. It’s either intended as intimidation, or the guy is completely clueless.

    When the black panthers marched with weapons, it was meant as intimidation and it was intimidating. When this twit is hanging out in downtown Cleveland, it is the same thing, perhaps minus the intent. Same thing for the idiot in Dallas who was reported as a suspect because he was in the protest with his rifle.

  4. gVOR08 says:

    @Gustopher: As I’m sure someone will point out, these guys have a Constitutionally Protected Right(1) to open carry. The First Amendment gives me the right to walk around my workplace shouting “Conservatives are idiots.” Doing so would be rude, incredibly stupid, and possibly harmful to my health. As is carrying a gun to a demonstration.

    1. Per the Robert’s Court, sorta, other courts MMV. And only with additional state laws. Which, regrettably, my home state has provided. Over the next week please remember one of our unofficial state mottoes, “Ohio, Don’t Judge Us by Cleveland”.

  5. Gustopher says:

    @gVOR08: Being an asshole is not constitutionally prohibited, but it’s still an asshole thing to do.

    It also might be a bad idea to make yourself look like a lone nut with a gun — at least the black panthers would be in a group, so you know it’s not a lone gunman. I mean, this is a tragedy waiting to happen.

  6. CSK says:

    The Baton Rouge police arrested three adults on Tuesday as a result of a “credible threat” they had received against the BA police department. The suspects robbed a pawnshop to get the guns. One of the suspects was released afterward.

    MSNBC is now reporting that this earlier incident is related to what happened today, though they have not given any specifics.

  7. CSK says:

    @Gustopher:

    Yes. Prancing around flourishing a gun in an area bound to be heavily policed, at a time when the cops are nervous about being shot, does strike me as the action of an aszhole.

  8. Barry says:

    @gVOR08: “As is carrying a gun to a demonstration.”

    Like the Tea Party?

  9. JohnMcC says:

    I’m sure this will be old news pretty soon but the WSJ is reporting that the shooter Mr Long was associated with a group they call ‘New Feedom Group”. Googling New Freedom Group gives you contact information on many AA meetings. And NBC is reporting unconfirmed stories about Mr Long being a ‘sovereign citizen’ which I found surprising since he had been reported (by CBS) to be AfricanAmerican. Apparently that crazy idea has gained wider acceptance than I knew.

    Fascinating how the yucky things in the pot get to swirling around when the pot is stirred.

  10. Guarneri says:

    Apparently the guy is a (former) Nation of Islam member, black separationist and fond of calling whites “crackers.” In other words, a mental case.

  11. Gustopher says:

    @JohnMcC:
    @Guarneri:

    He filed for divorce on Valentine’s Day, 2011, and he celebrated his 29th birthday by killing police. I think it is fair to say that he had a flair for the dramatic. I suspect we will see a lot of different sides to him over the next few days, and it will be a lot of guesswork to figure out which parts of his grievances contributed what to his crazy.

    He was also describing himself as an “alpha male”, which might show that he was MRA. The Daily Caller article claims he thought protests were emotional, and for the women, and if you watch one of his videos, there’s a lot of creepy things about women there — putting them up on a pedestal, saying everything he does is for them, and how men need to manly.

    We also know that he has been following the many, many well reported deaths of black men and women at the hands of police this year, and that he was posting youtube videos about how there was no justice — I would expect that has a lot more to do with this than any Nation of Islam, Sovereign Citizen, MRA or hatred of white people.

    When people don’t feel that justice is being served, some of them will attempt to take justice into their own hands and it’s usually not going to come out as any form of justice that society would like.

  12. walt moffett says:

    @JohnMcC:

    In the FWIW category, Growing numbers of Moorish Americans try to evade prosecution, from the 2013 Baltimore Sun. IIRC, Wesley Snipes made similar claims at his tax evasion trial. Bad ideas have legs of their own.

  13. Pch101 says:

    If the victims had been allowed to carry guns, then they would have been able to protect themselves and this could have been avoided.

    Oh, wait a minute…

  14. bill says:

    @Gustopher: yes, after obama essentially said it’s “the cops” fault that blacks die…..although it’s a statistical impossibility as 90+% of blacks killed are killed by other blacks. what else, 36% of cops killed were by blacks- yet blacks make up 13% of the population. do i need to remind you that blacks lead the way in just about every type of crime committed in this country?
    and how many “nra” members are gunning down anyone?
    did you blame “the truck” for what happened in nice too?
    keep your lame head in the sand, blacks have just guaranteed another generation or 2 of being held accountable for the actions of losers like this- and while we had our first black (well half black) president…….what an accomplishment.

    gonna be a long summer……..best to stay out of the “urban areas”.

  15. Guarneri says:

    @Pch101:

    And you guys were giving Jenos a hard time.

    Hypocrite.

  16. Pch101 says:

    @Guarneri:

    Nice to see that you guys can dish it out but can’t take it.

  17. Gustopher says:

    @bill: yes, billbo, we know you’re scared of black people.

    I’m sorry you’re scared of black people. Just remember, they’re as scared of you as you are of them. Or maybe that’s spiders. I can never remember.

    Can you be a dear, and point me to exactly what Obama said that constitutes Obama essentially saying that it is the cops fault that black people die? Quotes from transcripts, with links to the whole transcripts, would be great.

    Thanks, bless your heart.

  18. anjin-san says:

    @bill:

    You should probably stop sniffing glue…

  19. James Pearce says:

    @bill:

    do i need to remind you that blacks lead the way in just about every type of crime committed in this country?

    Sorry, Bill, but I kind of imagined you saying that in a South African or Australian accent.
    @Gustopher:

    I’m sorry you’re scared of black people. Just remember, they’re as scared of you as you are of them.

    It’s like you have to italicize the word “people” just to drive that point home.

    As to the shooting, I fear that 3 more dead cops will only further entrench the “shoot first, ask questions later” method of modern policing. I think it’s safe to say that Baton Rouge will never be the same.

  20. Guarneri says:

    @Pch101:

    Nice try, hypocrite.

  21. Gustopher says:

    @James Pearce: There are too many cameras in too many places for “shoot first, ask questions later” policing to remain unchallenged.

    The recent attacks on the police aren’t going to change the number of cameras out there. There will be some backlash from some in the police, and some prosecutors, but I really think the bulk of them will realize that it isn’t making them safer when their fellow officers go off the handle.

    This might, however, lead to gun controls on weapons that make it easier to hunt cops. The NRA hasn’t come up with the right talking points on this type of thing yet, and the previous set of talking points are just mockingly bad in these incidents.

    That said, I would rather angry crowds were just burning down the CVS around the corner, like last summer, than people being out there hunting cops. They aren’t even hunting the right cops.

  22. JohnMcC says:

    @walt moffett:

    Wow! Men’s Rights Activists meet Nation of Islam?! What I said above — when you stir the pot all kinds of ugly stuff comes up off the bottom.

    Like your friend “bill” — OHH! Ugly!

  23. Pch101 says:

    @Gustopher:

    This might, however, lead to gun controls on weapons that make it easier to hunt cops.

    When civilians get shot, the right blames liberals

    When cops get shot, the right blames Nee-grows

    This incident changes nothing.

  24. Gustopher says:

    @Pch101: I’m an optimist at heart.

    I see two basic things:

    1. Cops cannot continue to act in secrecy — there are too many cameras, so a larger and larger percentage of bad shoots will be captured and broadcast.

    2. People hunting cops cannot continue — we just won’t allow it as a society. Cops won’t be too happy about it either.

    Do you disagree with either? And do you disagree that the apparently bad shootings of minorities being broadcast has led to the hunting of cops?

    So, what breaks down? Do cops stop protecting us and only go out in tanks? Do we start dialing back the amount of force a private individual can have? Do cops stop killing black folks?

    Honestly, I’d rather cops stop killing black folks in obviously bad shootings. But, I’m an optimist, not some wild eyed lunatic living in a fantasy world.

    I think cops might start killing fewer black folks in bad shootings, if there is a big push on training to recognize bias and not act on it. But reducing privately owned weapons is going to be on the table.

  25. Gustopher says:

    @Gustopher: For instance…

    http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/17/politics/cleveland-police-baton-rouge-security-open-carry/index.html

    The police union wants to restrict open carry, to protect their officers. This may well be a turning point.

    Right now, tennis balls and umbrellas are restricted in the area around the convention center, but not large semi-automatic rifles.

  26. James Pearce says:

    @Gustopher:

    There are too many cameras in too many places for “shoot first, ask questions later” policing to remain unchallenged.

    I’m a huge (Yuge!) skeptic of this idea that cameras –body, surveillance, dashboard or phone–will do a damn thing to reduce police shootings. Cameras lead to media sensationalism and hastag “activism” but they don’t really seem to be saving people’s lives.

  27. Mu says:

    @James Pearce: Hmm, at least for our local PD in Albuquerque the cameras seem to be working. The number of controversial shootings is way down since the first charges were brought based on camera footage, combined with a firing for convenient “camera malfunctions” in another case.

  28. Tyrell says:

    @Gustopher: Those are good thoughts. Think about another impact: police retention and recruitment. I would say that a lot of police may be having second thoughts about law enforcement careers. And who can blame them ? If one of our family was a police officer, we would worry all the time. A shortage of police would be big trouble. Just think back to the not so long ago times of Dodge City, Tombstone, and people like the Clantons. Bank robbers, train robbers, and gun fighters took over; gunfights against the town sheriff and other outlaws became a daily event. Then the gangsters of the ’20’s and ’30’s – defeated finally by the F.B.I. led by Directer Hoover.*
    We cannot return to those lawless days and have bandits and gangs roaming the streets, highways, and towns. The president and Justice Department need to calm the people and stay in front of this. The news media needs to avoid the anti police rhetoric.

    *Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger.

  29. bill says:

    @Gustopher: my gf’s black, most of my co-workers are too. pointing fingers at cops for the lameness of the black community should suffice. “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” was a good one too- especially for an anti-gun guy.

    but seriously, if blacks are so tough- why do they only seem to act like this in large groups?! yes, the dreaded “mob rules” mentality at work there. 3 generations of failed liberal policies have made blacks the very worst race in the country, and lbj was supposed to be helping them?
    if blm really had balls they’d go where blacks are dying……like that’ll ever happen, plus the faggy white kids will not go there either. so they can make fools of themselves wander streets and making lame claims that don’t help and encouraging losers to kill cops.

    @anjin-san: just beer tonight!

    @James Pearce: why, you find those accents sexy or something?

    none of you refute the facts about crime stats and who’s really killing whom- ’nuff said.

  30. walt moffett says:

    @JohnMcC:

    The quest for identity and meaning in life can lead to fatal choices

  31. Pch101 says:

    @Gustopher:

    You’re preaching to the proverbial choir here.

    Meanwhile, “Bill” above is right on schedule, blaming the colored folks for America’s ills, while Guarneri is such a dimwit filled with the usual right-wing rage that he doesn’t recognize the sarcasm of my earlier point.

    I mention those two posters only because they do accurately represent a certain percentage of the white male electorate that sees the world through hate-colored glasses. They aren’t going to change their minds merely because some cops were killed; if anything, they’re going to double down on their usual positions because they believe that these incidents “prove” that good guys (white guys) need to own guns.

  32. wr says:

    @bill: “my gf’s black”

    Everybody drink!

  33. CSK says:

    This was–at least according to the Boston Globe— an ambush. The Louisiana state police spokesperson said he was not ready to rule out the possibility that the gunman had help.

  34. Gustopher says:

    @bill: Are you drunk? Because you definitely come across as drunk — almost entirely incoherent, wandering from topic to topic to try to justify your racism.

    As for the black girlfriend — if she exists — all I can say is that people are complicated and can hold many contradictory views at the same time. Let’s just pretend that she does exist — loving a single black person, or a dozen, does not change the fact that you also refer to blacks as “the very worst race in this country.”

    (I mean, really, we all know the very worst race in this country is those God forsaken potato eating Irish. They reek of cabbage)

    You still haven’t backed up your claims about Obama blaming cops or doing anything to fan hatred.

    And you veer off into black on black crime, as if that somehow justifies the police killing black folks and never getting convicted even in obviously bad shootings. Two points there:

    First, we do prosecute black on black crime, and we get convictions. This is quite different from blue on black crime.

    Second, there is a significant difference between a private citizen using force (legally and otherwise), and a person who is acting as an agent of the state using force. When a police officer shoots someone at a traffic stop, he is doing it in on behalf of us — we have a responsibility to ensure that the police act according to our laws and our values.

  35. Gavrilo says:

    @Pch101:

    while Guarneri is such a dimwit filled with the usual right-wing rage that he doesn’t recognize the sarcasm of my earlier point.

    Not to speak for anyone else, but I believe Guarneri was directly addressing your sarcasm. When Jenos made some sarcastic comments about the Nice attack last week, you and the rest of the lefties around here jumped all over him. IIRC, there was a lot of talk about him not having any humanity. I believe you made a comment about how horrified his mother must be about him living in her basement or something. So, yes. You are a total hypocrite and you should own your hypocrisy.

  36. Pch101 says:

    @Gavrilo:

    When Jenos made some sarcastic comments about the Nice attack last week, you and the rest of the lefties around here jumped all over him.

    Er, Jenos is a bigot. He was castigated for being a racist jerk.

    I’m noting that anecdotes should not be used to “prove” a point.

    A day of snow does not debunk climate change theory.

    Having a few wealthy black folks does not prove that discrimination does not exist.

    The occasional instance when a gun helps with self-defense does not negate the fact that many more are harmed by guns.

    If you don’t like anecdotes being thrown in your face, then don’t use them yourself. Leave the cherrypicking to the farmers.

  37. Jenos Idanian says:

    @Pch101: Er, Jenos is a bigot. He was castigated for being a racist jerk.

    Kiss my ass. I made that sarcastic statement linking the Nice massacre to Islam before we knew anything about the killer. I was betting on the killer being a Muslim before we knew anything, with the full knowledge that if I was wrong, I’d never hear the end of it. And look how that turned out.

    One thing I’ve noticed is that when a mass killing happens that can be linked to some vaguely left-wing ideology, the killer is crazy or misguided. When it can be linked to something right-wing, they’re evil incarnate.

    This shooter was basically Eric Rudolph with poorer planning.

    Bill Ayers was Timothy McVeigh with poorer bomb-making skills, but better PR skills and family money and connections.

    Obama’s always had good relations with the Nation of Islam. Will this connection cause him any grief?

    I kid, I kid. If his long-standing relationship with a confessed domestic terrorist didn’t cause him any harm with his supporters, this won’t, either.

  38. Pch101 says:

    @Jenos Idanian:

    I didn’t bother to read that , as I’m sure that it was tripe.

    If you ever become a grownup one day, then perhaps you’ll realize that not every criminal commits crimes because of his religious or ethnic background even though he has such a background. You may as well blame Christianity for Timothy McVeigh.

    At this point, Lahouaiej-Bouhlel appears to have been a party animal with a taste for salsa music, not a religious fundamentalist. If you typed less and read more, then you might know this.

  39. Jenos Idanian says:

    @Pch101: I didn’t bother to read that , as I’m sure that it was tripe.

    Then let me return the courtesy, and ignore everything you wrote after that. I’ll assume it was more drivel, as is your wont.

  40. Gavrilo says:

    @Pch101:

    Nope. It doesn’t work that way. Even if it was true that Jenos is a bigot, you don’t get to criticize him for sarcastically using the opposition’s trite talking point, and then do the same thing yourself. It’s textbook hypocrisy. Just own it!

  41. Pch101 says:

    @Gavrilo:

    Wow. It’s one thing to have something fly over your head. It’s quite another for you to go out of your way to let everyone else know that it did.

    If you had any sense, then you would be embarrassed. But you’re a right-wingnut, so sense is not one of those things that comes naturally to you, now is it?

  42. James Pearce says:

    @Mu:

    The number of controversial shootings is way down since the first charges were brought based on camera footage, combined with a firing for convenient “camera malfunctions” in another case.

    How correlated do you think the cameras are with the reduction in controversial shootings?

    Speaking about my neighborhood only, the cops were on a panicky “shoot first, ask questions later” spree for some time. They killed one guy over a $50 extortion threat, another guy was shot by an undercover officer through a windshield (yes, it was bizarre), and two more guys were shot (1 killed) while trying to flee a break-in at a storage facility. After this rash of shootings, the community confronted the police. The city councilwoman in my ward even called for an FBI investigation. Behind the scenes, the Aurora PD received some extra training and some bad cops were let go.

    By the time James Holmes shot up a theater, they were definitely not in “shoot first” mode.

    Point being, efforts to reduce controversial shootings –I’m assuming ABQ Police have endured them after several suspect shootings– are more effective than panaceas that are pumped up in the media, social or otherwise.

  43. anjin-san says:

    @Jenos Idanian:

    Bill Ayers

    I’m curious, were you even alive during Ayers’ Weather Underground days?

  44. anjin-san says:

    @bill:

    the lameness of the black community

    No doubt your black girl friend and the many other black people you know love you for these kind of comments 🙂

  45. Jenos Idanian says:

    @Gavrilo: Nice effort, but save your effort. The Usual Gang Of Idiots here are blind to their particular hypocrisy. You see, it’s bad to demonize your opponents, unless they really are demons. And “speaking the truth” is, to them, an absolute defense, even if their idea of “truth” is a bit… let’s call it “subjective.”

    I appreciate your effort, but it really is wasted.

  46. Jenos Idanian says:

    @anjin-san: I’m curious, were you even alive during Ayers’ Weather Underground days?

    You’ll stay curious.

    But I do remember the day an interview with him was published:

    ‘I don’t regret setting bombs,” Bill Ayers said. ”I feel we didn’t do enough.”

    I didn’t read that interview that day, but the day it was published I’ll never forget.

  47. Pch101 says:

    @Jenos Idanian:

    Dunning and Kruger would love to meet you. They’ve surely never seen a case this bad.

  48. Jenos Idanian says:

    @Pch101: That’s your best effort? The Dunning-Kruger effect is cited by the lame all the time as some kind of stunning putdown, but it’s been so overused that I’m thinking of proposing a variant of the Godwin rule.

    But around here, plagiarizing from the morons like Cliffy and wr — really? When you lift from idiots, you show yourself to be an even bigger idiot than they are. And that’s a really high (or, if you prefer, low) standard.

    The most common citation of Dunning-Kruger in blog chats is by stupid people who want to make themselves look smart. It might have worked the first few times, but at this point (almost 20 years after first publication) it’s just as tired as Godwin.

    BTW, did you know that the original study used only scenarios where there could be an actual, measurable analysis? Applying it to areas such as politics is ludicrous.

    I’d even speculate that using Dunning-Kruger in a subjective field such as political debate is, in itself, a good example of the Effect. It indicates that the person citing it has a very high opinion of their own intellect that is belied by their misapplication of the study.

  49. anjin-san says:

    @Jenos Idanian:

    @Jenos Idanian:

    And are you as outraged by the rehabilitation of Menachem Begin? You know – the guy President Reagan feted at the White House. The one that our closest ally wanted for acts of terrorism – dead or alive. How many British troops and officers were killed in the bombing of the King David hotel anyway?

    But of course you don’t give a shit about that, or the fact that – rightly or wrongly – sometimes people who do terrible things manage to rehabilitate themselves and become respectable.

    No, you are just grasping at the very, very thin reed that Ayres presents because in nearly eight years, you have not been able to lay a glove on Obama.

  50. Matt says:

    @Jenos Idanian: I love how you equate a few small bombs targeting empty buildings as being the exact same as a bomb that damned near destroyed a city block and killed 168 people and injured over 600. In your mind they are exactly the same actions…

  51. Jenos Idanian says:

    @anjin-san: ut of course you don’t give a shit about that…

    What I don’t give a shit about is your opinion, which you carefully reserve to yourself and never share. You are implicitly equating Ayers and Begin, and implying that Ayers has somehow “rehabilitate” himself. He “rehabilitated” his reputation among those who agree with his ideology. Nothing more.

    @Matt: Apparently you never heard about how Ayers was among those planning to bomb an Enlisted Man’s dance at Fort Dix — which would not only NOT have been “a few small bombs targeting empty buildings.” A also didn’t equate those actions, I equated two actors.

  52. anjin-san says:

    @Jenos Idanian:

    but the day it was published I’ll never forget.

    Yea, the day Bush was reading “My Pet Goat” and Rice was – what the heck was Rice doing? Not a very good job apparently.

  53. anjin-san says:

    @Jenos Idanian:

    He “rehabilitated” his reputation among those who agree with his ideology. Nothing more

    So the thousands of people that Ayres interacted with professionally as an educator are all closet Weather Underground sympathizers?

    Seriously dude, try not to speak… the world will thank you.

  54. Jenos Idanian says:

    @anjin-san:Dude, you’re defending a self-admitted, unrepentant domestic terrorist. A guy who, in his own words, is “guilty as sin” and says that as a terrorist, “we didn’t do enough.”

    I’d say you’ve forfeited any right to be taken seriously, but you blew right past that point a long time ago.

  55. anjin-san says:

    @Jenos Idanian:

    you’re defending a self-admitted, unrepentant domestic terrorist

    Really? Where have I “defended” Ayres? Please be specific. Before you type, you might want to look up the meaning of the word “defending” – I don’t think it means what you think it does 🙂

  56. Matt says:

    @Jenos Idanian: oh so you’ve moved to prosecuting thought crime… fantastic.

    As for the “we didn’t do enough” quote that you love distorting to mean more bombing…

    [quote]Ayers protested the interviewer’s characterizations in a Letter to the Editor published September 15, 2001: “This is not a question of being misunderstood or ‘taken out of context’, but of deliberate distortion.”In the ensuing years, Ayers has repeatedly avowed that when he said he had “no regrets” and that “we didn’t do enough” he was speaking only in reference to his efforts to stop the United States from waging the Vietnam War, efforts which he has described as “. . . inadequate [as] the war dragged on for a decade.” Ayers has maintained that the two statements were not intended to imply a wish they had set more bombs. In a November 2008 interview with The New Yorker, Ayers said that he had not meant to imply that he wished he and the Weathermen had committed further violence. Instead, he said, “I wish I had done more, but it doesn’t mean I wish we’d bombed more shit.” Ayers said that he had never been responsible for violence against other people and was acting to end a war in Vietnam in which “thousands of people were being killed every week.” He also stated, “While we did claim several extreme acts, they were acts of extreme radicalism against property,” and “We killed no one and hurt no one. Three of our people killed themselves.”[/quote]

  57. Matt says:

    @Jenos Idanian: This site is responding poorly to me this afternoon. I was unable to edit my comment properly before time ran out.

    If you’re equating actors you’re still incredibly wrong. One had the mindset of wanting to kill as many people as possible while the other wanted to avoid all deaths and focused purely on property destruction. Yet to you these men are exactly the same…

  58. Jenos Idanian says:

    @anjin-san: Once again, you’ve demonstrated that the easiest way to get you to walk back a comment is to accuse you of saying something of substance. Your “hah hah, I never actually said anything” response is almost Pavlovian.

  59. Jenos Idanian says:

    @Matt: One had the mindset of wanting to kill as many people as possible while the other wanted to avoid all deaths and focused purely on property destruction.

    Yeah, nothing says “focused purely on property destruction” like a bomb made up of dynamite packed with roofing nails.

    Maybe the nails were intended to combine destruction and construction? The dynamite would knock things down, then the nails would put things back up?

    Nope. Fun theory, but it doesn’t work. It is, however, a wonderful way to maximize deaths and maiming injuries.

  60. anjin-san says:

    @Jenos Idanian:

    In other words, you simply can’t keep up. We already knew that 🙂

  61. Matt says:

    @Jenos Idanian: I read the entire article and didn’t see a single mention of Ayers being there building the bomb or even being involved.