While everyone was busy freaking out over hostages in Australia, here in Pennsylvania we saw some domestic terrorism of our own, as Iraq War veteran Bradley Stone apparently went on a shooting spree in Montgomery County. Six dead, and the suspect is still at large.
Now, I don’t have cable TV, but my understanding is this wasn’t big news. And really, why should it be? We never call white gunmen “terrorists”, shooting sprees are a dime a dozen these days, and scary brown Muslims in Australia have more sizzle.
On the other hand, as you can see, this latest incident in Wayne LaPierre’s America did give the police in sleepy little rural Lower Salford (population 142,000 or so) the opportunity to break out their Army surplus tank , so there’s that. It would have been more impressive if they, ya know, actually CAUGHT the guy, who as of this writing is still on the loose despite the local police looking like they just drove in from the set of the newest Mad Max movie and blowing up the wrong people:
SWAT teams descended on Pennsburg after police responded to shootings in Lansdale, Lower Salford Township and Souderton beginning before 4:30 a.m. The search for the shooter ultimately led to a standoff on Souderton’s West Penn Street, which ended shortly before noon after what sounded like a concussion grenade went off and an unidentified male, evidently seriously wounded, was removed from the home and taken by ambulance to a waiting medical helicopter.
Towamencin Township Police Chief Tim Dickinson said the person was not the suspected gunman and the SWAT teams had moved to another location in Pennsburg.
Would it be rude to ask what’s the point of all this tactical equipment in a place like Lower Salford where this kind of crime is a total anomaly, and where, regardless of how heavily they’re armed, the cops can’t catch a suspect who “is known to use a cane or walker”? It’s day two, and they still can’t find him. Just another day in Armed America…
ETA: The police say they found his body. From what I’ve read, Stone was troubled after returning from Iraq. He was described as “a changed man” by people who knew him, and my local rag says he was a member of at least one PTSD group on FB, as well as several veteran’s groups. IANAD, but it is not hard for me to guess that if Stone had PTSD, it very likely played a role in what has happened. And that makes Tom Coburn’s actions even more despicable.
What’s the point? So contractors can sell more tanks, of course. Doesn’t your town’s PD have a tank? How about a helicopter gunship? And of course some SAM’s to take a terrorist drone or maybe the next town’s helicopter gunship. Crank up those property taxes! We need kickbacks!
SWAT teams with tank-like vehicles have become a common LEO response to domestic disputes with perceived, threatened, or actual violence and murder. Effectiveness is dubious and in some cases contraindicated, SWAT team standoff leads to suicide by husband and father.
Not sure I’d describe Lower Salford as rural; more like outer suburbs of a suburban county that grew in population over the past two decades.
That’s probably a good description of Lower Salford. Still in comparison to Philly,it’s downright rustic.
Wonder how much this is costing them, Did they just spend upward of a million on the catching the guy who shot the cops
Pennsylvania will go broke just from Police force expenses
Think I just heard his body has been found on MSMBC
I remember a long time ago asking out loud how the CIA could afford to have all these wars and coups around the world. Someone with more understanding took me to the side and explained to me, “The CIA doesn’t pay for it. You pay for it.”
The same principle applies.
I recall when Hummers first hit the consumer market and I heard the sticker price. My first thought was how can the military afford that — then snapped my head back to reality.
Gone are the days of the police having the job of “Serve and Protect”. Now they act more like military on the front line. Both scared and confused in total survival mode.
The Keystone Kops ride again!
Another gift given by the Boston Marathon bombing. Look how happy the people of Boston were with the lockdown while the militarized police hunted down a kid hiding in a boat in someone’s backyard.
“A philosophy or system of government that advocates or exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with an ideology of belligerent nationalism.”
Climb onboard for the big reward,
it’s the losers who get repossessed.
Welcome to the West!
A kid who killed and maimed total strangers.
To be accurate (and to ignore the possibility that this kid didn’t even knowingly place a bomb at the Marathon), the Boston Marathon death toll was lower than the number of ex-relatives this PA shooter killed. And the kid in CT murdered in cold blood twenty-six strangers.
As of 30 minutes ago, I believe he’s been found dead in the woods not far from his house. Not sure if he committed suicide or not. He basically went on a rampage against his in-laws.
Do wish these men would skip the rampage part and go directly to the suicide part.
I’m gonna have a rare bit of compassion for this guy. By all accounts he came back from Iraq “a changed man”, and much more volatile. He was a member of at least one PTSD support group on FB, and it sounds like his mental health was bad and declining.
That’s one more reason why Tom Coburn is such a piece of shit.
There are too many people to count who have blood on their hands concerning the status of mental health care in this country. We are reaping decades of neglect and kicking the can down the road. It is shameful at all levels.
The report I read said that he was in Iraq in 2008 for only a couple of months and not in a combat role.
He apparently remarried after his divorce and had another child with his new wife. He didn’t harm his current wife nor his three children. The targets were his ex-wife and her relatives.
I remember a line from an old movie – “Love, Hate, they are horns on the same goat.”
I work with a guy who just cannot accept that his wife walked out after 18 years. Ex-Marine. Prized possession is a WWII M-1 Garand. Just after she left he went to Wyoming to sight in the Garand. Me, I can’t figure out why she stayed with him for 18 years. But he can’t let it go. In the immediate aftermath his own brother would not admit to knowing where his kids were (with their maternal grandparents and he did know). That’s when I knew this guy had no redeeming qualities – when his own brother was afraid to say “I know, Jim and they are OK, but I can’t tell you.”
“You know, Jim, if women desired angry men with guys, you’d be a chick magnate.”
>We never call white gunmen “terrorists”, <
Bullshit. The Boston Bombers were white, as were all the Saudis involved in 9/11, as have been nearly all the detainees at Gitmo, as are all Palestinians and Lebanese and Syrians and Iraqis and Iranians, and on and on and on.
If you have peculiar and specially demanding standards for deciding who is white that’s all on you, pal.