In Monday’s installment, this column talked about a “war” that is unfolding here and now; a war some thought was about illegal aliens committing crimes, but the battlefield is much wider and it involves a criminal justice system in which there are lots of criminals and damned little justice.
In one of my three recent books with Alan Gottlieb, America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age, we devoted an entire chapter titled “A Plague of Recidivism” to the broken judicial system and how it keeps turning dangerous felons back out onto the street.
That has hit home in Tacoma where authorities have charged three men – two of whom have the proverbial “long criminal histories” – in the shooting death of Lisa Melancon, an innocent bystander to a dispute that erupted over text messaging. If there were ever a reason for Olympia to outlaw text messaging – an annoying, often abusive, anti-productive habit that seems to rank right up there with heroin where some texting addicts are concerned (but we digress) – the Melancon slaying is it.
Castillo is being held on $1 million bail, according to jail records. The other two men have previously served prison time on drugs and weapons convictions.
At this writing, 19-year-old Manuel Castillo is in custody, but the suspected triggerman, identified as Olujimi Blakeney and another man, Herman Jackson, are still at large. This whole thing started when Castillo brought his two pals (Did you ever notice how it always takes more than one of these cowards to gin up the nerve for a confrontation? As John Wayne said in El Dorado, “That’s because they’re no good.”) to confront two of Melancon’s neighbors who had been trading nasty text messages with his girlfriend. That’s one hell of a reason for an innocent woman to lose her life.
Castillo, until now, had a minor police record. Blakeney and Jackson, however, are big time losers, both having served prison sentences for firearm and drug offenses, according to published reports.
Police believe Blakeney fired the fatal shot from a car fleeing the scene of a fistfight outside Melancon’s home, according to court documents. Melancon, who had just called 911 to report the fight, had stepped onto her porch to call her husband inside when she was struck.-Tacoma News Tribune
If there really is any justice, Blakeney and Jackson will go down hard.
But these guys are not the only players in an urban battle that is being waged by police agencies with shrinking budgets, and they are hardly all illegal aliens, though many are, despite what liberal apologists contend.
Take Dale Wilbanks, 46, suspected in a Tennessee murder. This guy has a history of drug abuse and he has now apparently graduated to homicide. According to news agencies there, he’s been on probation and violated the terms of that release last year. So, uh, what was he doing on the streets?
The suspected shooter: 46-year-old Dale Wilbanks. Kingsport Police are "pretty sure" he robbed the K-Mart on East Stone Drive 30 minutes after Hawkins County started their murder investigation…Shelby County arrested him for driving under the influence in 1994, theft in 2000, and crack-cocaine possesion in 2001. He was charged with another DUI in Bristol in 2008, and violated the terms of his probation in 2009. On May 28th, 2010, Kingsport charged Wilbanks with felony evading arrest and possesion of drug paraphernalia.—TriCities.com
Wisconsin authorities have charged an illegal alien “with a long criminal record” in the recent slaying of Kenosha County Sheriff’s Deputy Frank Fabiano. Yet, according to published reports, Ezeiquiel Lopez was never deported for his criminal activities.
Then there’s Cyril Cornelius Williams, 28, whose rap sheet is longer than his flamboyant name. He is charged in the June slaying of Maryland State Police Trooper Wesley Brown. And why was Brown killed? According to the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post, Brown had thrown Williams out of an Applebee’s restaurant for not paying his bill about 30 minutes before the shooting. Like the other model citizens mentioned in this column, his criminal record precluded him from legally having a firearm.
The man now charged with killing Kenosha County Sheriff's Deputy Frank Fabiano is an illegal immigrant with a long criminal record. Despite a rap sheet going back six years, Ezeiquiel Lopez was never deported. Only after he was charged with killing Fabiano did anyone try to have him kicked out of this country.-WTMJ
Authorities in Michigan reportedly think Tyress Mathews is responsible for the slaying of Taylor Police Officer Matthew Edwards. Investigators were holding off formal charges at this writing, only to determine whether the suspect used a gun stolen from another police department, according to Fox News in Detroit.
Back in Pennsylvania, prosecutors have charged Rogelio Z. Pena, who apparently came to this country from Cuba many years ago, in the brutal stabbing of a New York man. Pena’s criminal record goes back to 1989 and he did a prison stretch for shooting at a man in the doorway of a grocery store in 1993.
Cyril Cornelius Williams, 27, is charged as the person who pulled the trigger after getting angry the off-duty trooper had tossed him (out of) an Applebee's restaurant in Prince George's County because he had not paid his bill.
It is because of people like Pena and Williams, Mathews and Wilbanks, and Tacoma’s Olujimi Blankney that anti-gun politicians in state legislatures and in Congress have built careers going after the gun rights of honest citizens, claiming that their schemes would make it harder for such thugs to get guns. It's nonsense, of course, and all of these people are living proof.
While this column recently questioned why some people with past felony convictions lose their gun rights forever, it is also legitimate to question why violent repeat offenders don’t lose their freedom forever. People like Williams, Pena and Blankney should not be on the street. Why must it take an outrageous crime to clarify that for some people?
For more info: America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age.
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Comments
When are they going to start offering private citizens a per-scalp reward on these winners?
The first thing citizens have to realize is that they do not have a justice system. They have an adversarial system that often omits some of the truth and convicts on circumstantial rather than actual evidence despite advances in criminal detection methods and evidence gathering. Secondly, the federal government is not going to do it's job and deport these violent aliens whose records should have been checked before they entered the country. The feds are going to sue states like Arizona for getting fed up and doing the feds job for them. Third, we are losing public safety funds because politicans are trying to hang on to pet projects at the expense of public safety or in california's case pay for benefits for illegal aliens rather than police. And finally you have the politicans fighting to restrict the honest citizen from ever using a gun for self protection anyplace including their own homes against criminals breaking the law. Can you say we are screwed?
If the punishement for crime fit the crime we wouldnt have a lot of the crime we have. I would be interested in the LEO perspective with regard to the legal system enforcing the laws we currently have on the books. I has got to be frustrating to see a trend in blatent disregard for the law. I wonder how much of that frustration is redirected toward law abiding citizens?
I hope the comment about outlawing texting was sarcasm?
The writer clearly has a bias against text messaging in order to go so far as to believe that it somehow caused the tragedy in Tacoma. Every crime has its motivation, regardless of how illogical or even silly. Using that kind of logic, if there is an arguement over a car should we outlaw cars? How about a dispute over a dinner bill, we should ban going out to dinner. Come on, let's instead look at the real causes these problems.
leticia olalia morales of 15501 pasadena ave #8 tustin ca 92780 submitted fake documents and paid a consul 5000.00 dollars to obtain a tourist visa. she is now applying for naturalization.
I am currently looking up any cases that can give my brothers, sisters and myself information on Rogelio Z. Pena. I personally know that he has committed crimes way before 1989. He stabbed and murdered my mother in 1986, but was not convicted. He apparently thought he could continue to crimes like this ans get away with it!
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