We have already noted that local police had ‘interacted’ with Nikolas de Jesus Cruz 39 times, but that he was never arrested or charged with anything. While the warnings given to the FBI have garnered more attention, this was primarily a failure of local law enforcement. Now there’s this:

School considered shooting suspect potential ‘threat’ year before massacre

Nikolas Cruz has history of school disciplinary reports

By Bob Norman – Investigative Reporter | Posted: 12:20 AM, February 16, 2018

PARKLAND, Fla. – Administrators at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School recommended back in January 2017 that the school board conduct a “threat assessment” on Nikolas Cruz to determine if he was a danger to the school and its students, according to documents exclusively obtained by Local 10 News.

A copy of Cruz’s discipline summary shows that Cruz was involved in an assault at the school on Jan. 19, 2017, less than three weeks before he was transferred out of the school. It was on that date that the school put in a referral for the threat assessment on Cruz, who now faces 17 counts of premeditated murder for firing an AR-15 rifle at the high school on Valentine’s Day.

It’s not known at this time what the result of the assessment was, or even if the school board conducted it, as board spokeswoman Tracy Clarke said she couldn’t answer those questions, citing student privacy.

Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said Thursday, however, that the school board had no clue of the danger that lurked in the former student.

“We received no warning, no hints, no tips,” Runcie said. “There was no warning that we saw.”

There’s more at the original. But, unless Superintendent Runcie was lying — always a possibility when people feel the need to cover their butts — the recommended threat assessment was never done.

How about that? Mr Cruz was expelled transferred out of Douglas High School following his assault on another student, reportedly the new boyfriend of the girl who had dumped him, but this assault, when Mr Cruz was already 18 years old, was not referred to prosecutors for criminal charges, and the internal recommendation for a threat assessment — something to keep the school, but not the community, safe — was shelved or ignored or whatever, but not done in any form which was given to the School Board.

• The local police never arrested him, despite at least 39 known interventions, on charges of theft and vandalism; the police didn’t do their jobs!
• The FBI, notified not once but twice about Mr Cruz’s social media musings about killing people, didn’t do it’s job!
• The School Board staff, despite the recommendation of Douglas High School, either never started or failed to complete and report the threat assessment; the staff didn’t do its job!
• Nina Barela, a counselor from the nearby Henderson Behavioral Health facility, where Mr Cruz was a client for years, “advised that it was unnecessary to invoke a Florida law allowing police to put a mentally ill person in custody. ‘A Baker Act was not needed,’ the report said.” Nina Barela failed in her job!

All of these failures, by all of these people, people who had important jobs to do, people on the public payroll; will any of them be held accountable? Will any of them be suspended, or demoted, or relieved of duty? Will any of them be fired for incompetence?

One thing jumps out at me: all of the actions which should have been, but were not taken were actions which would have involved more work. The police officers who never arrested him had less work to do by simply talking to him. The FBI agents who should have followed up on the reports given them concerning Mr Cruz had less work to do by ignoring their jobs. The School Board staff, notified that a threat assessment was needed, had less work to do by not getting the assessment done in a timely fashion — if they even started it. And the staff at the Henderson Behavioral Health center had less work to do by not asking the police to put Mr Cruz in protective custody.

Laziness has become culpable negligence. But I’d still bet a root beer float that no one, not a single soul, will be disciplined in any way for not doing his job.

We have already noted that local police had ‘interacted’ with Nikolas de Jesus Cruz 39 times, but that he was never arrested or charged with anything. While the warnings given to the FBI have garnered more attention, this was primarily a failure of local law enforcement. Now there’s this:

School considered shooting suspect potential ‘threat’ year before massacre

Nikolas Cruz has history of school disciplinary reports

By Bob Norman – Investigative Reporter | Posted: 12:20 AM, February 16, 2018

PARKLAND, Fla. – Administrators at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School recommended back in January 2017 that the school board conduct a “threat assessment” on Nikolas Cruz to determine if he was a danger to the school and its students, according to documents exclusively obtained by Local 10 News.

A copy of Cruz’s discipline summary shows that Cruz was involved in an assault at the school on Jan. 19, 2017, less than three weeks before he was transferred out of the school. It was on that date that the school put in a referral for the threat assessment on Cruz, who now faces 17 counts of premeditated murder for firing an AR-15 rifle at the high school on Valentine’s Day.

It’s not known at this time what the result of the assessment was, or even if the school board conducted it, as board spokeswoman Tracy Clarke said she couldn’t answer those questions, citing student privacy.

Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said Thursday, however, that the school board had no clue of the danger that lurked in the former student.

“We received no warning, no hints, no tips,” Runcie said. “There was no warning that we saw.”

There’s more at the original. But, unless Superintendent Runcie was lying — always a possibility when people feel the need to cover their butts — the recommended threat assessment was never done.

How about that? Mr Cruz was expelled transferred out of Douglas High School following his assault on another student, reportedly the new boyfriend of the girl who had dumped him, but this assault, when Mr Cruz was already 18 years old, was not referred to prosecutors for criminal charges, and the internal recommendation for a threat assessment — something to keep the school, but not the community, safe — was shelved or ignored or whatever, but not done in any form which was given to the School Board.

• The local police never arrested him, despite at least 39 known interventions, on charges of theft and vandalism; the police didn’t do their jobs!
• The FBI, notified not once but twice about Mr Cruz’s social media musings about killing people, didn’t do it’s job!
• The School Board staff, despite the recommendation of Douglas High School, either never started or failed to complete and report the threat assessment; the staff didn’t do its job!
• Nina Barela, a counselor from the nearby Henderson Behavioral Health facility, where Mr Cruz was a client for years, “advised that it was unnecessary to invoke a Florida law allowing police to put a mentally ill person in custody. ‘A Baker Act was not needed,’ the report said.” Nina Barela failed in her job!

All of these failures, by all of these people, people who had important jobs to do, people on the public payroll; will any of them be held accountable? Will any of them be suspended, or demoted, or relieved of duty? Will any of them be fired for incompetence?

One thing jumps out at me: all of the actions which should have been, but were not taken were actions which would have involved more work. The police officers who never arrested him had less work to do by simply talking to him. The FBI agents who should have followed up on the reports given them concerning Mr Cruz had less work to do by ignoring their jobs. The School Board staff, notified that a threat assessment was needed, had less work to do by not getting the assessment done in a timely fashion — if they even started it. And the staff at the Henderson Behavioral Health center had less work to do by not asking the police to put Mr Cruz in protective custody.

Laziness has become culpable negligence. But I’d still bet a root beer float that no one, not a single soul, will be disciplined in any way for not doing his job.

From CBS News:

Teen found slain was scheduled to testify against her accused rapist

By Crimesider Staff | CBS News | February 8, 2018, 4:27 PM

KALAMAZOO, Michigan — A teen girl who was found slain in a wooded area of southwestern Michigan last month had been scheduled to testify against her accused rapist, reports CBS affiliate WWMT.

Multiple sources tell the station that Quinn Anthony James is a person of interest in the death of 16-year-old Mujey Dumbuya. James, a felon with a long criminal history, was arrested last week on allegations he raped another girl in 2014, the station reports.

Dumbuya, a student at East Kentwood High School near Grand Rapids, was reported missing by her family Jan. 24 after she left for the bus but never showed up to school. She was found dead four days later by a couple out for a walk in Kalamazoo, about 50 miles south of the school, WWMT reports.

Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety investigators have not said how the girl died, but have called her death suspicious, the station reports. The girl’s family reportedly believes she was targeted.

Dumbuya said James, who at one time worked for her school district and is her boyfriend’s uncle, forced her to have sex with him multiple times and in various locations starting when she was 15, according to court documents obtained by the station. James was arrested in November and was terminated from his maintenance position with the school district on Nov. 30, according to a Kentwood Public Schools statement released to television station WXMI.

There’s more at the original.

At least thus far, Mr James, who has been listed as a ‘person of interest’ in the murder of Miss Dumbuya, has not been charged with this crime, and it is entirely possible that he had nothing to do with it. But, to me, the very obvious question is: why was Mr James, a sexual predator with a criminal record dating back to 1991, released on bail after being charged with such a crime? Such a man was clearly a danger to others, to the community, and has, in fact, been charged with other ‘sexual offenses against a minor,’ and should never have been out of jail in the first place.

According to the story, Mr James admitted to having sex with Miss Dumbuya, several times, but claimed that it was consensual. Since Miss Dumbuya was only 15 years old, it could not have been consensual; he admitted to rape!

Yet some idiotic judge allowed Mr James to get out on bail. Bail was set at $100,000, and he was ordered to have no contact with the victim.

Yeah, that seems to have worked well.

My question is: if Mr James is eventually convicted of murdering the girl he was accused of raping, how will the judge who allowed him to be released be held accountable?

The answer, of course, is that the judge will not be held accountable; judges are immune from liability concerning their decisions in their official capacity. But clearly, this ‘judge’ has demonstrated poor judgement. His decision may well have led to the murder of a young girl; how he could continue to live with himself, if it turns out that Mr James was the murderer, is beyond me.

William Teach of The Pirate’s Cove talks about the California school shooting rampage:

According to the Brady Campaign, California is the state with the most gun restrictions. They have 8 laws on “assault weapons” and magazine size. Eleven on background checks. Seven on high risk gun possession. Twelve on buyer regulations. Seven for possession. Eighteen for domestic violence. The Washington Post Editorial Board seems to forget this:

Don’t be relieved only five people died in California. Be enraged.

By Editorial Board | November 15, 2017 | 7:36 PM

So inured has this country become to mass shootings that when another person with a semiautomatic weapon goes on a rampage, we’re conditioned to focus on reactions, rather than root causes. In the case of an incident in Northern California on Tuesday, we feel gratitude that quick action by school officials saved children’s lives, that police acted heroically and that this time only five people were killed. Yet what ought to be foremost is rage at the refusal of lawmakers to take action that might prevent these needless tragedies — and a renewed demand for sensible gun-control regulations, including a ban on assault weapons and comprehensive background checks with better enforcement.

There’s more at the original, with Mr Teach documenting the Pyrite State’s restrictions on firearms, all the kind of things the Post’s Editorial Board wants to see done. But what got to me was a paragraph Mr Tech quoted, from a different source, further down:

(Newser) The man who killed five people in a shooting rampage in California on Tuesday was banned by court order from owning firearms—and police are being criticized for failing to take action after neighbors in Rancho Tehama Reserve complained that he had been firing hundreds of rounds. At a press conference Wednesday, Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said Kevin Janson Neal refused to cooperate with investigators, the Sacramento Bee reports. “He was not law enforcement friendly. He would not come to the door,” Johnston said. “You have to understand, we can’t anticipate what people are going to do. We don’t have a crystal ball.” Neal was out on bail after being charged with assault in January.

So here you had a man, banned by law and court order, from possessing firearms, and the authorities not only knew that he had them, but had been firing ‘hundreds of rounds,’ yet they did nothing. From the referenced article in The Sacramento Bee:

At least twice, (Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston) said, deputies placed the home under surveillance in hopes that he would emerge, but he never did. . . . .

Tehama County Superior Court records show he was charged in the January incident with assault, false imprisonment, battery and other charges in connection with an attack on two women in his neighborhood. He was accused of firing shots at the two women, stabbing one of them, and “holding them hostage for a period of time,” District Attorney Gregg Cohen said Wednesday. Neal was released on $160,000 bail.

Cohen said in a video news release Wednesday that the protective order was issued in late February, after Neal was released on bail and the two women he was accused of assaulting filed a complaint. “The two victims were scared and concerned (about) Neal attacking them,” Cohen said. “Neal harassed them repeatedly since being out on bail by repeatedly calling the California Department of Forestry, or Cal Fire, and claiming that he smelled smells, believing them to be manufacturing methamphetamine.”

So, you have a violent man released on bail, with two women complaining about his actions after being released on bail, and neighbors complaining that he was firing off hundreds of rounds of weapons, and the most that deputies did was set up video surveillance of his home, because he was ‘not law enforcement friendly’ and wouldn’t ‘come to the door’? There should have been a warrant for his immediate arrest, and the house put under siege until he surrendered. Instead, because the Tehama County Sheriff’s Department didn’t do their f(ornicating) jobs, five people are now stone-cold graveyard dead!

Who will be held accountable for this? Sheriff Dave Hencratt is directly responsible for the failure of his department to take the necessary and legally justified actions to place Kevin Janson Neal under arrest, to have him locked up when he should have been locked up, and because he failed to do his job, five people are dead. Will Sheriff Hencratt pay for his negligence by being brought up on criminal negligence charges? Will he at least be fired? Will anyone who was negligent in doing his duty be punished in any way?

This is what happens when judges, prosecutors and law enforcement personnel get lazy, don’t want to do their jobs when things get a bit tough or inconvenient, or allow plea bargains and lenient sentences. It doesn’t happen every time, but in too many cases, innocent people are injured or die because others don’t do their jobs.

It’s pretty clear to me: Sheriff Hencratt should be fired, at the very least, along with the rest of the supervisors in his department. If they can be brought up on criminal charges, they should be. They should be personally sued into penury by the families of the victims, though that’s probably impossible under the law. They need to be made examples of, so that other judges, prosecutors and law enforcement personnel get the message, and stop coddling criminals and start enforcing the law.

William Teach of The Pirate’s Cove talks about the California school shooting rampage:

According to the Brady Campaign, California is the state with the most gun restrictions. They have 8 laws on “assault weapons” and magazine size. Eleven on background checks. Seven on high risk gun possession. Twelve on buyer regulations. Seven for possession. Eighteen for domestic violence. The Washington Post Editorial Board seems to forget this:

Don’t be relieved only five people died in California. Be enraged.

By Editorial Board | November 15, 2017 | 7:36 PM

So inured has this country become to mass shootings that when another person with a semiautomatic weapon goes on a rampage, we’re conditioned to focus on reactions, rather than root causes. In the case of an incident in Northern California on Tuesday, we feel gratitude that quick action by school officials saved children’s lives, that police acted heroically and that this time only five people were killed. Yet what ought to be foremost is rage at the refusal of lawmakers to take action that might prevent these needless tragedies — and a renewed demand for sensible gun-control regulations, including a ban on assault weapons and comprehensive background checks with better enforcement.

There’s more at the original, with Mr Teach documenting the Pyrite State’s restrictions on firearms, all the kind of things the Post’s Editorial Board wants to see done. But what got to me was a paragraph Mr Tech quoted, from a different source, further down:

(Newser) The man who killed five people in a shooting rampage in California on Tuesday was banned by court order from owning firearms—and police are being criticized for failing to take action after neighbors in Rancho Tehama Reserve complained that he had been firing hundreds of rounds. At a press conference Wednesday, Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said Kevin Janson Neal refused to cooperate with investigators, the Sacramento Bee reports. “He was not law enforcement friendly. He would not come to the door,” Johnston said. “You have to understand, we can’t anticipate what people are going to do. We don’t have a crystal ball.” Neal was out on bail after being charged with assault in January.

So here you had a man, banned by law and court order, from possessing firearms, and the authorities not only knew that he had them, but had been firing ‘hundreds of rounds,’ yet they did nothing. From the referenced article in The Sacramento Bee:

At least twice, (Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston) said, deputies placed the home under surveillance in hopes that he would emerge, but he never did. . . . .

Tehama County Superior Court records show he was charged in the January incident with assault, false imprisonment, battery and other charges in connection with an attack on two women in his neighborhood. He was accused of firing shots at the two women, stabbing one of them, and “holding them hostage for a period of time,” District Attorney Gregg Cohen said Wednesday. Neal was released on $160,000 bail.

Cohen said in a video news release Wednesday that the protective order was issued in late February, after Neal was released on bail and the two women he was accused of assaulting filed a complaint. “The two victims were scared and concerned (about) Neal attacking them,” Cohen said. “Neal harassed them repeatedly since being out on bail by repeatedly calling the California Department of Forestry, or Cal Fire, and claiming that he smelled smells, believing them to be manufacturing methamphetamine.”

So, you have a violent man released on bail, with two women complaining about his actions after being released on bail, and neighbors complaining that he was firing off hundreds of rounds of weapons, and the most that deputies did was set up video surveillance of his home, because he was ‘not law enforcement friendly’ and wouldn’t ‘come to the door’? There should have been a warrant for his immediate arrest, and the house put under siege until he surrendered. Instead, because the Tehama County Sheriff’s Department didn’t do their f(ornicating) jobs, five people are now stone-cold graveyard dead!

Who will be held accountable for this? Sheriff Dave Hencratt is directly responsible for the failure of his department to take the necessary and legally justified actions to place Kevin Janson Neal under arrest, to have him locked up when he should have been locked up, and because he failed to do his job, five people are dead. Will Sheriff Hencratt pay for his negligence by being brought up on criminal negligence charges? Will he at least be fired? Will anyone who was negligent in doing his duty be punished in any way?

This is what happens when judges, prosecutors and law enforcement personnel get lazy, don’t want to do their jobs when things get a bit tough or inconvenient, or allow plea bargains and lenient sentences. It doesn’t happen every time, but in too many cases, innocent people are injured or die because others don’t do their jobs.

It’s pretty clear to me: Sheriff Hencratt should be fired, at the very least, along with the rest of the supervisors in his department. If they can be brought up on criminal charges, they should be. They should be personally sued into penury by the families of the victims, though that’s probably impossible under the law. They need to be made examples of, so that other judges, prosecutors and law enforcement personnel get the message, and stop coddling criminals and start enforcing the law.

From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

He got out of prison early. Now he’s going back for 20 years after Lexington killing.

By Greg Kocher | gkocher1@herald-leader.com | March 24, 2017 | 11:39 AM EDT

A man was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison for the 2014 shooting death of Joseph Ramone Parker.

Jevon Donnell Magee, 23, who had gotten out of prison early on shock probation, shot Parker on Dec. 18, 2014, at Lexington’s Augusta Arms Apartments, according to court records. Parker, 30, died later that day.

Magee had been charged with murder, but the charge was amended to first-degree manslaughter.¹ He also pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and being a persistent felony offender.

Public defender Bonnie Potter said the shooting happened after a “drug deal gone bad” in which Magee and Parker got into a fight.

Magee had been sentenced to five years in prison after he pleaded guilty in April 2012 to charges of possessing a handgun while being a convicted felon and filing a false police report.

Magee was a felon because at age 15 in 2009, he was convicted as an adult of second-degree robbery, according to circuit court records. Magee was tried as an adult in that case in part because it was a felony involving a gun, documents show.

Let’s do the math, shall we? Mr Magee pleaded guilty to felonies in April of 2012, one of which was possession of a handgun as a convicted felon. His prior felony conviction included the use of a firearm in a robbery. So, he was sentenced to five years in the state penitentiary, for his second firearm offense. Had he actually served his five years, he’d be getting out of prison next month. His attorney petitioned for shock probation, which was granted in July of 2014, and he was released from the Little Sandy Correctional Complex on August 20, 2014. For his second felony offense, considered a Class C felony under state law, he had already been sentenced to the legal minimum of five years;² Class C felonies call for sentences of “not less than five (5) years nor more than ten (10) years.” He served only sixteen months out of a sixty month sentence (26.6%), and his original sentence was only half of what it could have been.

Even with his low-end sentence, Mr Magee should still have been in prison when he shot and killed Mr Parker.

The obvious questions are: why was Mr Magee granted shock probation, and who took the decision to allow it? Whoever took the decision to release Mr Magee early is just as responsible for the death of Mr Parker as was Mr Magee! The Commonwealth had a two-time loser, one with a history of firearms violations, safely incarcerated in prison, and some idiot decided to release him from prison early.

So, what penalty will accrue to whomever released Mr Magee early?³ My guess is that nothing will happen to him, nothing at all. The concept of judicial immunity for decisions appropriate to their public function has long been established, and whatever judge or other public official authorized the release of Mr Magee cannot be punished, legally, for his decision.

But such a negligent public official can be publicized and shamed for his decisions! These people must be held accountable for the damages they cause. Once that starts to happen, we’ll see more responsible decisions coming from public officials.
_________________________________
¹ – Manslaughter in the first degree is a Class B Felony in Kentucky, with a sentence range of not less than ten and not more than twenty years in the state penitentiary.
² – Mr Magee pleaded guilty, so I assume that the minimum sentence was part of the plea bargain.
³ – Regrettably, I have not been able to find that person’s name or title in an extensive search. I do have a call in to try and get that information.