Tag Archives: #Crime

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Pennsylvania just became a little less safe

Well, of course.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat of course, opposes capital punishment, as do I, but the Governor of the Keystone State does not have arbitrary power to issue pardons or sentence commutations on his own. The most Mr Shapiro could do, as his predecessor Tom Wolf did before him, was to decline to sign any death warrants. But now, the Governor is happy that the state Supreme Court held that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole for second-degree murder violate the state constitution.

We have previously noted this case.

Under Title 18§2502(b), murder of the second degree is a criminal homicide which is committed while defendant was engaged as a principal or accomplice in the perpetration of a felony. That’s pretty simple: the murderer is already committing a crime, so even if he wasn’t necessarily planning on killing someone, he was already on the scene, already planning on committing a crime, and prepared to kill if he thought it necessary.

Whether you’re the guy who fires the fatal shot or not, you’re still a really bad guy, and there’s no good reason for you to ever be put back out on the streets with decent people again.

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s story on the case can be found here. The opinion of the court can be found here. From the newspaper:

One of the lead lawyers in the case, Bret Grote of the Abolitionist Law Center, said the decision “will have profound ramifications” for the state’s criminal justice system, and that it “represents the culmination of decades of movement-building by incarcerated people and their families and communities.”

Ben Grote, huh? How unserious is Mr Grote? He couldn’t even be bothered to clean up his beta male beard before going before the state Supreme Court. But, alas! he won his case.

Image from main page of Abolitionist Law Center website, screencaptured on October 9, 2024.

Mr Grote works for the Abolitionist Law Center, which we have previously mentioned. What is not mentioned is that the Abolitionist Law Center is opposed to incarceration for anything, opposes all prison sentences, and would, if they could, free every murderer, every rapist, every drug dealer, and every assailant locked up in Pennsylvania’s prisons.

We challenge every point on the criminal punishment conveyor belt including policing, courts, jails and prisons, and various forms of legal supervision, as well as other aspects of the carceral machine.

Boldface in the original.

I might have ignored this story, especially since I was eating the very delicious lamb chops my wife made for supper, were it not for a very lovely lady on Twitter. Miss Long has in her Twitter bio a background illustration saying:

Roses are red,
No lives are blue,
Defund the Police,
Abolish ICE too.

Miss Long posted a series on Twitter, beginning here, praising the Abolitionist Law Center for its work. We already know that the Abolitionist Law Center wants to abolish prisons completely, to give dangerous predators some cockamamie “restorative justice” bovine feces.

Some people are beyond redemption, some people are simply evil and can never be trusted in society. Miss Long and the Abolitionist Law Center would see the gates of prisons thrown open and deranged killers like Wesley Cook let back out on the streets. They don’t even like, as noted above, “legal supervision,” which means probation and probation officers. Miss Long wants to see criminal illegal immigrants, some guilty of murder and rape, left free to terrorize innocent people.

I assume that Miss Long and the others believe that people are just innately good, and if the people we now see as bad guys are just left alone and shown sweetness and light, they’ll all be great people and credits to their communities.

Well, that’s just plain bovine feces. Some people simply need to be removed from society, for society to remain safe and secure for the people who are actually good citizens. I can’t even understand how some people can think differently.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! Hold them accountable

One would have thought that Abdimahat Bille Mohamed would have been in a heap o’ trouble when he was arrested on charges of having raped a child and sexually assaulted another woman in Hennepin County, Minnesota, but if one would have thought that, one would have been wrong. From Minnesota Public Radio, on December 9, 2025:

Mohamed pleaded guilty in April to state charges of criminal sexual conduct for the rape of the child victim and the sexual assault of another woman in 2024, but he avoided prison as part of a plea deal with the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. County prosecutors also pledged not to prosecute him for a 2018 rape in which he was suspected.

Emphasis mine.

What? Prosecutors gave him a sweetheart plea deal which allowed him to escape prosecution for the rape of a minor? How the Hell does that work?

Oh, wait, I know how it works: the same source tells readers that Mr Mohamed is not an American citizen, but a foreign national “is living in the country as a legal permanent resident.” As you might guess with this being Minneapolis, he is Somali.

The local prosecutor tried to make excuses. From the Minnesota Star-Tribune:

Attorneys on both sides of the plea deal rejected the notion that Mohamed avoided prison because Minnesota’s judicial system is too willing to give violent criminals a pass.

The Justice Department comments are “a clear attempt to politicize a sexual assault prosecution to inflict further harm on our entire Somali community,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement. “Those who actually prosecute sexual assault cases every day know there are significant evidentiary hurdles to obtaining a prison sentence.”

Moriarty pointed out that her office “overcame the loss of critical witnesses to secure felony convictions against Mr. Mohamed earlier this year. Because our case was substantially weakened, we could not get the prison sentence we wanted.”

Thomas Beito, Mohamed’s attorney who negotiated the earlier plea agreement, told the Minnesota Star Tribune that “the prosecution did not give us anything out of the goodness of their hearts.” He said there were “serious problems with the credibility of the [teenage] victim.”

In the second case under the plea deal, he said, “we had a great consent defense. … We turned up a video of the act itself showing that this was consensual. That’s why [prosecutors] gave him what they did.”

Except, of course, the state had actual DNA evidence! From the United States Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs:

Minor Victim 1 was forced—at gunpoint and in fear for her life—to perform oral sex on Mohamed. He then raped her vaginally. After the group sexually assaulted the girl, they let her out of the car. Minor Victim 1 ran, hid, and called the police. The police took Minor Victim 1 to the hospital, and she consented to a sexual assault exam. On September 17, 2024, after Mohamed’s DNA was taken in connection with another sexual assault, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) laboratory matched Mohamed’s DNA to the swabs taken from Minor Victim 1’s body, excluding more than 99.99% of the general population.

“Minor Victim 1” was 15 years old when she was raped. Under Minnesota state law, the age of sexual consent is 16, but persons between the ages of 14 and 15 can consent to sex with someone not more than 24 months older, the old “Romeo and Juliet” exception which exists because people do not want to send high school juniors to prison for f(ornicating) with their sophomore girlfriends. Mr Mohamed, now 28, would have been 19 in 2017, four years older than his victim, so Mr Beito’s claim that there had been consent in the latter case would not have held water in the rape of a minor girl.

Miss Moriarty? She’s openly queer and was the county’s chief public defender before becoming prosecutor. She has a soft spot in her heart for criminals, refusing to try as adults two 15 and 17 year old brothers guilty of murder, saying “Our goal is to treat kids like kids,” and “We know that kids that age are impressionable, they are impulsive, they’re easily manipulated and subjected to peer pressure.”

Now the federal Department of Justice has gotten involved.

In September 2025, Mohamed committed another kidnapping and rape. On September 15, 2025, Mohamed picked up an adult woman (Victim 5) in Mankato, Minnesota. Victim 5 met Mohamed that night and Mohamed was supposed to take Victim 5 to get food and then bring her back home. Instead, after Victim 5 was in Mohamed’s car, he kidnapped her. After Victim 5 asked Mohamed to bring her home, Mohamed kept driving and said, “you are not going home.” Mohamed drove Victim 5 approximately 70 miles to a hotel in Bloomington, where he kept her for nearly a week. When Victim 5 tried to leave on the first day, Mohamed grabbed her by the hair, slapped her face, and told her she could not leave. Mohamed raped Victim 5 twice. Mohamed choked Victim 5 while he raped her. Victim 5 was able to text her sister, that “I think I’m getting kidnapped” and needed help, but Mohamed took her phone away. Victim 5’s sister contacted the police, who worked to find Victim 5. On September 21, 2025, Victim 5 jumped out of Mohamed’s car and told a nearby man, “Can you help me? I am being kidnapped.” The man called 911 and police responded to the scene. Police took Victim 5 to the hospital, where she consented to a sexual assault exam. The DNA profile obtained from Victim 5 matched to Mohamed’s known sample.

But Miss Moriarty wanted to treat Mr Mohamed leniently, to not lock him in a cage, and possibly see him shipped back to his [insert slang term for feces here]hole country. This is what happens when leftists try to shield criminals from the consequences of their crimes: innocent people get punished instead as those criminals stay out on the streets committing even more crimes. According to the New York Post, the distinguished Mr Mohamed committed his last (known) rape after the state had already released him in his sweetheart deals. Whoever the unnamed rape victim was, she received the punishment, she paid the penalty for Mr Mohamed’s previous crimes.

I wonder how we can hold Miss Moriarty accountable, because she is just as responsible for the ‘extra’ rapes Mr Mohamed committed as he is. She could have at least tried to have him locked up, but didn’t.

As for the local media cited, the Star-Tribune and Minnesota Public Radio, they had long stories, but neither of them noted that the state, and now the federal government had the DNA evidence, irrefutable evidence, concerning Mr Mohamed’s crimes. I wonder why that is.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boys! These guys might not do all that well in prison

One would think that, with the hullabaloo over the Epstein files, that educated people, teachers who must have college degrees, would know better than to try to entice minors, but apparently Jordan Cobb, formerly a teacher at the Magoffin County, Kentucky, public schools is actually dumber than a box of rocks.

From the Salyersville Independent:

Former teachers federally indicted

By Heather Oney | Monday, May 5, 2025

PIKEVILLE – Two former Magoffin County Schools teachers were federally indicted and arrested on online enticement charges.

On Thursday, April 24, Jordan Cobb, 32, of Coon Creek Rd, in Salyersville, and Jason W. Back, 42, of Painters Lick Rd, also in Salyersville, were both federal indicted and charged with online enticement and Cobb was charged with an additional cyberstalking charge, according to federal court records. There are sealed indictments in both of their cases that may possibly include more charges, however.

Cobb’s federal indictment accuses him of attempting “to knowingly persuade, induce, entice, or coerce an individual under the age of 18, using a means or facility of interstate commerce, to engage in sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense, namely, Rape in the Third Degree,” in or about April and May 2023. It further states that between June 2 and June 13, 2024, Cobb allegedly, “with the intent to harass or intimidate another person under the age of 18 years old, used an interactive computer service or electronic communication service of interstate commerce, or any other facility of interstate or foreign commerce, to engage in a course of conduct that causes, attempts to cause, or would be reasonably expected to cause emotional distress to that person.”

That was almost a year ago, and now Mr Cobb has been convicted and sentenced:

EKY middle school teacher sentenced to 11 years for enticing a former student

By Austin R. Ramsey | Groundhog Day, February 2, 2026 | 4:07 PM EST

A former Magoffin County middle school teacher was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to enticement of a minor.

Jordan Cobb, 32, of Salyersville, pleaded guilty in October to engaging in an inappropriate Snapchat conversation with a former student. He sent a series of sexually explicit messages, offered to provide the minor with marijuana and made plans to meet for sex, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky.

Under federal guidelines, Mr Cobb must serve at least 9 years and 4 months before becoming eligible for parole.

I will admit it: I missed both of these stories when they were first published, and only spotted them on doing some research after a subsequent story in which Mr Cobb was sentenced in state court, to five years on basically the same charges. Sadly, it’s no additional time for this terrible teacher:

It said under the terms of Thursday’s plea agreement, Cobb agreed to a five-year sentence and will be ineligible for probation. The sentence will run concurrent with federal charges related to the same investigation.

Concurrent, huh? No wonder Mr Cobb agreed to the plea deal; it means no additional time behind bars for him.

So, what about the other pervert?

Former teacher pleads guilty in federal court

By Heather Oney | Friday, January 16, 2026

ASHLAND – A former Magoffin County Schools teacher pleaded guilty to a federal charge of online enticement on Monday.

In federal court on January 12, Jason W. Back, 43, of Salyersville, was rearraigned in the case before District Judge David L. Bunning, changing his plea to “guilty” in exchange for a plea agreement with the United States Attorney’s Office.

According to the plea agreement signed by Back, he admitted to knowingly persuading, inducing, enticing, or coercing an individual under the age of 18 to engage in unlawful sexual activity; he used a means or facility of interstate commerce to do so (i.e. a cell phone and/or online messaging); and that he knew the individual was under the age of 18.

The plea agreement states that from between March 6 through 9, 2023, in Magoffin County, Back persuaded the minor to engage in sexual activity, specifying that he was a high school teacher when he engaged in a text message conversation with a 17-year-old student, sending a series of sexually explicit messages using his iPhone, including messages outline a plan to meet for unprotected sex on March 9, 2023. According to the plea agreement, the prosecution has evidence that shows Back picked up the minor and that the two had sexual intercourse in Back’s car.

The plea agreement also indicated that, through a pattern of messages sent by Back, who was in a position of authority or special trust as a teacher, enticed the minor to engage in sexual intercourse, which would constitute a charge of third-degree rape.

The age of consent in Kentucky is 16, but this was still criminal because Mr Back held a position of authority over the student.

Mr Back is scheduled to be sentenced on Monday, May 4th, but the crime requires a minimum sentence of ten years, and can be up to life in prison.

These guys must be absolutely nuts. Magoffin County is a poor county, with a median household income of just $33,080 in 2024, but public school teachers in that county had a median salary of $42,043, certainly better than most people in that southeastern Kentucky county earned. These two guys aren’t exactly Brad Pitt in the looks department, but one would think that they could have managed to find a decent young lady who was an actual adult.

Instead, now they get to spend a decade behind bars, where life might be . . . unpleasant . . . for them. At the moment, I’m unable to generate much sympathy for them.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy!

Were I to write this the way my good friend Robert Stacy McCain would, I’d start by saying, “Say hello to Israel Flores Ortiz, and while you’re at it, say goodbye to him as well,” but, alas! if the Democrats in northern Virginia have their way, he’ll be back among decent people fairly soon. Young Mr Ortiz, just shy of his 19th birthday, is a junior at Fairfax High School who allegedly thinks it’s cool to sneak up behind the girls in his school and grope between their legs, but, just a few years removed from #MeToo, it seems that the Democrats don’t want this illegal immigrant shipped back to his native El Salvador, and would rather see him out on the streets, taking his particular kink to whatever other levels it goes.

From the New York Post:

‘Schoolboy’ charged with groping nine 11th grade classmates is exposed as adult illegal migrant released under Biden

By Adam Silverstein | Saturday, March 14, 2026 | 5:46 AM EDT

An 18-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador allegedly groped 12 female classmates at a Virginia high school — and was allowed into the US under the Biden administration.

Israel Flores Ortiz, who is almost 19 but a junior at Fairfax High School, has been charged with nine counts of assault and battery after he was accused of repeatedly creeping up behind the students in crowded hallways and grabbing them between the legs.

Ortiz, who entered the country illegally in 2024, was released under a federal government policy during the Biden administration, according to local outlet 7News.

I can understand how some of our good friends on the left have tremendous sympathy for the illegal immigrants who just came here for a better life, and have been working hard in our economy, trying to become good members of their communities. But surely such sympathies would not extend to someone who thinks he can molest teenaged girls, right?

Meanwhile, a Fairfax County judge denied Ortiz bail this week — even though prosecutors did not oppose his release — after reviewing surveillance video and determining the proposed conditions did not adequately protect the public.

ICE lodged a detainer seeking custody of Ortiz for deportation, but the agency said the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office failed to honor it.

“Unfortunately, sanctuary politicians like Gov. (Abigail) Spanberger are outlawing cooperation with ICE and choosing to RELEASE criminal illegal aliens from their jails back onto their communities to create more American victims,” an ICE spokesperson said.

“We are calling on Fairfax County to honor our detainer to ensure this violent criminal is removed from our country so he can never claim another victim again.”

Ortiz’s charges — misdemeanor assault and battery, not sexual assault — carry a maximum penalty of one year in jail.

I omitted much of the middle of the Post article, which details how there had been complaints about young Mr Ortiz for months, and how the school district tried to “diminish” what had happened. The article is not behind a paywall, so you can read it freely if you wish.

When I lived in Virginia, the Old Dominion was a reliably Republican state in presidential elections, but northern Virginia has seen such growth in the population of federal government employees that the Democratic presidential candidates can reliably count on Virginia’s electoral votes. Abigail Spanberger campaigned for Governor as a more moderate Democrat last year, but went hard left once she won.

Fairfax County borders Loudoun County, about which we have written several times in the past. Loudoun County was where the public schools protected a boy who frequently dressed in skirts who raped one girl in the girls’ bathroom, quietly transferred him to another school, where he did the same thing. The story only came to public knowledge when the victim’s father was demanding answers from the school board, and then dragged to the floor and arrested. It was all a big right-wing myth, the credentialed media told us:

The media’s defense of transgenderism fell apart quickly when the rapist was found guilty.

And now, here they go again, defending an (alleged) sexual assailant, throwing women and teenaged  girls under the Woke Bus, all to defend criminals, criminals! because it somehow goes against conservative policies, opposition to ‘transgenderism’ then and the enforcement of our immigration laws now. Thankfully, young Mr Ortiz hasn’t gone as far as rape, but who can know to what crimes he will graduate if he isn’t seriously punished for what he’s done and is then released back into unsuspecting communities?

Are the Democrats so adamantly opposed to President Trump that they’d rather let a predator loose than eventually deport a criminal?

I’ve reused my frequent title, “You in a heap o’ trouble, boy!” — this is the 51st time I’ve used it — for this article, but the fact is that the left do not want to see young Mr Ortiz in too much trouble, all because they hate Donald Trump so much. And if Mr Ortiz gets a slap on the wrist, and then released, what will they say if his sexual fetishes and assaults become more serious?

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Sometimes deportation is not enough Sometimes you have to lock them up for years, and then kick their sorry asses out!

Thanks to lax border enforcement under Democratic administrations, deportation of illegal aliens simply means that they have to put forth a little more effort to sneak back into the United States. From our nation’s second-oldest continuously published daily newspaper:

Twice-deported DUI driver who got off easy after killing 2 California teens gets sent back to slammer

By Nina Joudeh | Monday, January 26, 2026 | 5:19 PM EST

A twice-deported Mexican national who was let off easy for killing two California teenagers in a drunken crash — sparking widespread outrage — has been sentenced to prison for being in the country illegally.

Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano walked free last year after serving three-and-a-half years of a 10-year sentence for causing the deaths of Anya Varfolomeev and Nicholay Osokin on Interstate 405 in Seal Beach in November 2021.

He was released in July and immediately taken back into custody by federal officials, according to reports.

On Friday, US District Judge John Holcomb sentenced Ortega-Anguiano to three years and 10 months in federal prison for illegal re-entry into the US. . . . .

Ortega-Anguiano had already been sent back to Mexico twice and returned when, intoxicated and without a valid driver’s license, he collided with the 2000 Honda driven by Varfolomeev and Osokin just before midnight in Orange County on November 13, 2021.

So, Mr Ortega-Anguiano had sneaked in once, gotten caught and deported, then sneaked in again, got caught and deported, and now sneaked in a third time, and only got caught again because he killed two people while driving drunk. Clearly simply being deported had no deterrent impact on him.

There is something that could prove more of a deterrent, from The Mercury News:

In 2022, while Ortega-Anguiano was in state prison for the OC vehicular manslaughter conviction, federal prosecutors during the Biden administration had obtained an indictment charging Ortega-Anguiano with illegally being in the United States after being previously deported.

That indictment remained in effect as he was released from state prison, allowed federal law enforcement to take him into custody and held a maximum potential sentence of 20 years in federal prison.

Mr Ortega-Anguiano had already received a sweetheart deal, pleading guilty to gross vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence instead of second-degree murder. Now he’s got 3½ years in federal prison, where he could have been locked up for two decades. He’ll be deported after his 3½ years, after President Trump has completed his final term, and, if a Democrat is in the White House, he’ll try to sneak back in again.

Although he was born in Mexico and spent the first several years of his life there, Ortega-Anguiano said he was raised in the United States and is “American at heart.”

I would like to say that driving while drunk means that he’s not really an “American at heart,” but we have had too many real Americans do the same thing. But however he feels about it in his heart, we don’t want or need his sorry ass in our country.

We want and need good immigrants, immigrants who will work hard and be a credit to their families and their communities. Mr Ortega-Anguiano certainly doesn’t fit that description.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! Bad causes attract bad people

I have said, more than once, that a facial tattoo means automatically guilty. It also makes the person automatically stupid, because a facial tattoo makes a suspect instantly recognizable.

Nick Sortor claimed to have been the one who captured the theft on tape, including an image of 33‑year‑old Raul Gutierrez, along with the license plate of the getaway vehicle. Mr Gutierrez is currently a guest of the federal government, at least until some Obama-appointed, America-hating crackpot judge like James Boasberg orders him released.

Latin Kings Gang Member Arrested For Stealing FBI Weapons

by Billal Rahman | Friday, January 16, 2026 | 12:01 PM EST

An alleged Latin Kings street gang member was arrested Thursday after federal authorities said he stole equipment, including body armor and weaponry, from a vandalized FBI vehicle in Minneapolis. . . .

The Department of Homeland Security said in a post on X that it had “caught one of the individuals that was part of destroying the FBI vehicles [and] he will now be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. His life has changed forever due to his foolishness. Don’t be like him.” . . .

Multiple FBI vehicles had been vandalized and broken into during the protests, and federal property was taken from inside some of the vehicles, according to an FBI public notice seeking information on the incidents.

Fox News reported that 33‑year‑old Raul Gutierrez was arrested on January 15 in a joint operation involving the Department of Justice and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).

“The suspect is a member of the Latin Kings gang with a known violent criminal history,” FBI Director Kash Patel wrote in a post on X.

If Mr Gutierrez is a known gang member with a violent criminal history, the obvious question is: why wasn’t he already behind bars?

Good causes attract good people, while bad causes attract bad people, and protesting the enforcement of our immigration laws, our forty-year-old immigration laws is a bad cause; just the people that cause has attracted shows us that the cause itself is bad. Minnesota’s and Minneapolis’ response to legitimate immigration law enforcement fostered an attitude that the police weren’t going to do anything, which may have inspired Mr Gutierrez and his fellow Latin Kings gangbangers to make their raid on the FBI’s vehicles.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy!

Adrian Gonzales, mugshot by Uvalde County, Texas, Sheriff’s Office, and is a public record.

No, Adrian Gonzales, pictured to the right, is not your typical criminal. Rather, he was the police officer stationed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde County, Texas, who channeled Scot Peterson, the coward of Broward, and chose not to confront the shooter who killed 19 students and two teachers during the shootings.

Trial begins for former Uvalde officer charged in Robb Elementary shooting response

Adrian Gonzales faces multiple counts of endangerment, abandonment of a child.

By Peter Charalambous, Josh Margolin, Jenny Wagnon Courts, and Jim Scholz | Monday, January 5, 2026 | 5:12 AM EST

Nearly four years after a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers in a Texas elementary school, a jury is set to decide whether a police officer should be held criminally responsible in connection with one of the worst school shootings in American history.

Jury selection begins Monday in the trial of former Uvalde school police officer Adrian Gonzales, charged with allegedly placing more than two dozen children in “imminent danger” by failing to respond to the crisis as it unfolded.

Perhaps Mr Gonzalves is not in as big a heap o’ trouble as the headline suggests, given that Mr Peterson was acquitted.

Prosecutors allege that Gonzales, one of the first of nearly 400 officers to respond to the rampage, failed to engage the shooter despite knowing his location, having time to respond and being trained to handle active shooters. It ultimately took 77 minutes for law enforcement to mount a counter-assault that would kill the gunman.

Ever since the shooting tore apart Uvalde on May 24, 2022, families of the victims have been seeking accountability and answers. Many have argued their children might have been saved had police confronted the gunman more quickly.

The trial, being staged 200 miles from Uvalde in Corpus Christi, marks an exceedingly rare instance of prosecutors seeking to convict a member of law enforcement for a response to a school shooting.

Prosecutors in June 2024 charged both Gonzales and Uvalde schools Police Chief Pete Arredondo — the on-site commander on the day of the shooting — with multiple counts of endangerment and abandonment of a child.

I will state for the record that I have never been put in the position of having to charge into a situation with an armed killer. Yeah, we’d all like to think that we’d be brave enough to take action, but until you actually face the bullets, face the gunfire, knowing that there is a chance that you would be killed, you can’t actually know how you would react.

Our entire history is full of men who did bravely charge into the face of gunfire. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz said of the Marines who fought on Iwo Jima, “Uncommon valor was a common virtue,” and 6,821 Americans died in that battle, along with another 19,217 wounded. Out of 73,000 American troops — and the D-Day landings included British, Canadian, and French troops as well — who hit the beaches in Normandy on D-Day, 2,501 were killed, and more than 5,000 were wounded. These men, trained to run into the fire, their courage doubtlessly bolstered by the courage of the men beside them, did their duty. In our bloodiest war, the War Between the States, somewhere between 620,000 and possibly as high as 850,000 men went bravely toward their deaths, at a time in which the intense military training of American soldiers, sailors, and Marines during World War II was mostly non-existent.

American courage has not been in scarce supply, overall, but it was a scarce quantity at Uvalde. Many of the Americans who hit the beaches were draftees, many of the 58,200 Americans whose lives were wasted in Vietnam, were conscripts[1]Full disclosure: I was draft eligible in 1972, but by then American involvement in Vietnam was ending. With a high lottery number, and the great reduction of American involvement in that waste case … Continue reading, but every law enforcement officer who arrived on the scene in Uvalde was a volunteer, was a man who had personally committed himself to running toward the fire.

They were trained to do just that:

Two months before a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the school district’s then-police chief was required to attend a training about how to respond to an active shooter, which instructed in no uncertain terms that an “officer’s first priority is to move in and confront the attacker.”

When Pete Arredondo, the police chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District at the time of the May 2022 shooting, was confronted with precisely the situation his training should have prepared him for, he did the opposite of what the training instructed would have saved lives, according to a newly released trove of documents from the Uvalde school district.

“Time is the number one enemy during active shooter response,” a lesson plan for the training said. “The best hope that innocent victims have is that officers immediately move into action to isolate, distract, or neutralize the threat, even if that means one officer acting alone.”

Officers Arredondo and Gonzales were trained to run toward the fire, and did not. Now they are facing charges over their inactions that sad day. There’s some hesitancy on my part to write about men who chose not to do their duty, in a potentially lethal situation, because I have not personally been tested in such a way, and who knows? Perhaps I would have ducked and run for cover had I been there.

But I was not there, and have taken no training or commitment to run toward the fire. These trials may establish just what the actual commitment of those who do so commit really means.

References

References
↑1 Full disclosure: I was draft eligible in 1972, but by then American involvement in Vietnam was ending. With a high lottery number, and the great reduction of American involvement in that waste case of a war, I was not called, and did not volunteer.
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Deonte Demarcus Carter ain’t in too big a heap o’ trouble

Sadly, my usual title for these articles, “You in a heap o’ trouble, boy!” doesn’t really apply to Deonte Demarcus Carter, because he’s in far less trouble than he should be for killing two men.

Mother says she was failed by KY courts after man gets 10 years in 2 killings

Deonte Demarcus Carter, mugshot via Kentucky Online Offenders Lookup, and is a public record.

By Taylor Six | December 26, 2025 5:00 AMCristina Sandusky feels failed by the Fayette County justice system.

Deonte Demarcus Carter was sentenced this month to 10 years in prison for his role in a pair of fatal Lexington shootings that happened 21 days apart. One of those killed her son.

No, of course what my best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal didn’t publish the killer’s mugshot, but it was easy enough for me to look it up. While the McClatchy Mugshot Policy describes the non-publication of mugshots as meant to protect those accused but not yet convicted of a crime, something which would not apply to Mr Carter, but also frets about “disproportionately harm(ing) people of color.”

Carter pleaded to lesser charges of manslaughter in both cases, and Judge Julie Muth Goodman sentenced him to a total of 15 years: two 10-year sentences, to be served simultaneously, for the killings, and five years for criminal facilitation to robbery.

The charges were reduced as part of a plea negotiations made with prosecutors, who felt they didn’t have enough evidence to convict Carter of murder.

In a Dec. 9 interview with the Herald-Leader, Sandusky described different parts of her experience with legal officials as “dismissive,” “disheartening” and “disrespectful.”

“They didn’t do anything for my son,” she said of Fayette County prosecutors. “Just got to have a win under their belt.”

Sadly, if Cristina Sandusky feels failed by the justice system, she would feel even more failed if she chose to use the Kentucky Online Offender Lookup system, to see what Mr Carter is facing. According to the system, Mr Carter’s maximum date of release is December 21, 2036, eleven years from now. However, his potential “good behavior” release date is March 21, 2033, 7¼ years from now, and he will be eligible for parole as early as June 21, 2030, in just 4½ years from now, when he will be just 32 or 33.

From the moment Carter’s case was assigned to Judge Goodman, Sandusky said she was told the judge was not friendly to victims’ families.

Goodman has been criticized, including by Kentucky’s attorney general, for previous rulings deemed lenient. But Sandusky maintained faith the judge would do the right thing.

For the mother, that meant sentencing Carter to the maximum sentence of 20 years — 10 years apiece for the killings, plus some additional time for the robbery charge.

But Sandusky instead described Goodman’s comments in the courtroom as “more sympathetic to the defense.”

“She was nasty and dismissive,” Sandusky said. “She didn’t look at me one time.”

I would suspect that Her Honor was at least slightly ashamed of what she was about to do, but to be ashamed requires a sense of shame, and too-lenient judges have none.

Goodman lauded Carter and said the justice system had failed him throughout his youth, Sandusky recalled.

The judge “lauded” Mr Carter, a man who killed two people? “(T)he justice system had failed him throughout his youth”? How does that excuse him murdering two people?

Judge Julie Muth Goodman, from 2022 Kentucky Voter Guide.

So, who is Judge Julie Muth Goodman? The 2022 Kentucky Voter Guide gave the Her Honor the opportunity to post a campaign biography, as well as answer a couple of questions:

What do you see as your primary responsibilities and duties if elected to this office?

My primary responsibilities are to enforce our laws and by doing so make sure our community is the safest and fairest possible.

I will admit to not seeing how a sentence which could have a two-time murderer to possibly be back on the streets in just 4½ years, still at a young age, as “mak(ing) sure our community is the safest and fairest possible.”

What are your views on whether the court, as a whole, deals effectively with racial bias? What could improve that?

Unfortunately I do not believe that the Court system or our community always effectively addresses racial bias. I have effectively worked with the Administrative Office of the Courts to mandate that the county attorney’s diversion program which often denied people of color the opportunity to participate because the office inappropriately used Juvenile records which are adjudications and confidential to deny people of color access to the program and to also require that the program use a sliding scale so that all eligible people can afford to participate. By making these changes more people of color have been given the same access to the program as others.

Translation: she’s going to give defendants “of color” a real break, or at least she certainly did for Mr Carter. Even with the Alford plea, she could have sentenced him to 25 years in the state penitentiary — two consecutive ten-year sentences for manslaughter plus five years for the robbery — but chose to give him an extreme break. It should be noted that both of the men Mr Carter killed were black; do black lives not really matter to Judge Goodman?

Of course, Kobby Martin and Devon Sandusky are both stone-cold graveyard dead, pushing up daisies for four years now, so what’s the point of locking up their killer for 25 years; it won’t bring Messrs Martin and Sandusky back to life, will it? Just because Mr Carter is a ‘persistent felon,’ as described under Kentucky law, but not prosecuted this time as part of the plea deal, doesn’t mean that he won’t straighten up and fly right after this prison term, does it? And if Mr Carter kills someone else after he gets out of prison, whenever that is, it won’t be Judge Goodman’s fault in the slightest, will it?

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! Not a particularly Merry Christmas for yet another pervert

Richard Adamsky, 66, mugshot via Bucks County sheriff.

Say hello to Richard Adamsky, 66, a former sports coach and teacher at Nativity of Our Lord Catholic School in Warminster, Pennsylvania. You can also say goodbye to him as well, as he’s about to spend at least five years in prison.

Longtime teacher at Catholic school in Bucks County admits to child porn charges

Adamsky, 66, taught seventh and eighth grades and also served as a sports coach at Nativity of Our Lord Catholic School in Warminster. He had worked at the school for 38 years.

by Robert Moran | Monday, December 22, 2025 | 7:24 PM EST

A former longtime teacher at a Catholic grade school in Bucks County pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in Philadelphia to receiving and possessing child pornography, U.S. Attorney David Metcalf said.

Richard Adamsky, 66, taught seventh and eighth grades and also served as a sports coach at Nativity of Our Lord Catholic School in Warminster. He had worked at the school for 38 years.

No, of course The Philadelphia Inquirer didn’t include Mr Adamsky’s mugshot, but it is widely available elsewhere.

His sentencing is set for April 14.

Christopher J. Serpico, a lawyer representing Adamsky, said his client faces a mandatory minimum of five years in prison for downloading child pornography.

There’s more at the original. Mr Adamsky faces a maximum sentence of 40 years. Federal prisoners must serve a minimum of 85% of their sentences before becoming eligible for parole, which means he could not possibly get out of prison in less than four years and three months. The Inquirer story did not tell us whether Mr Adamsky was taken immediately to prison.

Mr Serpico is attempting to put together mitigating evidence to keep his client’s sentence as close as possible to the mandatory minimum, and stated that there was no evidence that Mr Adamsky actually abused any children. At least one of the images found in his home included the sexual abuse of a prepubescent child.

I suspect that Mr Adamsky, to use a line by Leroy Jethro Gibbs on NCIS, “will not do well in prison.”