>Dough
>Border Patrol agents who killed gunman at Texas school became frustrated and acted on their own initiative after being told to wait by local police
well that is interesting
>https://twitter.com/dcexaminer/status/1530355108223102977
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/lets-get-this-done-border-agents-ignored-orders-to-stop-texas-school-killer-hiding-in-closet
'Let’s get this done': Border agents took matters into their own hands to stop Texas school killer hiding in closet
Federal agents ignored orders from local police and went after the shooter who killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday, according to reports Friday.
Border Patrol agents took matters into their own hands after waiting roughly 30 minutes to lead a "stack" formation of officers inside Robb Elementary School, federal law enforcement officials told NBC News.
A member of BORTAC, or the Border Patrol Tactical Unit, has been credited with fatally shooting the gunman, identified as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, who had barricaded himself in a classroom.
An off-duty BORTAC agent was the first to arrive. The agent “basically said let’s get this done" and began planning a way into the room, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official told the Washington Post. More BORTAC agents arrived around 15 minutes later, and within minutes of getting a key to unlock the door, a variety of law enforcement officers followed a leading BORTAC agent holding a ballistic shield provided by a U.S. marshal.
The same source said the shooter was hiding in a closet at the time and burst out firing at the officials, who returned fire and killed Ramos. One BORTAC agent received minor injuries after his head was grazed by a bullet and his foot struck by shrapnel.
Nineteen children and two teachers were killed. The report noted that agents saw children piled up and huddled together around the room, some of them alive and others dead.
The gunman had at least 15 bullet holes in him after being shot by BORTAC agents and local law enforcement, senior U.S. law enforcement officials told NBC News.
Peter Arredondo, the chief of police for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, has been identified as the official who stopped at least 19 officers from barging into the school for up to an hour to stop the shooter. Steven McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Friday that the delay, based on the view that there was not an active threat, was a "wrong decision."
A CNN reporter shared details about efforts to try and talk with Arredondo, who spoke at a press conference Tuesday, as more information comes to light about just how long it took law enforcement to stop the rampage as desperate parents shouted at officers outside the school to go in and stop Ramos.
"We’ve actually been trying. We’ve been reaching out to him. We’ve been to his home to try and get some response from him. I think this is an important part of this investigation now. His thinking of these decisions that he made — clearly wrong decisions that everyone now agrees and is saying so. But why did he make these decisions and … who is going to hold him accountable? That still remains to be seen," Shimon Prokupecz, a CNN crime and justice correspondent, reported on air Friday evening.
Uvalde is a town of roughly 16,000 people, situated between San Antonio and Del Rio, and is just dozens of miles away from the U.S.-Mexico border.
Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) said Friday he was "misled" about the police response to the shooting, which remains under investigation, and is "livid" about receiving inaccurate information. "My expectation is that the law enforcement leaders that are leading the investigations, which includes the Texas Rangers and the FBI, they get to the bottom of every fact with absolute certainty," Abbott said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/federal-agents-entered-uvalde-school-kill-gunman-local-police-initiall-rcna30941
Federal agents entered Uvalde school to kill gunman despite local police initially asking them to wait
Two senior federal law enforcement officials said the federal agents decided after about 30 minutes not to wait any longer and entered the school to find gunman Salvador Ramos.
Federal agents who went to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday to confront a gunman who killed 19 children were told by local police to wait and not enter the school — and then decided after about half an hour to ignore that initial guidance and find the shooter, say two senior federal law enforcement officials.
According to the officials, agents from BORTAC, the Customs and Border Protection tactical unit, and ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) arrived on the scene between noon and 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday. Local law enforcement asked them to wait, and then instructed HSI agents to help pull children out of the windows.
The BORTAC team, armed with tactical gear, at first did not move toward the gunman. After approximately 30 minutes passed, however, the federal agents opted of their own volition to lead the “stack” of officers inside the school and take down the shooter.
Steven McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Friday that Peter Arredondo, the chief of police for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, had stopped at least 19 officers from breaking into the school as the gunman opened fire for at least an hour.
Arredondo believed that the shooter had barricaded himself and that the children were not under an active threat, said McCraw at a news conference.
“From the benefit of hindsight where I’m sitting now, of course, it was not the right decision. It was a wrong decision. Period. There was no excuse for that,” McCraw said. “There were plenty of officers to do what needed to be done, with one exception, is that the incident commander inside believed he needed more equipment and more officers to do a tactical breach at that time.”
According to McCraw, Arredondo believed there was no active threat, so instead of sending officers in, he spent time finding keys that would let him into the school. During this time, however, Ramos had unencumbered access to carry out the attack. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed.
Arredondo was not present among law enforcement officials standing with McCraw on Friday, and McCraw did not explicitly name him.
Arredondo did not immediately return a request for comment by NBC News.
Two teachers and 19 students, many of them fourth graders, were killed inside a single classroom during Tuesday’s massacre.
McCraw said Friday that two students inside the school dialed 911 multiple times during the shooting and begged authorities for help. The calls began at 12:03 p.m. and lasted through most of the hour.
At 12:47 p.m., one of the students called a 911 operator and said “please send the police now.”
Both students survived, McCraw said.
>When does a bird sing?
>New Yorkers: You can now choose “X” as a gender marker on your driver license.
Are we willing to publish the blueprints for an arsenal of plagues?
https://buffalonews.com/news/local/authorities-investigating-if-retired-federal-agent-knew-of-buffalo-mass-shooting-plans-in-advance/article_bd408f18-dd39-11ec-be53-df8fdd095d6f.html
Authorities investigating if retired federal agent knew of Buffalo mass shooting plans in advance
Law enforcement officers are investigating whether a retired federal agent had about 30 minutes advance notice of a white supremacist's plans to murder Black people at a Buffalo supermarket, two law enforcement officials told The Buffalo News.
Authorities believe the former agent – believed to be from Texas – was one of at least six individuals who regularly communicated with accused gunman Payton Gendron in an online chat room where racist hatred was discussed, the two officials said.
The two law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the investigation stated these individuals were invited by Gendron to read about his mass shooting plans and the target location about 30 minutes before Gendron killed 10 people at Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue on May 14.
The News could not determine if the retired agent accepted the invitation.
https://twitter.com/ElectionWiz/status/1530316237217181696
"If the United States has $40 billion dollars to send to Ukraine, we should be able to do whatever it takes to keep our children safe at home."
Texas DPS announces that a teacher at Robb Elementary School propped a door open at the school before the mass shooting. The school resource officer drove to campus after hearing 911 call, inadvertently drove right by the shooter, who was kneeling down by car.
https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-texas-officer-gives-timeline-of-school-shooting-admits-mistakes-were-made
BREAKING: Texas officer gives timeline of school shooting, admits mistakes were made
McCraw gave a timeline of events, one that had been lacking in the hours and days after the shooting when questions arose as to why officers did not immediately pursue the shooter into the school.
https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1529507761205174274
Klaus Schwab to Pfizer's CEO Bourla: "We were both targets of the anti-vaccine movements and conspiracy people."
>These motherfukers were there the WHOLE TIME.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_of_Trevor_Reed
https://ru.usembassy.gov/statement-by-ambassador-john-j-sullivan-on-conviction-of-u-s-citizen-trevor-reed/
Iranian helicopters boarded two ships days after U.S. ordered confiscation of Iranian oil cargo near Greece.
https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1530246242307035136
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/27/world/middleeast/iran-drone-attack.html
Sensitive Iranian Military Site Was Targeted in Attack
A drone exploded at a structure in the Parchin military technology complex on Wednesday. The attack fit a pattern of past Israeli strikes on Iran.
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard seized two Greek oil tankers Friday in helicopter-launched raids in the Persian Gulf, officials said. The action appeared to be retaliation for Athens' assistance in the U.S. seizure of crude oil from an Iranian-flagged tanker this week in the Mediterranean Sea over violating Washington's crushing sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
The raid marks the first major incident at sea in months as tensions remain high between Iran and the West over its tattered nuclear deal with world powers. As Tehran enriches more uranium, closer to weapons-grade levels than ever before, worries mount that negotiators won't find a way back to the accord — raising the risk of a wider war.
The Guard issued a statement announcing the seizures, accusing the tankers of unspecified violations.
Greece's Foreign Ministry said it made a strong demarche to the Iranian ambassador in Athens over the “violent taking over of two Greek-flagged ships” in the Persian Gulf. “These acts effectively amount to acts of piracy,” a ministry statement said.
The ministry called for the immediate release of the vessels and their crews, and said these acts would have “particularly negative consequences” in bilateral relations and in Iran’s relations with the European Union, of which Greece is a member.
The ministry's statement said that earlier Friday, an Iranian helicopter landed on the Greek-flagged Delta Poseidon in international waters, some 22 nautical miles off the coast of Iran.
“Armed men then took the crew captive,” it said, adding that two Greek nationals were among the crew.
“A similar incident has been reported on another Greek-flagged vessel, that was carrying seven Greek citizens, close to the coast of Iran,” the ministry said.
A Greek official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the attack with a journalist, identified the second ship as the Prudent Warrior. Its manager, Polembros Shipping in Greece, earlier said the company was “cooperating with the authorities and making every possible effort to address the situation effectively.”
Greek officials did not identify the nationalities of the other crew onboard the vessels.
Both vessels had come from Iraq's Basra oil terminal, likely loaded with crude, according to tracking data from MarineTraffic.com.
A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said it appeared the two ships had come close to — but not into — Iranian territorial waters Friday. After the hijacking, they drifted into Iranian waters. The ships also had turned off their tracking devices, another red flag, the official said. However, neither had issued a mayday or a call for help, the official said.
Iran had threatened to take “punitive action” earlier Friday over Athens being involved in the U.S. seizure of an Iranian oil tanker in Greek waters.
Nour News, a website close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, made the threat just as shipping news site Lloyd's List said it believed two Greek tankers had been seized in the Persian Gulf. Quoting anonymous industry sources, Lloyd's reported that the two ships had been boarded after Iranian military helicopters approached them on Friday afternoon.
The seizures came after Greece helped the U.S. seize crude oil aboard an Iranian-flagged tanker this week.
A Greek official said Thursday the move followed a “judicial intervention by U.S. authorities concerning the ship’s cargo.” The oil was “to be handed over” off the port of Karystos on the Aegean Sea island of Evia.
The official, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss the case, did not provide further details. A Justice Department spokesman in Washington and the U.S. Embassy in Athens declined to comment Thursday.
Iran’s seizure on Friday was the latest in a string of hijackings and explosions to roil a region that includes the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all traded oil passes.
The U.S. Navy blamed Iran for a series of limpet mine attacks on vessels that damaged tankers in 2019, as well as for a fatal drone attack on an Israeli-linked oil tanker that killed two European crew members in 2021.
Iranian hijackers also stormed and briefly captured a Panama-flagged asphalt tanker off the United Arab Emirates last year, as well as briefly seizing and holding a Vietnamese tanker in November.
Tehran denies carrying out the attacks, but a wider shadow war between Iran and the West has played out in the region’s volatile waters. Meanwhile, the Guard is building a massive new support ship near the strategic Strait of Hormuz as it tries to expand its naval presence in waters vital to international energy supplies and beyond, according to satellite photos obtained by The Associated Press.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/police-woman-killed-man-who-fired-rifle-into-party-crowd/2022/05/26/946221c2-dd27-11ec-bc35-a91d0a94923b_story.html
Police: Woman killed man who fired rifle into party crowd
A woman in West Virginia fatally shot a man who began firing an AR-15-style rifle into a crowd of people that had gathered for a party, authorities said.
Dennis Butler, 37, was killed Wednesday night after he pulled out the rifle and began shooting at dozens of people attending the birthday-graduation party outside an apartment complex in the city of Charleston, police said in a statement.
The woman, who was attending the party, drew a pistol and fired, killing Butler, the statement said. No one at the party was injured.
“Instead of running from the threat, she engaged with the threat and saved several lives last night,” Chief of Detectives Tony Hazelett told news outlets Thursday.
Butler was at the apartment complex earlier in the evening in a vehicle and had been warned to slow down because children were playing, police said. They said he left, but returned later, parked in front of the complex and began firing.
After fatally shooting Butler, the woman waited along with several witnesses for police to arrive, and all have cooperated with the investigation, authorities said.
Hazelett said no charges would be filed against the woman.
https://wchstv.com/news/local/victim-hospitalized-in-charleston-shooting
Police: Woman with pistol killed man who shot at crowd of people in Charleston
Police said a woman who was lawfully carrying a pistol shot and killed a man who began shooting at a crowd of people Wednesday night in Charleston.
Dennis Butler was killed after allegedly shooting at dozens of people attending a graduation party Wednesday near the Vista View Apartment complex. No injuries were reported from those at the party.
Investigators said Butler was warned about speeding in the area with children present before he left. He later returned with an AR-15-style firearm and began firing into the crowd before he was shot and killed.
“Instead of running from the threat, she engaged with the threat and saved several lives last night,” Charleston Police Department Chief of Detectives Tony Hazelett said.
Officers did not go into detail, but said Butler did have an extensive criminal history.
Hazelett said no charges will be filed against the woman.