Philadelphia gas station owner Neil Patel hired security guards with AR-15s to deal with all the “nonsense, drug trafficking, hanging around, [and] gangs” endangering his employees.
Patel, who has a Karco gas station, hired “Pennsylvania S.I.T.E Agents clad with Kevlar vest and AR-15s or shotguns” to keep his employees safe, FOX 29 reports.
“They are forcing us to hire the security, high-level security, state level. We are tired of this nonsense: robbery, drug trafficking, hanging around, gangs,” Patel said.
The guards he hired wear Kevlar vests and train regularly, maintaining firearm proficiency.
Prior to hiring the guards, Patel’s car was vandalized and an ATM was stolen from his gas station. But FOX News notes Patel’s observation that crimes–including loitering–ended once he hired security.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
————————————————————————————– If the state won’t do its job than somebody is going to have to pick up the slack. I really think that we are going see a LOT more of this coming down the pike! Grumpy
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, together with 17 other state attorneys general, are asking shipping companies UPS and FedEx to explain their newly implemented policies to track and record Americans’ firearms purchases and disclose whether these policies have been coordinated with the Biden administration.
In letters sent on Nov. 29 to FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam and UPS CEO Carol B. Tomé, Knudsen and his co-signers wrote that the shipping companies’ policies “allow your company to track firearm sales with unprecedented specificity and bypass warrant requirements to share that information with federal agencies.”
“What both of these companies are saying is that they’re doing this so they can better cooperate with law enforcement,” Knudsen told The Epoch Times. “That’s all fine and well, until you find out that that’s a violation of federal law.”
Based on reports from gun stores, Knudsen’s letter states, FedEx and UPS are now requiring federal firearms license holders to provide details of each shipment to the shipping companies, including the contents and recipient, allowing them “to create a database of American gun purchasers and determine exactly what items they purchased.
Citing the new policies, the letter states: “Perhaps most concerning, your policies allegedly allow FedEx [and UPS] to ‘comply with … requests from applicable law enforcement or other governmental authorities’ even when those requests are ‘inconsistent or contrary to any applicable law, rule, regulation, or order.’ In doing so you—perhaps inadvertently—give federal agencies a workaround to federal law, which has long prevented federal agencies from using gun sales to create gun registries.”
“The ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] is hoping they’re not going to have a warrant problem,” Knudsen said. “They could just go get this information from UPS and FedEx.”
FedEx and UPS’s new gun-tracking policies follow efforts by Visa, Mastercard, and American Express to also monitor purchases from gun stores, with the intention of handing that information over to federal law enforcement. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits the federal government from conducting searches of U.S. citizens without a warrant and “probable cause” that a crime was committed.
Increasingly, however, banks, credit card companies, and now shipping companies are conducting those searches on the government’s behalf.
The letter demands that the shipping companies respond within 30 days, clarifying their policies and explaining whether or not they acted in coordination with the ATF or any other government agency. It also asks them to clarify a reported “gag order” under which they directed gun shops not to disclose the terms of this policy to the public.
Possible Collusion?
The two letters to UPS and FedEx were virtually identical because the policies the companies implemented appear to be strikingly similar, raising the additional issue of possible collusion between companies that hold an oligopolistic position in shipping. Collusion in restraint of trade has long been illegal under U.S. antitrust laws, including the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
“It’s either collusion, they’re working together, or what I suspect is, it’s probably originating out of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, or the Biden administration,” Knudsen said. His letter recommends that the shipping companies “consider taking actions to limit potential liability moving forward, including the immediate cessation of any existing warrantless information sharing with federal agencies about gun shipments.”
If the shipping companies don’t answer his questions within 30 days, Knudsen said, “I’ll probably start with an actual formal civil investigative demand where we’ll ask for some documentation. That’s short of a subpoena and an actual lawsuit, but, ultimately, if they don’t want to cooperate, a lawsuit is where we’re going to end up.”
In response to the letter, FedEx told The Epoch Times in a statement that “FedEx is aware of the letter from the state attorneys general. We are committed to the lawful and safe movement of regulated items through our network.”
UPS responded that it “has not bypassed any laws to provide customer information to the Biden administration or federal agencies related to the shipment of firearms. UPS will only provide information about our customers or shipments when required to do so by law, such as in response to a subpoena or a warrant.”
UPS “will respond to the letter sent by several state attorneys general to answer their questions and clarify misinformation. UPS will continue to abide by all applicable laws in providing service for firearm shipments,” it stated.
“The policies set forth by FedEx and UPS are troubling, to say the least,” Mark Oliva, public affairs director of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told The Epoch Times. “They carry with them serious risk of privacy concerns for law-abiding gun owners, and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is correct to be wary of how this information is to be used.
“We know that pressure was applied to these common carriers by antigun Democratic senators and the result was these new policies. It does seem rather coincidental that the Biden administration and certain elected officials that have been frustrated in instituting extreme gun control measures are suddenly and curiously seeing big businesses doing exactly what they are not allowed to do by law.”
Knudsen was asked why the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which is tasked with protecting consumers against corporate collusion, is taking no action against what appears to be a coordinated effort by the shipping companies to target the firearms industry.
“I think there’s probably pressure from the White House to not do that, which is why you’re seeing AGs in states like Montana that have joined me to push back on this. If the federal government isn’t going to do their job, we’ll step in and make them do it.”
He said that gun shops are being targeted not only by credit card and shipping companies but by insurers as well.
“I’m aware of a number of FFL brick-and-mortar gun shops, and also some retailers that are just middlemen in Montana, that have been denied property-casualty insurance on their business property simply because they’re in the firearms industry.”
Kevin Stocklin is a writer, film producer, and former investment banker. He wrote and produced “We All Fall Down: The American Mortgage Crisis,” a 2008 documentary on the collapse of the U.S. mortgage finance system.
The U.S. Capitol Police alerted its rank-and-file this month that FBI lab testing of long-approved body armor has uncovered a previously unknown flaw that can subject female officers to deadly ricochets from bullets.
The advisory, obtained by Just the News, revealed that the FBI first detected the problem, known as the “skip effect,” when it “departed from legacy testing protocols in a desire to test body armor in an ‘as worn’ condition, and to account for various body shapes and sizes.”
“The testing revealed that when a projectile strikes the female body armor at an extreme angle on the upper chest area, the projectile does not penetrate the body armor, but rather, skips or deflects off the surface of the armor into the neck region,” the advisory explained. “Because of the angle at which female body armor lays when worn, projectiles may skip off the top center of the female armor and travel to the area of the jugular notch” in the neck where the jugular vein passes.
The advisory said the current body armor that had been utilized by the FBI, Capitol Police and other law enforcement had been certified by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) for years, but the FBI decided to create new testing to take into effect among other things the curvature of women’s bodies on potential ricochet.
After the FBI tests unmasked the “skip effect,” Capitol Police sent its armor to the FBI Ballistic Research Facility and confirmed the same problem and has assembled a team of executives and union members to find a fix, the memo stated.
“The USCP is committed to maximizing officer safety,” the memo stated. “Therefore, although all Department body armor is certified by the NIJ, the Department is immediately undertaking steps to mitigate the risk outlined above for our female officers. To be clear, this is not an issue specific to USCP-issued body armor, or FBI body armor, but rather a newly discovered risk with all known commercial body armor. Body armor simply has not accounted for certain body shapes and ‘as worn’ conditions when being developed, tested, and certified.
EXCLUSIVE — U.S. air marshals are planning to stage an open rebellion against the Biden administration over a plan that would strip 99% of commercial flights from federal protection as people take to the skies during the busiest time of the year for air travel .
Dozens of federal air marshals have agreed to refuse a Biden administration order that they leave their assignments and go to the southern border , where they will drive, feed, and care for illegal immigrants due to a shortage of Border Patrol agents.
“The rank and file air marshals are going to refuse to deploy and risk termination,” said David Londo, president of the Air Marshal National Council, in a phone call with the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. “You’re almost going to have a mutiny of a federal agency, which is unheard of.”
The overseeing agency, the Transportation Security Administration, said in a statement provided after deadline that claims that air marshals are doing menial tasks were “entirely inaccurate and does not reflect the critical and professional law enforcement role these officers perform.”
The administration’s order would leave just 1-in-100 U.S. flights with federal agents on board, one-eighth of its normal coverage.
It is the first time amid the 20-month-long unresolved border crisis that federal employees have formally turned against President Joe Biden and his Senate-confirmed officials at the Department of Homeland Security . The air marshals are willing to risk everything for how the government is risking national security, Londo explained.
“Morale is so destroyed from this,” said Londo, whose organization serves as an association, not a union. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Air marshals would be risking their jobs as inflation rages and the United States potentially heads into a recession.
The air marshals, who are federal law enforcement agents within the Transportation Security Administration’s Federal Air Marshal Service, have been tasked with menial jobs at the border.
Just this week, air marshals pulled from planes and sent to the border were “heating up sandwiches,” driving immigrants in custody to the hospital and waiting inside for hours on hospital watch, and effectively babysitting adults who are already in confined spaces, Londo said.
“These highly skilled [air marshals] are being made to perform mainly non-law enforcement civilian humanitarian duties,” Londo wrote in the letter obtained first by the Washington Examiner.
In mid-2021, the Federal Air Marshal Service asked for volunteers willing to go to the southern border for 30 days and help process the growing number of illegal immigrants in custody. Earlier this month, the government changed course and announced that the deployments would become mandatory.
The air marshals fought the order but only got the length of the deployment dropped from 30 days to 21 days. DHS ordered a minimum of 150 more air marshals to the border on Dec. 7. At present, dozens plan to refuse and are preparing to be fired for taking the stand.
“Air marshals are deployed two to three nights a week. Now they’re taking them away, and their marriages are already on the rocks,” Londo said.
On Monday, the Federal Air Marshal Service’s Miami Field Office announced the deployments would now last indefinitely. Air marshals have already been sent to El Paso, Laredo, and McAllen, Texas; San Diego; and Tucson and Yuma, Arizona.
The council sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as well as the TSA and Federal Air Marshal Service on Monday, warning them that the order is self-defeating because it makes the skies less safe for people traveling during the busiest time of the year.
“According to the Federal Aviation Administration year to date there have been 2,178 reports of unruly passengers, 767 investigations initiated, and 517 enforcement actions taken. Not to mention the fact there has been two attempted attacks on our homeland since 9-11 during the holiday season,” the letter states. “Your policy has resulted in a complete loss of confidence in Secretary Mayorkas, FAM Director Stevenson, and Administrator Pekoske’s ability to lead DHS/TSA/FAMS.”
Londo pointed in his letter to recent violent passenger attacks midflight that involved weapons smuggled aboard the plane, as well as a cockpit breach on a Southwest Airlines flight last week.
The National Association of Police Organizations issued a statement in support of the air marshals and warned that they were already in a bad place before the deployments became mandatory.
“The Federal Air Marshal Service is understaffed and covering the fewest number of flights since before September 11, 2001,” said NAPO, a coalition of more than 1,000 police departments across the country. “We strongly question the decision by the Department of Homeland Security to divert much-needed aviation security to the southern border especially as we enter the busiest travel season of the year, particularly as a Federal emergency has not been declared at the border.”
Behind the scenes, the council is working with the DHS Office of Inspector General to launch a federal investigation into the Biden administration’s repurposing of air marshals.
Hondo accused TSA Administrator David Pekoske and Federal Air Marshal Service Director Tirrell Stevenson of “fraud, waste, and abuse of authority and violations of federal law” in a letter sent to DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari exclusively obtained by the Washington Examiner.
In the Nov. 18 letter, Hondo called on the inspector general to investigate the legality of the air marshal deployments. He wrote that the only exception to pulling air marshals from their jobs would be in the case of a declared national emergency, which has not been declared. Even if an emergency were declared, air marshals would only be permitted to assist other agencies with transportation-related matters.
The Biden administration has refused to call the record-high number of noncitizens being encountered at the border over the past 20 months a crisis. Border agents have encountered approximately 4 million people attempting to illegally enter the U.S. since Biden took office — more than the Obama administration’s eight years in office.
The TSA defended the operation in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner early Wednesday.
“Federal Air Marshals are performing law enforcement support to the mission at the southwest border,” according to a TSA spokesman. “The TSA Federal Air Marshal Service is a highly valued member of the DHS law enforcement team and has an ever-expanding role within DHS, working closely with other U.S. and international law enforcement agencies to safeguard the nation’s transportation systems.”
The bodies of four men retrieved from an Oklahoma river have now been identified. According to CNN, Mark Chastain, 32; Billy Chastain, 30; Mike Sparks, 32; and Alex Stevens, 29, were recovered on Oct. 14 from a river in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. Their remains were found shot and dismembered.
According to BuzzFeed News, Okmulgee Police Chief Joe Prentice held a press conference in which he stated that the men were last seen leaving Billy Chastain’s house around 8 p.m. on bicycles “pulling trailers.” The men, whom police described as close friends, might have been up to no good when they went missing on Oct. 9.
Based on a witness’s information provided to the police, the victims planned to commit “some type of criminal act” when they left the house. The witness told investigators that the men were planning to “‘hit a lick’ big enough for all of them,” Prentice said, BuzzFeed News reports.
“That is common terminology for engaging in some type of criminal behavior, but we do not know what they were planning or where they planned to do it,” he said, according to CNN.
Although police were unsure what the men were planning to do, investigators were able to trace their movements to a salvage yard and a local gas station. They traced the men by using data provided by an app on Mark Chastain’s wife’s phone. The men left the station and then visited a second scrapyard located south of Okmulgee, and Chastain’s phone then turned off. Police said they believe a violent event on a nearby property led to the men’s deaths.
The four bodies were found on Oct. 14 after a passerby called the police about seeing something suspicious only partly submerged in the river.
Authorities identified human remains and recovered the men’s bodies. Due to the state of the remains, the bodies were not confirmed to belong to the missing men until Sunday night.
“I’ve worked over 80 murders in my career. I have worked murders involving multiple victims. I have worked dismemberments, but this case involves the highest number of victims, and it’s a very violent event,” Prentice said. “So I can’t say that I’ve never worked anything like it, but it’s right up there at the top.”
Prentice went on to reveal that the cause and manner of death is still pending, however each victim had gunshot wounds and all four bodies were dismembered before being dumped in the river.
“That is what caused difficulty in determining identity, and that’s why it took so long,” Prentice said, according to BuzzFeed News.
The owner of the two salvage yards, Joe Kennedy, was named a person of interest in the killings, and went missing shortly after his initial interrogation. Investigators spoke with Kennedy on Oct. 14, when the men’s remains were discovered in a nearby river but were not yet positively identified.
Prentice said that Kennedy “appeared to be cooperative” and “was not antagonistic.”
Shortly after the announcement that the bodies had been identified, police located Kennedy’s vehicle but not Kennedy himself. His blue PT Cruiser was found abandoned in Morris, Oklahoma, and police were unsure how it arrived there.
On Oct. 18, Kennedy, 67, was arrested in Florida after driving a vehicle that was reported stolen on Monday. He was booked into Volusia County Branch Jail on charges of grand theft of a motor vehicle, where he is being held without bond. He’s also being held on a warrant from Okmulgee County related to a different shooting in 2012. Kennedy is set to appear before a Volusia County judge on Wednesday.
“The District Attorney and the Sheriff will begin the process of getting Kennedy back to Okmulgee County. … The murder investigation is ongoing and investigators continue to follow leads every day,” police said in a statement, according to CNN.—————————————————————————————-
The local Cops probably have a good clue on who did it. So they either have no proof or they figure that somebody did the world a good days work. Grumpy the Cynical
A remote-controlled police robot used to disarm bombs. Image from Shutterstock.
A policy proposal heading for Board of Supervisors approval next week would explicitly authorize San Francisco police to kill suspects using robots.
The new policy, which defines how the SFPD is allowed to use its military-style weapons, was put together by the police department. Over the past several weeks, it has been scrutinized by supervisors Aaron Peskin, Rafael Mandelman and Connie Chan, who together comprise the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee.
The draft policy faces criticism from advocates for its language on robot force, as well as for excluding hundreds of assault rifles from its inventory of military-style weapons and for not including personnel costs in the price of its weapons.
Peskin, chair of the committee, initially attempted to limit the SFPD’s authority over the department’s robots by inserting the sentence, “Robots shall not be used as a Use of Force against any person.”
The following week, the police struck out his suggestion with a thick red line.
It was replaced by language that codifies the department’s authority to use lethal force via robots: “Robots will only be used as a deadly force option when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers are imminent and outweigh any other force option available to SFPD.”
This could mark a legal crossing of the Rubicon for the city: Robot use-of-force has never before been approved, nor has it ever been prohibited, in San Francisco. A version of this draft policy was unanimously accepted by the rules committee last week and will come before the full board on Nov. 29.
“The original policy they submitted was actually silent on whether robots could deploy lethal force,” said Peskin. He added that he decided to approve the SFPD’s caveated guidelines because the department had made the case that “there could be scenarios where deployment of lethal force was the only option.”
Advocates and lawyers who oppose the militarization of the police are less convinced.
“We are living in a dystopian future, where we debate whether the police may use robots to execute citizens without a trial, jury, or judge,” said Tifanei Moyer, senior staff attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. Moyer leads the organization’s work on police misconduct and militarization.
“This is not normal,” she wrote over email. “No legal professional or ordinary resident should carry on as if it is normal.”
Supervisors Rafael Mandelman, Aaron Peskin, and Connie Chan discuss the new policy. Screenshot via SFGOVTV.
The SFPD has 17 robots in its arsenal, 12 of which it describes as fully functional. According to police spokesperson Officer Robert Rueca, they have never been used to attack anyone. The robots are remote-controlled, and are typically used to investigate and defuse potential bombs or to surveil areas too awkward or dangerous for officers to access.
Uses defined in the new draft policy include “training and simulations, criminal apprehensions, critical incidents, exigent circumstances, executing a warrant or during suspicious device assessments.”
And, in extreme circumstances, they can be used to kill.
How are robots used lethally?
In 2016, the Dallas police force strapped plastic explosives to a robot and used it to blow up a sharpshooter who had killed five officers, in the first U.S. instance of a police robot killing a suspect. One of the SFPD’s robots, the Remotec F5A, is the same model as the one used by Dallas police.
More recently in Oakland, a policy on lethal robots came before the city’s police department’s civilian oversight council. One device they discussed was the PAN disruptor, a device that can be attached to a remote-controlled robot and uses a blank shotgun shell to disable a bomb by blasting it with pressurized water. Oakland police acknowledged that, in emergencies, they could arm it with live rounds. The SFPD also has multiple PAN disruptors that can be attached to robots and fire shotgun shells.
Last month, Oakland police ultimately backed down and removed language that would have allowed them to kill using robots. They said they hope to pursue the option in the future.
Rueca said that the San Francisco Police Department “does not have any sort of specific plan in place” for how lethal force would be applied with robots as “the unusually dangerous or spontaneous operations where SFPD’s need to deliver deadly force via robot would be a rare and exceptional circumstance.”
Why is this happening now?
Cities across California are currently drafting new policies on the use of military weapons by local police forces, thanks to a state law called AB 481, which passed last year. Figuring out the force options of robots is one small part of the law’s remit.
The law mandates that every police force in California must annually report its stock of all military-style weapons, their cost, how they can be used, and how they were deployed in the prior year. The law gives local authorities — in San Francisco’s case, the Board of Supervisors — the ability to annually reject or accept the rules governing how the weapons are used.
The Board will also be required to sign off on any new military-style equipment before purchase, although the police will be able to replace any existing equipment up to a value of $10 million without approval.
An SFPD bomb squad robot was deployed on Valencia Street in 2019. Photo by Abraham Rodriguez.
Most advocates opposed to the militarization of the police hail AB 481 as a step in the right direction for accountability and transparency. But concerns have been raised that some jurisdictions have not gone far enough in limiting how military-style weapons can be used.
Jennifer Tu, a fellow with the American Friends Service Committee, has been tracking how police departments across the state are implementing AB 481.
“My suspicion is that most policies will have left room for robots to use force,” said Tu. She said that it was her understanding that most departments have not mentioned robots at all, which means they are subject only to generic restrictions.
The ACLU has published advice on the use of robots by police, and notes that the limited situational awareness of robots, compared to in-person officers, make it more likely that force is “used inappropriately and/or on the wrong targets.”
“There is a really big difference between hurting someone right in front of you, and hurting someone via a video screen,” said Tu.
What else is in the draft policy?
Tu contended that, on top of the issue of robot force, there are other problems with San Francisco’s draft policy, as it currently stands.
In its initial submission, the SFPD omitted all of its 608 semi-automatic assault rifles, 64 machine guns, and 15 submachine guns from the new use-of-force policy. According to Peskin, these were added in when he pushed back on their omission. But in the department’s latest version, which is set to come before the supervisors next week, 375 of the semi-automatic assault rifles are missing again.
The rationale given for the removal of these assault rifles from the policy: The Chief of Police defines them as “standard-issue service weapons.”
Others disagree with that assessment. “We don’t see regular officers walking around with assault rifles,” said Allyssa Victory, staff attorney with the criminal justice program at the ACLU of Northern California (and recent Oakland mayoral hopeful). “Just writing a policy doesn’t make it so.”
Victory added that shotguns and handguns can be omitted because they are standard issue, according to AB 481, but no such exemption applies to assault rifles.
“The law defines ‘military weapons,’ not the chief of police,” wrote civil rights lawyer Moyer over email. “San Francisco is not the only department to attempt to redefine ‘military weapons’ so as to justify hiding their use, costs, and upkeep from the public.”
“If the law defined military weapons as bubble gum, then the police department would have to disclose their use of bubble gum,” she wrote.
Tu added, “I really think it is confusing to the public if we don’t have those assault weapons reported.” Their omission would mean that in future annual reports, the police would not need to declare how the guns had been used or who had been injured by them.
Another point of contention with advocates is that the SFPD has not included personnel training or maintenance times in their valuation of the cost of their military-style weapons. This appears to be required by AB 481, which states that costs must include “acquisition, personnel, training, transportation, maintenance, storage, upgrade, and other ongoing costs” of the weapons.
But the SFPD rejected a suggestion from the American Friends Service Committee to include personnel costs. The department said that maintenance and training occur during normal work hours, and that their human resources management system cannot track different types of work done by officers, so “there is no compelling reason to track in the suggested manner.”
It remains to be seen if the policy, as it stands, will be approved by the Board of Supervisors, and what limitations will ultimately be placed on the police department’s military-style weapons, including its robots. And, once the rules are settled, the process will begin again with the Sheriff’s Department, which will need to create its own policy to stay in compliance with AB 481.
“The great news about this thing is that it can be evolved,” said Peskin, adding that policy must be scrutinized and approved every year if the SFPD wants to keep using its weapons.
“And I think we are starting off in a good place.”
This policy will be discussed at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday November 29. The meeting starts at 2 p.m. and the police equipment policy is agenda item 28. More details can be found in the full meeting agenda.
VALLEJO, Calif. — Two people were arrested on suspicion of murder in the death of a fellow squatter who was shot and killed by a California property owner, authorities said. The property owner was impaled by a sword during the confrontation.
“He came banging on my door with a sword sticking through him,” Patrick McMillan, a tenant who lives in a mobile home on the property, told the Chronicle. McMillan told the newspaper that Lind was his landlord and best friend.
The names of the suspects and the person who died were not released, KTVU reported. The Solano County District Attorney’s Office will determine whether to file formal murder charges, according to the television station.
One of the people shot, a 31-year-old Vallejo resident, died at the scene, according to the Chronicle. The other person, who is 27, was taken to an area hospital, along with Lind. Both were in critical condition, police said.
The confrontation apparently was the result of an eviction battle that had recently intensified, the newspaper reported. For years, Lind had been attempting to evict a group of people whom his family claimed were not paying the rent, KTVU reported. Lind had bought the property, placing 20-foot trailers and shipping containers on the land so he could rent them to people who were unable to afford the cost of housing in Vallejo, McMillan told the Chronicle. Lind also lived on the property.
McMillan told the newspaper that he believed deputies with the Solano County Sheriff’s Office were going to remove several people from the property on Tuesday, and that was what led to the incident.
“A big part of this problem was this moratorium on rent, COVID,” Lind’s son, Carl Lind, told KTVU. “People took advantage of it.”
The group that Curt Lind was attempting to evict lived in a cluster of trailer trucks, McMillan told the Chronicle. Initially, they paid rent but stopped paying during the pandemic.
“He had an agreement that they were going to fix up their vehicles, and then they were going to leave,” Curt Lind’s daughter, Dina Morrill, told the newspaper in a telephone interview on Wednesday.”
“The truth is, they jumped him,” Carl Lind told KTVU.
At some point, McMillan said the property owner opened fire with a gun.
“After they attacked him he got his gun out and shot two of them, killed one of them. The other one had three shots to the chest,” McMillan told the television station.
“(Lind) had a samurai sword stuck to his back with about a foot of it sticking out in front, his face cut up all over,” McMillan told KTVU.
Curt Lind was conscious but still in severe pain, Morrill said Wednesday. He also has a tube in his chest and numerous staples and stitches on his face and back, the Chronicle reported.
She has set up a GoFundMe page to assist with his medical bills.
“My dad always thinks the best of people, and unfortunately some people take advantage of that,” Morrill told the Chronicle. “What he thought was a good idea turned into a nightmare.”
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Gun owners on Oahu are still without a public range as a probe into possible lead contamination at Koko Head Shooting Complex continues ― and new details emerge about what the city knew.
Two months ago, the range closed abruptly after tests showed nearly everyone who worked there had elevated lead levels. Hawaii News Now has learned it’s not the first time range staff were found to have a concerning amount of lead in their blood, and that the city was informed of the issue.
Reports and interviews revealed the Honolulu Department of Parks and Recreation did little to protect its workers or educate them about potential hazards at the shooting range.
‘It wasn’t anything serious’
Former range employee Chris Wong said the concerns about lead at the range date back years.
Wong has been shooting for more than three decades, including competitively.
“I have a love for the sport. I believe it’s a right for everyone to be able to have their firearm,” he said. “And I wanted to be involved in the safety aspect of it.”
It’s what inspired the former Kalihi Valley Neighborhood Board chairman to become a firearms instructor. And in 2013, he started working part-time as a range officer at the Koko Head Shooting Complex.
Two years later, Wong says his boss told him he might want to see a doctor.
“I was notified by a co-worker ― my supervisor at the time ― that his lead levels were elevated. So he suggested I go get checked. And when I checked they were elevated,” Wong said.
He says he was kind of shocked “because I do take precautions.”
Although Wong says he never experienced symptoms, it took one year for his lead levels to get back to normal. Not long after getting those initial test results, Wong got another job with the city.
But before he left, Wong said, “I did notify verbally some of the people in Parks and Recs.”
When asked how the Department of Parks and Recreation responded, “It was almost like, ‘Well, good thing you’re transferring.’ That’s it. It wasn’t anything serious.”
It’s unclear what if anything was done with the information about Wong’s health.
When Hawaii News Now asked the city how many former Koko Head Shooting Complex employees had elevated lead level, a spokesperson responded via email “to the best of our knowledge” there was only “one” prior to 2022.
City waited weeks to confirm lead concerns
It’s an issue the Department of Parks and Recreation wasn’t initially forthcoming about.
In mid-September, officials abruptly closed the complex two weeks ahead of a planned berm renovation project.
A city news release cited a staffing shortage but failed to mention the closure was due to the majority its employees having elevated levels of lead in their blood.
After a month and a half of questioning, parks officials finally admitted nine out of 10 staff who were tested had lead levels above the normal range.
HNN has since learned the city has been aware of lead contamination at the range for at least 20 years.
A 2001 report showed extreme levels of lead pollution at the rifle, pistol, silhouette, trap skeet and SWAT ranges. Of the 20 soil samples taken, 15 tested above state regulatory guidelines.
To give you an idea how toxic it was, the report showed four of those samples contained about 100 times more lead than what the state considers safe for a residential area.
Eight years later, in a separate memo, the state Department of Health outlined seven recommendations the city could implement to reduce potential lead exposures.
Those measures included posting signs, advising everyone at the facility to wash their hands frequently, and to avoid eating and drinking while at the range.
But of the seven recommendations the state Health Department made, the city Parks Department only fully followed through with two of them. Those include posting warning signs to alert nearby hikers of the active range and providing dust protection to workers tasked with disturbing potentially contaminated soil during clean-ups.
Health officials also advised the city to keep its berms “well-maintained” to reduce the creation of fine lead particles.
Over the past two decades, the city says it’s encapsulated the backstop just once ― back in 2014.
The same year the Parks Department confirms a former range worker was diagnosed with elevated lead levels.
In 2020, the City also conducted a cleanup of the range firing line, utilizing a consultant expert in the field of environmental hazard construction remediation.
Range closed indefinitely
Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi told Hawaii News Now there’s no timeline for reopening the range.
“We’re not going to let people back there unless it’s safe,” he said.
He added:
“I don’t know when it’s going to reopen to be honest with you. There’s a lot that has to go into that because that had been going on for a long time with respect to use of the range and what was compiled there and what has to be cleaned up.”
Wong, the former range officer, said he has no interest in suing the city but chose to speak out because he wants to see the lead issue abated and the public park reopened as soon as possible.
He said it’s not right to permanently close Oahu’s only public range for reasons that could have been prevented.
“To have the range shut down, it’s an infringement of rights,” Wong said.
The city did confirm it has hired necessary the environmental consultants.
“We are awaiting the recommendations from the above-mentioned consultant before proceeding with the berm renovation project,” the city said, in a statement.
“We understand the environmental concerns of the neighboring community, and also recognize the shooting complex’s importance to the local firearms community, as this location is the only public shooting range on Oahu. We appreciate their patience while we work with these advisors to make necessary improvements to ensure the shooting complex can once again operate safely upon its reopening.”
Meanwhile, city officials say all Koko Head Shooting Complex workers have been reassigned to work at other parks.
Health officials say casual range users shouldn’t worry too much about lead exposure if they follow safety guidelines.
Those include:
Washing your hands and face with soap and water after shooting.
Changing clothes before you leave the range.
And washing those items separately from everything else.
It’s also advised not to eat, drink or smoke while shooting.
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