Category: Grumpy’s hall of Shame
Mother charged after ‘recklessly’ putting gun in child’s backpack, authorities say
The mother was charged with putting the gun in the child’s sack before school.
MCMINNVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – A mother was arrested Monday after investigators say she “recklessly” put a loaded firearm into her child’s backpack.
The firearm was found in the backpack of a student at Hickory Creek Elementary School in McMinnville, Tennessee.
District Attorney Chris Stanford said in a media release the gun was loaded with 15 bullets. After investigating, deputies with the Warren County Sheriff’s Office said the incident was isolated and did not present further harm to the public. However, Stanford said the incident still put multiple people in danger.
The child’s mother, Kristen Holland, was charged with reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon.
“I want to praise the work of our school employees and school resource officers in a situation where their training and preparation led them to respond flawlessly,” said Warren County Director of Schools Grant Swallows. “We believe this was an isolated event with no intent to harm, but regardless, we take all instances with extreme and abundant caution. Because of the work of our staff and the Warren County Sheriff’s Department, our students were never in danger and the situation was resolved quickly.”
Parents and staff were notified of the incident. No lockdown procedure was ever initiated because no imminent threat was ever determined, Swallows said.
Some may take umbrage with my assertion, but I would propose that the human female is the most complex organism in the known universe. Stealth bombers, robot Mars rovers, and quantum computers don’t even come close. After a literal lifetime of study I can honestly say that I have no idea what makes girls tick. I am deeply thankful for the fairer half of the human population, but I will never consider myself an expert in the field of female relations. My wife would likely rate me a solid marginal. I think I should get an “A” for effort.
Despite whatever challenges I might have interacting with women, Marc Lépine was far worse. Born in 1964 as Gamil Rodrigue Liass Gharbi in Montreal, Quebec, Marc was the son of an Algerian immigrant named Rachid Liass Gharbi and Canadian nurse Monique Lépine. He had one younger sister named Nadia. For a variety of very good reasons, Marc had daddy issues.
Monique was a former Catholic nun who rejected all religion after leaving the convent. Rachid was a non-pious Muslim. Mom later described Marc as “a confirmed atheist all his life.” Rachid started running around on Monique while on business trips, and things spiraled from there.
Rachid was a vile, violent, overbearing man who physically abused both his wife and his kids. He and Monique divorced, but things didn’t get much better. Rachid defaulted on his mortgage, and the family lost their home and most of their possessions. When he came of age Gamil Rodrigue Liass Gharbi changed his named to Marc Lépine to spite his reprobate father.
In his youth, Marc was described as reserved, quiet, and uncommunicative. His sister Nadia mocked him mercilessly in public over both his acne and his inability to secure a girlfriend. This precipitated a deep-seeded hatred. Marc once dug a faux grave for her in the backyard of the house where they were staying. He was thrilled when she was remanded to a group home for drug abuse and chronic delinquency. Nadia died of a cocaine overdose in 1996 at age 28.
To make things worse, there were rumors that Marc might have been molested as part of a Big Brother after-school program. Along the way he acquired an air rifle and slaughtered pigeons wholesale in the neighborhood where he lived. He developed a fascination with World War 2 and openly praised Adolf Hitler. In 1981 at age 17 Marc applied for a position as an officer cadet in the Canadian military but was rejected. A subsequent statement from the Canadian Army explained that he was “interviewed, assessed, and found to be unsuitable.”
So here we have a kid with some suboptimal raw material raised in some of the most ghastly conditions imaginable. He hated his family and distrusted most everybody else. All the male figures in his life were beastly animals, while the women were abusive and distant. This was the perfect milieu to precipitate Something Truly Horrible.
The Setting
Bless his heart, Marc tried to make something of himself. He attended a variety of technical schools wherein his academic performance ranged from exemplary to absent with everything in between. By the late 1980’s he had set his sights on École Polytechnique, a respected engineering school in Montreal.
Marc had to complete a couple of classes to qualify for admission, and he pursued these prerequisites in fits and starts. During a 1989 meeting with an admissions officer, Marc complained that women were taking over the job market, displacing men from their more traditional roles. He was particularly bitter about female engineers and police officers. Somewhere along the way, Marc Lépine just snapped.
Lépine planned his vengeance over a period of months. In August of 1989 he made formal application for a permit to purchase a Ruger Mini-14 semiautomatic rifle. His application was approved in October of that year. He actually purchased the gun on November 21, 1989, from a local sporting goods store. This should address any lingering doubts you might have had concerning the effectiveness of waiting periods.
The Shootings
On December 6, 1989, Marc Lépine walked into a second-floor classroom of the École Polytechnique with his Mini-14. He methodically segregated the men from the women and directed the roughly fifty male students to leave. Once he had thusly winnowed the crowd he opened fire, killing six women and wounding the rest. Before leaving the room to continue his rampage he took a moment to scrawl a scatological reference across one of the female student’s project depicting his displeasure with its quality.
Lépine then went mobile, wandering the halls, classrooms, and cafeteria shooting mostly women but a few men as well. His 14th and final victim was wounded and cried out for help. In response, Lépine stabbed her to death with his hunting knife before turning the rifle on himself. The entire ghastly attack spanned some twenty minutes. In addition to the fifteen dead, there were another fourteen who were badly injured. Lépine was 25 at the time.
The Suicide Letter
Lépine left behind a suicide note written in French. Here are a few excerpts drawn from the translation—
Forgive the mistakes, I had 15 minutes to write this. See also Annex.
Please note that if I commit suicide today 89-12-06 it is not for economic reasons (for I have waited until I exhausted all my financial means, even refusing jobs) but for political reasons. Because I have decided to send the feminists, who have always ruined my life, to their Maker…I tried in my youth to enter the Forces as an officer cadet, which would have allowed me possibly to get into the arsenal…They refused me because asocial [sic]. I therefore had to wait until this day to execute my plans. In between, I continued my studies in a haphazard way for they never really interested me, knowing in advance my fate…Even if the Mad Killer epithet will be attributed to me by the media, I consider myself a rational erudite that only the arrival of the Grim Reaper has forced to take extreme acts…Being rather backward-looking by nature (except for science), the feminists have always enraged me. They want to keep the advantages of women (e.g. cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceded by a preventative leave, etc.) while seizing for themselves those of men.
Thus it is an obvious truth that if the Olympic Games removed the Men-Women distinction, there would be women only in the graceful events. So the feminists are not fighting to remove that barrier. They are so opportunistic they [do not] neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men through the ages. They always try to misrepresent them every time they can. Thus, the other day, I heard they were honoring the Canadian men and women who fought at the frontline during the world wars. How can you explain [that since] women were not authorized to go to the frontline??? Will we hear of Caesar’s female legions and female galley slaves who of course took up 50% of the ranks of history, though they never existed. A real Casus Belli.
Sorry for this too brief letter.
Marc Lépine
It’s Will again now–Wow. That guy was a piece of work.
The Gun
The Ruger Mini-14 was developed by James Sullivan, one of the original designers of the AR15, and Bill Ruger. Introduced in 1973, the Mini-14 was a scaled-down .223 version of the M14 battle rifle. While the two weapons are intentionally similar externally, their operating systems remain quite different.
The Mini-14 is offered in a variety of configurations in both stainless and blued finishes. This gas-operated rifle feeds from detachable box magazines and could be had from the factory with both fixed and folding stocks. The Mini-14 is one of the most widely accessorized firearms ever produced, and it remains in production today. In the hands of sensible folk it is a reliable utility tool.
The Aftermath
Psychiatrists have pored over the details of Lépine’s case, attributing his psychopathy to a broad spectrum of influences ranging from genetic to political. They affixed a variety of psychiatric diagnoses to the man in retrospect. Some of the labels include personality disorders, “extreme narcissistic vulnerability,” and fantasies of power combined with excessive self-criticism. It has been postulated that he had suffered brain damage at some point. Some delusional commentator even claimed that Lépine’s egregious behavior was simply the result of having been raised in poverty. Were that the case you would expect places like Burundi and Niger to be populated solely by serial killers.
There are 440 million firearms in America. Marc Lépine invested four months obtaining his gun through legal channels. In modern-day America it is not humanly possible to prevent monsters like this guy from obtaining the tools they want to commit their heinous crimes.
I don’t carry a gun every day because I am paranoid or insecure. I carry a gun because my family and I share the planet with homicidal lunatics like Marc Lépine. If you feel differently then good for you. Do whatever you want, just leave me alone to make my own choices. There was exactly one thing that could have stopped Marc Lépine on that horrible day in 1989, and it wasn’t some ill-conceived piece of feel-good legislation. It was a good guy with a gun.
Jan 7, 2013 – Uploaded by TheMrKillkutta
Kaiser Wilhelm II of the German Empire photographed
taking a smoke break somewhere in Silesia by
Oscar Tellgmann sometime in 1913.
.JPG)
What is it about Haiti? The poorest country in the Western hemisphere, Haiti just seems cursed. Haiti is located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles Archipelago of the Caribbean Sea. Haiti ought to be, on the surface at least, an idyllic tropical paradise.
Haiti is the third-largest country in the Caribbean by area and sports a population of some 11.4 million people. However, since the turn of the recent century, Haiti has had more than its share of foul luck. The country has been subjected to a couple of devastating earthquakes. The temblor in August of 2021 killed more than 2,200 people. The 2010 quake claimed more than a quarter-million lives.
On July 7, 2021, a group of 28 mercenary fighters attacked the Presidential residence in Haiti and killed Jovenal Moïse, the controversial chief executive of this impoverished country. They also gunned down the man’s wife. She survived and was subsequently taken to the US for treatment. Given its audacity and the obvious military acumen of the players involved, the operation that killed this man was an undeniably impressive feat of arms.
The Op
I’m typing this fairly soon after the event. Details are still a bit sketchy. If new information arises before this piece hits the streets be patient with me.
The Haitian Presidential residence is located in the Pelerin 5 neighborhood in the hills overlooking Port au Prince, the Haitian capital. The Haitian President, his wife Martine, and their adult daughter Jomarlie were present along with at least two domestic staff and some twenty-four security officers. At 0100 on July 7, 2021, several SUVs drove up and disgorged a contingent of “white armed men.” These operators were dressed in tactical clothing and heavily armed. They moved like they knew what they were doing.
Upon their arrival, one of the attackers shouted through a portable loudspeaker, “DEA operation, everybody stay down!” The US DEA later offered assurances that they had nothing to do with the whole sordid affair. Apparently, the swiftness of the attack along with its violence of action was adequate to convince the Haitian security force not to resist. There have been subsequent allegations of collusion as well.
Seven of the gunmen moved into the residence. The remaining twenty-one stayed outside to pull security. Of the seven, four, designated the “Delta Team,” did the actual killing. Those four were apparently some fairly serious shooters.
It was the middle of the night, and the assault force enjoyed the element of surprise. They moved through Moïse’s office and bedroom until they had the President cornered. They then shot him all to pieces. A post-mortem evaluation showed that he was hit 12 times in his chest, arms, right leg, left hip, and left eye.
In the process, the assault team shot Moïse’s wife Martine in the arms and thighs. As she resisted the attack she also suffered injuries to her hands and belly. Throughout the whole sordid mess, their daughter hid in a bathroom and escaped without injury. Investigators later reported that the residence was littered with 5.56mm and 9mm cases.
The Aftermath
The brutal killing resulted in a massive mobilization of Haitian law enforcement that ultimately accounted for all but five of the attackers. The story of the team’s recruitment and organization could have been drawn from the pages of an action novel. Two of the twenty-eight mercenaries were Haitian-Americans. The rest of the assault team hailed from Colombia.
The details are still sketchy, but many of the Colombian operators appear to have been hired under false pretenses. Four different international companies purportedly did the hiring. Nobody yet knows for certain who all was behind the mission.
The coordinators supposedly made the necessary connections via WhatsApp. The former Colombian soldiers posted outside claimed they were told that they were being hired to provide security services for vulnerable Haitian politicians. A few were apparently expecting to be pulling security for Moïse himself. Some flew into the Haitian capital directly, while others landed in the Dominican Republic and entered via the Carrizal border crossing. Haitian conspirators arranged a safe house near the Presidential residence along with weapons and police sirens for their vehicles.
The Guns
Haiti has a most chaotic history. Prior to Operation Uphold Democracy, the American military intervention in 1994, the Haitian military fielded a fairly typical array of Western military equipment. This included Cadillac-Gage V100 Light Armored Vehicles as well as both 75mm and 105mm towed howitzers. Long guns included American M16s and German G3 battle rifles. Haitian security troops also wielded Uzi submachine guns. The standard Haitian military handgun was the Beretta Model 1951.
As a result of the US intervention, the Haitian dictator Raoul Cedras was deposed and replaced by the democratically-elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Starting in 2019 President Moïse embarked on a rearmament program. This resulted in weapons acquisitions from China, Russia, Brazil, South Korea, and Israel. The end result was a fairly eclectic collection of small arms.
Though I haven’t found an inventory of the guns captured along with the attackers, I did discover a photograph or two. The array of weapons depicted includes a pair of combat handguns, a fairly archaic slide-action 12-gauge sporting shotgun, a Remington 870 with a pistol grip, a full-sized Uzi submachine gun, an M4 carbine, and an Israeli Galil ACE assault rifle. While the Uzi, M4, and sporting weapons are ubiquitous background clutter most anyplace people wish to kill each other, the Galil ACE is a curious find.
The original Israeli Galil assault rifle was a hybrid that combined features from the Kalashnikov, the M16, the FN FAL, and the Finnish Valmet. In fact, the first prototypes were built upon Valmet RK 62 receivers covertly obtained in Europe and smuggled into Israel. The Galil was first issued in 1972 and has since been produced in Israel and under license around the world. As a result, the Galil has seen service in conflicts ranging from Nicaragua to South Africa to Mogadishu to Myanmar.
The Galil ACE was an evolutionary development of the original Galil designed to make the weapon lighter, handier, and more user-friendly. By combining a steel receiver with a polymer fire control housing as well as a few other strategic tweaks the weight dropped from around 9 pounds to 7.9. The ACE is offered in 5.56x45mm, 7.62x39mm, 5.45x39mm, and 7.62x51mm versions.
Other improvements include tritium night sights, a collapsible M4-style polymer buttstock, a left-side charging handle, and a last round bolt hold open on the 5.56mm version. MIL-STD-1913 Picatinny rails up front offer plenty of space for accessories, while the fire control system from the Galil sniper rifle produces a highly refined trigger experience. Contemporary users include Ukraine, Chile, Vietnam, Zambia, Peru, Laos, Colombia, and many more.
The Rest of the Story
It is suspected that a substantial number of the mercenaries might not have appreciated the true nature of the operation. However, there resulted in a fierce running gun battle as these soldiers of fortune attempted to escape the country. One contingent took three Haitian police officers hostage and retreated into a nearby house.
Haitian cops surrounded the building and shot it out with the mercs. Three Colombians were killed, the Haitian hostages were freed, and the rest of the group was captured. Once word got out that the President had been assassinated angry Haitian civilians joined in the hunt. They torched several of the mercenaries’ vehicles and ultimately helped track down several of the Colombians who had been hiding amidst the foliage. Among the final count were the two American-Haitian operators.
Eleven of the attackers broke into the nearby Taiwanese embassy apparently seeking refuge. However, the government of Taiwan waived their rights of extraterritoriality, and the Haitian police arrested these eleven without further incident. The remaining five have yet to be apprehended as of this writing.
The two Haitian-Americans claimed they had been hired solely as translators. One of them was later discovered to have been a prior informant for the American DEA. Those ultimately arrested included disgruntled former Haitian politicians, members of President Moïse’s security team, a Venezuelan businessman, and scads of other folks.
Ruminations
In response to the shockingly professional assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, many people in Haiti responded by stealing stuff and burning their neighborhoods down. I always foolishly figured that a national crisis was a great excuse to pull together and work toward a common goal. Apparently, folks in places like Seattle and Portland subscribe to the same mantra.
Haiti has long been a cesspool of crime, drugs, and violence. The assassination of the Haitian President did little to improve the situation. Gang violence increased across the country.
The funeral for President Moïse was intended to be a low-key affair, but it attracted its own share of controversy. Some mourners heckled the attending Haitian politicians, and there resulted a fairly ignoble application of both tear gas and gunfire. Foreign diplomats who gathered to pay their respects had wisely departed earlier.
Somebody someplace started the rumor that the US was going to be handing out visas, so a mob descended upon the US embassy seeking that golden ticket to take them to the Big PX in the Sky. I think those Americans who seem convinced that America sucks so bad should consider swapping places with them.
Addendum–43-year-old ex-Colombian commando Mario Antonio Palacios was apprehended in October 2021 in Jamaica after the issuance of an Interpol Red Notice. He was the only member of the Delta Team that actually did the shooting who had not been captured in Haiti. Palacios voluntarily agreed to travel to Miami, Florida, where he was arrested and charged with all manner of vile stuff. He is being tried in the US as much of the planning for the operation occurred here. He faces the prospect of life in prison if convicted. Another conspirator named Rodolphe Jaar was also arrested and sent to the US. He faces a similar fate. As of now, the remaining members of the team remain incarcerated in Haiti and have yet to be charged.