As reported by Nick Short, can you imagine that Seddique Mateen had a pair of large money transfers Turkey and Afghanistan, with the second transfer having occurred one week before the attack?
I am not sure what is going on, but there are significant questions surrounding almost all of the recent mass shootings. Unlike many, I am certain each of these events happened, but I do not think the public has been adequately informed of the motives and participants.
There remain questions about San Bernardino, and answers are far and few astonishingly between in Las Vegas. There were stand down orders given police in Orlando and Parkland. We call Central Florida home (and drive by Pulse almost on a daily basis), and there remain many unanswered questions about the Pulse shooting. Although the killer professed an allegiance to Islam, it has been categorized as an attack on the LGBT community (secondarily, it was, along with the Latino community) and the LGBT agenda has exponentially risen to prominence in the community since.
Without adequate answers being provided to the public, conspiracy theories will continue to be fed. Information that does trickle out like the info we got last night about the Pulse gunman's father gives additional evidence to those who think the truth in these events remains elusive.
Prior to becoming an All America football player at Florida State University and an All Pro NFL player with the Tampa Bay Bucs and Atlanta Falcons, during his senior year at Baton Rouge Catholic HS, Warrick Dunn's mother, Betty Smothers, a Baton Rouge police officer, was murdered in the line of duty.
Dunn, later a recipient of the prestigious NFL Man of the Year Award, released some wonderful, heartfelt comments on the hideous violence which occurred in his hometown Sunday.
From a man who has done so much for people through his charitable endeavors, this incident has affected him in a personal way, and his comments are well worth your time. My heart breaks for the the families of the law enforcement officers who have lost their loved ones. I have been in similar shoes - it will change their lives and leave them all reeling with questions for years to come. It is a shame - so many officers who are out there on the front lines have tremendous heart for what they do. These acts of violence don't solve anything and if my voice can add to the movement to stop it - then I’d consider that a good thing. I struggle emotionally to understand why and how police officers are being targeted in the way they are. The reality of our world is that there is a lot of unrest in our communities, particularly where police shootings are happening. Of course this takes me back to when my own black mother was ambushed and killed - by a black man. And all of this comes at a terribly personal time for me. This week, I will attend trial for a re-sentencing hearing for my mother’s murder - which happened 23 years ago. I hate to even think of what this entire ordeal will cost our community but I know - it is too much. And even though my Mother lost her life all those years ago, the men who were tried by a jury of their peers have been kept alive by a prison system that has seen to their every need. Something that was denied to my Mother. We can’t just sit around and talk about how horrible all this is - we have to do something. And that means it ALWAYS starts with the individual. One of the things I am doing is taking the role of fatherhood very seriously so I can raise a son who makes a positive contribution. I am striving to be there for him emotionally, physically and intellectually. I want to give him something I never had because statistics prove it makes a difference when a child has an active father in his or her life. And we have to do more to build empathy in children so they have a hard time treating one another badly. It all starts with kids so we have to do all we can to care about kids. Especially kids at risk for never learning how to socially and emotionally relate. Another thing we can all do is stress to our elected leaders to look at the issue of guns in our country with serious eyes and intent instead of as a political stand-off. And then we have to give justice a chance to work. When people are intentional in the use of guns against others - we have to make sure the message that crime doesn’t pay - means something. Today I confess I wonder about that because from my view with my Mother’s trial, justice has failed our family - but I believe we can and must do better. We also have to ensure that the laws on the books are enforced. Of course I know there are officers who do not do the right thing - that is true in every profession. But when murder is a planned event - the rule of law should matter and loopholes or sophisticated lawyering have to stop. Why have laws if we aren’t going to enforce them? I feel close to this subject - it has touched me very personally. I speak for no one other than myself and I support law enforcement. I also support the community of Baton Rouge because they were there for me and my family. If I could have any effect, I’d ask the community to stop the violence, to cool down and to come together to figure this out. There is nothing we can’t do but we have to work together to make something positive come from yet another tragedy in my home town.
We will find answers to many of our issues seeking guidance from individuals like Warrick Dunn, a hometown hero is there ever was one.
Indeed, it is a lovely place, free from many of the ills that are increasingly permeating our society. It is a place that is ideal for raising a family, and a state that welcomes virtue, principle hard work. It has been said the N on the side of the University of Nebraska football helmet stand for "nice people" rather than "Nebraska".
Outside of some of the downtown areas of Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska is a very conservative state, as red a state as sea of red in beloved Memorial Stadium in Lincoln on football Saturdays with the Nebraska Cornhuskers on the field.
State Senator Ernie Chambers, a Democrat from Omaha, who tried to take down the storied 'Husker football program a few decades back, has emerged as a leader in an effort to do away with the death penalty in Nebraska.
Although Nebraska has the death penalty, it has not been used very often, and only approximately ten people are the list to be executed at this time.
Even so, led by efforts from Chambers and others and sadly including GOP members who consider themselves Conservative, legislation to end the death penalty in the Cornhusker state passed in the state legislature.
Governor Pete Ricketts, a republican from Nebraska City, vowed to veto such legislation should it land on his desk, which he promptly did. However, with the help of a handful of "conservatives" there were enough votes to overturn the veto. One of these individuals was Brett Lindstrom, a former 'Husker backup quarterback who considers himself a 21st century Reaganite, which is ludicrous.
The state has been in mourning this past week. Omaha police were serving a felony arrest warrant against an individual with a lengthy criminal record (do you ever wonder like I do how these people do not remain in jail?) when a firefight broke out, mortally wounding the suspect and a member of the Omaha Police Department.
With the legislative vote to repeal the death penalty, the state legislature governed against the will of the people, as Nebraskans overwhelming support it. Individuals of the sort who have no regard for law and order and think nothing or murdering police officers are those that the death penalty suits perfectly.
Can't the legislature read the signs?
I remember a day, when Lincoln was terrorized by a crazed killer, where everybody and anybody wanted this serial murderer put to death promptly after his apprehension. In fact, police nabbed him in Wyoming, Charles Starkweather was brought back to Lincoln and electrocuted in the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln in 1959.
The death penalty may not be a deterrent to all, but it is certainly a powerful tool of penance for those who recklessly disobey the rule of law resulting in the taking of innocent lives. As former Nebraska governor Dave Heineman said, “It’s important for Nebraska to have a death penalty, for the most heinous of crimes. We just had the most recent situation in Omaha, the shooting in Norfolk and a variety of communities across the state.”
Right on Gov. Heinemen, particularly that recent situation in Omaha, which took the life of a top notch member of the community. It was a sign.
Thankfully the Omaha fugitive was killed in the field, or given the mindset of the moronic legislators, he would be sentenced to a life of three squares a day, lifting weights, congenial visits and watching sports on our dime for the rest of his pitiful existence.
It is sad the members of the state legislature did not see the signs.
A sign noting Blue Lives Matter. A sign of heartbreak in Omaha and a heartfelt sign of welcome on the state borders describing Nebraska as the good life. And the sign of a Nebraska city in terror in 1959.
Keep your eye on the signs, and Keep Calm and Kerrie On!
As we are involved in another city being burned and looted in the name social justice by agitators who claim grievances against supposed racial inequality and police brutality, please be advised of what Booker T. Washington informed you of a century ago.
Along with the class of colored people keeping the troubles and hardships before the public Washington describes are the Democrats, who need a downtrodden voting base to continue to turn to them for help, which since the Great Society of LBJ which declared war on poverty, has failed to produce any measurable benefit other than electing Democrats.
BAHL is a REALTOR, Real Estate Investor and Residential Real Estate Appraiser in Orlando. He holds a BS degree in Economics from Florida State University.
