Saturday, September 20, 2014

Uh???

How did this happen?
WASHINGTON — A Texas man who scaled the White House fence made it through the North Portico doors on Friday night before being apprehended, the Secret Service said.
The intruder, Omar J. Gonzalez, 42, was arrested just inside the doors and taken to George Washington University Hospital after complaining of chest pains, said Ed Donovan, a Secret Service spokesman.
As the article says, most fence scalers are tackled immediately after they successfully cross. Yet this 42 year old guy was able to get over the fence then sprint to the White House and go in the front door before 'being tackled'?  No shots fired, not even any dogs?

Some will point out that the presidential entourage had just left the grounds so the first family was not in jeopardy, while CNN is reporting that Gonzales "was known" to the Secret Service, as if to say they knew he was more a nut than a terrorist, but if they didn't consider his act dangerous they wouldn't have evacuated the West Wing.  For all they knew he had a bomb sewn in his underwear and was going to blow up the Oval Office.  

Something doesn't smell right here.

MORE  9/20/14

The WaPo has more:
A sensor alarm automatically goes off when any unauthorized person crosses the fence line, and is transmitted to every on-duty agent’s radio and in the joint-operations command center. In many scenarios, if the jumper ignores demands to stop, a canine-team handler will release a trained dog to subdue the person.
But the dog was not released in this case, according to officials’ review of the event and evidence from Friday night. The Secret Service’s security review will look closely at why that dog wasn’t released. It typically takes a person sprinting across the grounds at least 20 to 25 seconds to make it from the fence line to the mansion.
Canine teams are trained to have their dog in position to be released within four seconds of the alarm sounding. The dog is trained to bite the arm or leg of the person they are sent to stop, and usually hold the person on the ground until their handler arrives. “We’re asking, why not release the dog?” said one law enforcement person who is reviewing the incident. “That would have stopped this.”
In October 2013 the Secret Service gunned down a woman in her car outside the White House with a baby on board after she allegedly tried to ram a gate on the property.  On September 11 this year dogs were used to subdue a white guy who jumped the fence dressed in a Pokemon hat and he only got about 10 yards from the fence line.  Let's hope political correctness has not intruded on Secret Service policies/actions.

It's hard to believe anyone would have time to say, "hey, don't shoot him or release the dogs because he's Hispanic and that might look bad for Obama in the media" but one also has to wonder whether things would have been done differently if he was wearing a black ISIS shirt or God forbid, a "Don't Tread on Me" flag shirt.   

MORE  9/21/14

Turns out Mr. Gonzales did have a weapon after all. Quite frankly a policy of "suspect doesn't appear to have a weapon or backpack" or however the Secret Service explains their reluctance to shoot is pretty much unbelievable considering what someone could be carrying without showing.

Of course the national mainstream media is all over this--as they should be--especially since Gonzales is reported to be an Iraqi vet suffering from PTSD.   Contrast their coverage of this with their almost non-existent coverage of Ali Mohammed Brown, a suspected domestic terrorist who killed 4 people, including 2 gay men, presumably in the name of Allah.  Yeah, just sayin.

MORE  9/22/14

This continues to be a little weird.   In one story we learn Mr. Gonzalez is a modern 'Chicken Little', allegedly telling the Secret Service the 'atmosphere was collapsing' and that he needed to get the word out to the big guy so he could warn everyone.  Yeah, nuttier than a fruitcake.

Yet in another story we get this:
However, neither prosecutors nor Gonzalez’s assigned defense attorneys invoked his mental competency as an issue for now. Assistant Federal Public Defender David Bos said Gonzalez understands the proceeding against him.
No doubt the national media is very interested in this story due to Mr. Gonzalez' background, which they might see as the Tea Bagger gun nut category--perfect to pound before the upcoming mid-terms--but saying 'the atmosphere is collapsing' is more in line with an environmental loon.   And that's a rabbit hole they will likely not descend within. 

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