Last month, Pierce County deputies responding to a domestic violence incident in Eatonville were ambushed and shot by David E. Crable.
Sgt. Nick Hausner, 43, recovered; Dep. Kent Mundell Jr., 44, shot and killed the assailant, but did not recover and later died. The pattern of recent attacks seems unconnected and random.
Crable was not under arrest when he ambushed the officers. The Seattle Times lamented that the court did not legally possess the power to prohibit Crable’s access to weapons. Perhaps the courts should have taken steps to confiscate Crable’s weapons. Nevertheless, there is no method for ensuring that an erratic person does not obtain a pistol or other weapon. One editorial claimed that we are not even trying to restrict guns.
We live in a land where freedom of the press still allows for such healthy debate. People in our region are experiencing anguish and reaching out to police agencies, families of law enforcement and individual officers whenever we get a chance. It is not right that every new incident of senseless violence becomes another opportunity to renew political debate about guns.
Attacks against law enforcement tear the fabric of our community in ways that can be difficult to repair. It has become standard fare within certain political, media and academic circles to castigate law enforcement and agitate against the military. The same voices advocating “common sense” gun laws are often heard expressing unwarranted concerns about the use of force by our police officers. Many of the same advocates are concerned about Constitutional protections for terrorists.
Every Sept. 11, I remember writhing bodies plummeting toward the street. A wall of fire and smoke forced the victims to hurl themselves from the towers. There are radicals (not just jihadists) that took pleasure in knowing that police officers perished in the World Trade Center.
The war on cops in the United States has been going on since the 1960s. The war against society and rule of law rages worldwide. The animus against law enforcement crosses ideological boundaries and is organized. Historians have now produced strong evidence of how the Soviets funded the rage and revolutionary spirit associated with the anti-Vietnam war movement.
It takes many years for historians to understand developments in the covert intelligence world. Nevertheless, the link between the old KGB and modern Islamo-terrorism is now being documented. The Communists and worldwide jihad share many basic premises. Patricia Hearst was raised in one of America’s wealthiest and most powerful families. The fact that she was abducted during the early 1970s, then appeared as an AK-47 toting revolutionary, raises the issue of how her elite upbringing prepared Hearst to become a radical revolutionary.
How many of today’s parents, journalists, lawyers and professors are unrepentant Sixties radicals in suits? Parents are unaware of how messages embedded in entertainment and education impact society. Kids see and hear what is happening in school and on the streets.
