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Damn... we got a lot of fire bugs here in Oregon
5 years ago
When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe. – Frederic Bastiat
1. Jeffrey Acord, 36, was arrested in Puyallup, Washington, last Wednesday on reckless burning charges. When police arrived on the scene, Acord reportedly started Facebook livestreaming the incident to act like he had discovered the fire. Acord is a known Black Lives Matter activist who led a BLM rally in June. He had previously been arrested on weapons charges during a 2014 protest in Ferguson, Missouri.
2. Elijas Newton Pendergrass, 44, was arrested under suspicion of starting the Sweet Creek Milepost 2 fire west of Eugene, Oregon, earlier this month. That fire has burned hundreds of acres and prompted evacuations.
3. Christine Comello, 36, was arrested in Spokane, Washington, last week on first- and second-degree arson charges. She had allegedly started fires near a commercial business and an old oil drum that reportedly "gave the fire the potential to explode into something much larger."
4. Domingo Lopez Jr., 45, was arrested near Portland, Oregon, this week for starting a fire using a Molotov cocktail. A day later, police said he was arrested again for starting six more small brushfires. He was taken to a hospital for a mental health evaluation and is being held on a total of seven counts of reckless burning.
5. Michael Jarrod Bakkela, 41, was arrested in Phoenix, Oregon, last week on two counts of arson, 15 counts of criminal mischief, and 14 counts of reckless endangerment. According to police, Bakkela is responsible for setting one of the two origins of the Almeda fire, which burned thousands of acres in southern Oregon and has killed two people. As of last week, 50 people remain unaccounted for as a result of the fire.
6. Jonathan Maas, 44, was arrested in Dexter, Oregon, for allegedly starting a fire in the woods near a frisbee golf course.
7. Anita Esquivel, 37, was arrested in Salinas, California, for allegedly starting multiple fires along Highway 101. There were reportedly some indications that Esquivel was connected to Antifa, but the Monterey County District Attorney's Office has since denied those allegations.
8. Osmin Palencia, 36, a homeless man, was arrested last month for allegedly starting the Ranch 2 Fire in Azusa, California. That fire ended up burning through nearly 5,000 acres of land and took hundreds of firefighters to contain.
9. Ivan Geronimo Gomez, 31, has been arrested under suspicion that he was involved in starting the massive Dolan Fire in Big Sur, California, which has burned through at least 23,000 acres. Gomez was also detained under suspicion of illegal marijuana cultivation.
10. Sammy Piatt, 53, was arrested for setting a pile of leaves on fire near a county building last Friday in Oregon City, Oregon..
11. Jett Avery Thomas, 36, was arrested for allegedly trying to set a hotel gas pipe on fire in Portland, Oregon.
12. John Davies, 55, and reportedly a transient, was arrested earlier this month for starting multiple fires in Novato, California.
13. Jacob Altona, 28, was arrested after being chased by cops along State Route 512 and State Route 7 in Washington. He was alleged to have started a fire in the brush along the highway.
It should be noted that these are only the instances in which law enforcement were able to catch the individuals allegedly starting fires, as well as only the instances in which the suspects names have been released. There have been more reported arrests.
Also, on Sept. 7, after 300,000 acres were reported to have burned the day prior in Washington state, public lands commissioner Hilary Franz said she believes all 58 of the fires were caused by humans.
"Because there was no lightning in the area, we believe all of these fires we saw yesterday were human caused," Franz said.
While information is still being collected about the fires across the West Coast, it's fair to call it malpractice to brush aside claims that criminals are responsible for starting many of the fires.
THERE ARE NO ARSONISTS STARTING ALL THESE SIMULTANEOUS FIRES ACROSS THE ENTIRE WEST COAST!!!
Or so, our idiot MSM and MORE idiot 'Democratic Party' would have us believe.
Yeah, right.
These sonsabitches weren't content to just burn-down the g-damned cities.
Now they're out destroying the wilds and burning people/pets/livestock to death.
Hang 'em all, and leave their worthless carcasses to rot/the carrion birds.
I happen to live in Oregon, and though I personally haven't suffered from all of this BS, I know a LOT of people that lost everything they had.
I have zero empathy towards arsonists.
If they're not shooting reporters in the face with rubber bullets, they're shooting unarmed people in the back with real bullets. I've seen videos of cops smashing windows and looting stores. I'd openly wonder if it was cops setting these fires but that doesn't make any more sense than protesters setting fires. Wanting to burn down a courthouse? Okay, that fits. A forest? Not so much.
And if it's true? Then we all deserve what we get. Both sides are fighting dirty because the other side is.
I didn't used to feel this way. Cops are supposed to be the good guys. The heroes! But time after time we see it; police committing murder and getting away with it.
People call for law and order. But it has to work both ways. Being a criminal should come with getting punished, but being innocent should come with NOT getting punished. The script has been flipped.
If thy even so much as showed remorse when they kill or injure non-criminals, that would be different. But they don't. They NEVER do. So what are non-cops supposed to think?
I know what I think.
Maybe some cops do get prosecuted for crimes. But not the ones I hear about.
Maybe some people that cops have killed were violent and could only have been dealt with that way. But not the ones I hear about.
Maybe Internal Affairs does catch a lot of corrupt cops. But they haven't caught the cops I hear about.
Maybe some officers do commit suicide. That's sad, because if being a cop made them do that, then they obviously cared. But they could also have quit. Black people can't quit being black (Michael Jackson notwithstanding).
I really don't want to think about cops this way. I really don't. I want them to be good guys. And until recently I did think that way. It used to be when things happened I thought it was just a few bad apples. When those bad apples got caught on video, I thought it was going to force the bad ones to do better. When they still got to go free despite everyone having full knowledge of what they did, I thought it was an isolated case. Maybe the jury had facts I didn't. Maybe someone got paid off.
But it just. keeps. happening.
I'm sure there are good cops. But they all wear the same uniform, y'see. I can't tell them apart.
Protesting by starting a forest fire where you live doesn't make any sense, so I can't see protestors doing that. Some odd crazy person or idiot teenager, sure, but nobody promoting a cause would do this. It doesn't pass the sniff test.
And hey, if you're worried about your house getting burned down, well I'm worried about getting shot in my sleep.
once again Crazy is as crazy does.... Arsonists will burn anything just to watch it burn... that includes other people... And anarchists just want to cause death and destruction... so a forest is as good as a courthouse to them... Evil is very real and its not just in the police force... And then there are those who want to target the red state voters... or the Trump voters... Many of whom live in rural locals where they can't be cornered and intimidated at outdoor restaurants. Burn their homes and force them into the city where they can be targeted and threatened into thinking the right way...
You should worry because folks in that movement up at CHOP, have shot and killed black teenagers... no cops needed for that... The cops were not allowed in and yet these black lives didn't matter to the folks at CHOP
Abolish police as an institution altogether
Abolish police as an institution and replace it with something new
Disarm police -- at least until they can prove they can use lethal weapons responsibly
Dramatically reduce police funding, perhaps reallocate it to public institutions that do more good
Remove police' legal protections so they can be sued when they commit massive crimes
Maybe just have them show a thimbleful of remorse?!?!
Now I don't know what CHOP is, maybe it's a group of criminals or violent protestors. I'll tell you what they aren't though, they aren't paid for by MY tax dollars. They're not called OFFICERS. They're not held to a standard of conduct that is higher than a normal citizen because they are trusted with authority.
I don't know about the protestors, but I wouldn't call police to protect myself right now. God knows who they'd wind up killing.