Courtesy of Fairfax County
by James C. Sherlock
In response to the adjacent exhortation by Fairfax County from its home page, I am speaking up.
Defend the homes of the Supreme Court Justices who live in your county.
I offer breaking news to many who only read and watch progressive media, including the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.
Justice Kavanaugh and his family were the targets of an assassination attempt at their home in Montgomery County early Wednesday morning.
Going out on a limb, that may portend a “gun tragedy” in Fairfax County. Though not solicited in the banner request, I also report that there may prove to be a person or persons holding such weapons.
I hope I have not gone too far.
The assassin was planning to die at the scene — he took a cab to the house. Yet he was deterred by the presence of two U.S. Marshals at the house. Good thing there were not four assassins in that cab instead of one.
He was carrying a gun, ammunition, a knife, pepper spray, a screwdriver, zip ties, hammer and other gear when he was arrested by Montgomery County Police Department.
So how, you wonder, in the current threat environment did he get to step out of a taxi in front of a Supreme Court Justice’s house between one and two in the morning armed with that bag of tricks?
Answer: the Montgomery County Police were not there. They arrived at the scene because the assassin called them to come and get him. First-rate police work.
Montgomery County had declined to protect a Supreme Court Justice under direct personal threat.
Just like Fairfax County.
I’d say the assassination attempt has been in all the papers, but in the liberal print media you would have had to particularly persistent to find it.
Wednesday mid-morning I checked The New York Times, The Washington Post and LA Times. Each had the story but printed a brief sketch of what happened buried deep in both the online and print editions.
You would have seen a less than a one-minute accounting on the PBS Evening News at the 14:31 mark on Wednesday night. Halfway through the show. Nearly all of it was sung in praise of the Justice Department.
CBS Evening News provided a good report halfway through the show. NBC Nightly News a very short report on the B block.
ABC, more than halfway through its World News Tonight, got the story wrong. Disney’s ABC reported erroneously that the Montgomery County Police “were on security detail.” They were not.
That was the only mention of the Montgomery County Police in any of those MSM TV news reports.
These reports were all aired 18 hours after the event.
Seems the attempted assassination of a Supreme Court Justice threatened to step on their narrative. Didn’t happen. All of the MSM evening news reports led with nearly identical and very lengthy stories about six new gun laws in the House and the clear need for each of them.
None of them ran this clip of remarks by Senator Schumer with their assassination attempt reports. It must have been considered irrelevant.
The “protestors” were back in front of the Kavanaugh family home Wednesday night with bullhorns and drums. Montgomery County police, of the fool-me-once persuasion, were there that night. But no arrests were made even though such activities violate federal law.
Imagine if the victim had been Justice Sotomayor.
A working example of joint federal/local cooperation. Bank robbery is a federal crime because banks are organized under federal laws, regulated by federal officials and are members of the Federal Reserve.
Fairfax County Police know the feds will take the lead, but they do not turn away because of that fact. They patrol the streets on which banks are located, look for intelligence about potential bank robberies, watch for suspicious activity, try to prevent robberies, and arrest bank robbers.
Armed bank robbery carries a maximum federal sentence of 25 years in prison. This includes making threats, using any weapon during a robbery, and even using toy weapons during a robbery. Prison sentences usually begin at around 10 years in prison and will reach 25 years for a standard armed bank robbery charge. Priors and aggravating circumstances kick those sentences higher.
While armed robbery including robbery of banks is also a crime under Virginia law, it is at most a Class 3 felony — five to 20 years. Bank robbery using a weapon other than a firearm is a state Class 5 felony – one to ten years.
More importantly right now, the state crime would need to be prosecuted in Fairfax County courts by Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano, a George Soros man.
Fairfax County and protection of justices. I think it the right time to check back with a column I posted here on May 13. See “Fairfax County Declines Assistance in Protecting Supreme Court Justices as Unconstitutional.”
The County said that setting up a perimeter as formally requested by Governor Youngkin would be unconstitutional.
A lot of you read it. It drew 99 comments.
The Fairfax County claim of unconstitutionality was challenged in the column. I will challenge it again here.
Separately, there are federal and state laws on the books for decades against the demonstrations that have been taking place in Virginia. The federal law is very specific and on point in prohibiting those demonstrations. It has withstood judicial review since 1950.
Yet Fairfax County, rejecting a request from the Governor, has refused to establish a perimeter.
Baconsrebellion.com commenters from the left. To save them some time with this column, I will review some of the comments on the May 13 column from some of our regulars.
Dick Hall-Sizemore admonished:
First of all, the code section you cited is federal law. Local police do not enforce federal law.
I responded:
They do so every single day. That is why there are federal, state, local joint task forces.
He failed to comment on the state law I cited that also bans such demonstrations.
Mr. Hall-Sizemore again:
The U.S. Supreme Court in Indianapolis v. Edmond (531 U.S. 32) held that when their “primary purpose is indistinguishable from the general interest in crime control, the checkpoints violate the Fourth Amendment.”
Good to know. That decision stated:
Police must have the “usual requirement of individualized suspicion where [they] seek to employ a checkpoint primarily for the ordinary enterprise of investigating crimes”.
Mr. Hall-Sizemore added, to make his point:
What “specific” threats have there been?
There had at that time already been specific threats against the Supreme Court justices whose home addresses had been published online by anti-abortion radicals.
But the job of being an apologist for the inexcusable sometimes requires such denials.
In a much more directly related case, 1988’s Frisby v. Schultz, the Supreme Court upheld a local Wisconsin ordinance that barred picketing “before or about any residence or dwelling.”
That ordinance was passed to address anti-abortion protesters who had been picketing outside the home of an abortion provider.
Mr. Hall-Sizemore again.
I doubt if either side wants to see people arrested.
Guess again.
Nancy Naive, after reliably attempting to make the issue about Justice Thomas and race, contributed:
Many state and local police in many states do not work with, oh say, ICE.
So the U.S. Marshals Service has now reached ICE status in the left’s pantheon of deplorables. The FBI, busy investigating parents who protest progressive policies at school board meetings, has not yet crossed that threshold.
Hope that saves some space in the comments section.
What to do? Fairfax County must cooperate with the Marshals Service in shutting down illegal demonstrations at the Justices’ residents.
They must also establish the perimeters so that no assassins can, let’s say theoretically, take a cab to a Justice’s home at 1 o’clock in the morning with guns and a bag full of Molotov cocktails.
Maybe that credible and specific threat thing is established now.
