Every year, several bazillion dollars wind up getting squeezed out of the American people and funneled directly into the one place where we don’t trust any money to end up: In the hands of the federal government.
And, every year, they spend this cash is offensively incoherent ways.
What makes this all the more offensive are the glut of mistakes that are being made by federal law enforcement officers who keep letting soon-to-be mass shooters slip through the cracks.
The suspected gunman who killed eight people and himself Wednesday at a transit rail yard in San Jose, California, was found to have harbored a hatred for his workplace when he was detained by federal officials several years ago.
Upon returning from an August 2016 trip to the Philippines, Samuel Cassidy, 57, was found with books about terrorism and notes about how much he hated the Valley Transportation Authority, according to a Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by the Wall Street Journal.
Customs and Border Protection officials reportedly found a black memo book “filled with lots of notes about how he hates the VTA.” His baggage and electronic media were also inspected, the DHS memo said.
It noted that he had a minor criminal history, citing a 1983 incident in which he was arrested in San Jose and charged with “misdemeanor obstruction/resisting a peace officer,” the Journal reported.
This is far from the first time that a mass shooter had been previously interviewed by federal law enforcement for acts that appeared to preview their massacres, with both the Parkland high school shooter and the Orlando nightclub shooter having been targeted by the FBI well ahead of the tragedies they conjured.