The Revenge of the Thin Blue Line 39: Police Domestic Violence Ohio to California road trip

"Ha ha ha I can't believe you got'em!  You expert, rootin'-tootin', eagle-eyed, Goth-loving marksman! I love it! You managed to find a way to win... and everybody still loses!!!" Joker, Under the Red Hood (2010)

Domestic violence is the most prevalent and least controlled crime in America.  In 1987, the Illinois legislature finally mandated Police Officers, at a minimum, write a report when going to a domestic disturbance type situation.  Up until just before Covid I was working with Officers who started their careers back before this mandate.  I'm sure you remember how the response of Officers used to be next to nothing other than a vague warning that they'd do something if they came back a second time that night.

Tracy Chapman, who's enjoying a resurgence due to Luke Combs covering Fast Car, had another song on that ground-breaking album called Behind the Wall.  The lyrics encapsulate much of the perception, true or  not, of the police response to domestic violence.  It's also been known that domestic abuse amongst families of Police Officers is at least as common as the general public and most likely vastly underreported  due to a variety of factors.

So, it comes as little surprise former Officer John Snowling, drove from Ohio to California to attempt to gun down his ex-wife.  Snowling, was a retired Ventura Police Sergeant.  Marie Snowling filed for divorce in December 2022.  As we all know women who are battered, who eventually do leave their abusive husbands, are very much at risk to be murdered.  Snowling tracked her down at Cook’s Corner in Trabuco Canyon, about 50 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, and shot 9 people including her. Three people died and six others were injured before Snowling was killed by law enforcement. The fatal victims have been identified as John Leehey, 67, Tonya Clark, 49, and Glen Sprowl, 53.  After entering and shooting Marie and others, Snowling apparently ran out of ammo or had a weapon malfunction, exited the bar and went back to his vehicle to get more guns and/or ammo.  The Officers confronted him outside at his car. 

“He just had very normal career, nothing really else to report,” Ventura Police Cmdr. Sarah Heard told reporters.

In military parlance, this is known as NSTR (Nothing Significant to Report), which is laughable because I wonder (and in reality know) how Snowling treated domestic abuse victims when he was on the job.  Snowling worked from 1986 to 2014.  So his career encapsulates the generation which was supposed to respond and actually try and do something about domestic abuse.

Again we see, the poisonous fruits of the NRA and Republican push against Gun Control.  Marie Snowling was most likely a long term victim of spousal abuse.  That she finally managed to free herself, file for divorce, is an unforgivable sin to Republicans who are beginning to push back against easier divorce in the perpetual rightwing war on women.  Of course, Republicans and the Gun Industry are also trying to denude firearms restraining orders.  And Snowling was, of course, able to purchase multiple guns because there really is no controls on guns and when a shooting like this happens Republicans simply XIT out their Thoughts & Prayers and move on to the next NRA funded dinner to rake in more blood-soaked campaign donations.

So, anyway the Good Officers who responded to the Bad Officer, shot and killed him and as the Joker said...  Everybody Still Loses...

Whooping (Cough)! There it is!

What happened in Los Angeles when a vaccination ordinance was submitted to a popular referendum is typical of what would happen anywhere under the same circumstances. The ordinance was rejected, and smallpox spread through the town. - H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, pg.57

Outbreaks of Whooping Cough (Pertussis) occasionally occur in America. Back in June California had an 5 deaths and 910 cases attributed to the highly contagious disease. The 5 deaths in June were infants of Latino parents and, most likely, had no access or inclination to seek out Health care and Vaccinations.

However, what we are witnessing today is a spread beyond the normal expected areas, as evidenced by the outbreak of 20 cases in two schools in the fabulous North Shore school districts in Wilmette and Winnetka. And thanks to the Anti-Vaccination Mob being moneyed is not a protection.

The Anti-Vaccination Mob has succeeded in reviving and strengthening vanquished diseases. And while the current Mob gained traction from the completely false and dishonestly written 1998 British Paper by the wholly discredited Dr. Andrew Wakefield in which he blamed Autism cases on vaccinations, a large part of the blame for the recent anti-vaccination movement is due to the steadily anti-science narrative, most often championed by Republican Party.

Most scientific theories have negative consequences for Republican Political Power, as such, those theories must be destroyed. But, ignorance doesn't merely belong to Republicans. Celebrities, most famously Jenny McCarthy, and liberals Bill Maher and Robert Kennedy Jr, immune to normal lives have thrown themselves behind the movement. The Anti-Vaccination Movement crosses political affiliation because it is based on the sloppy thinking, which is the natural state of the human brain. The Scientific Method isn't natural and had to be invented to overcome the human predilection to falsely ascribe patterns where they are none and to engage in fallacious post hoc ergo propter hoc thinking.

Many of the techniques used by the Anti-Vaccinators were garnered from the Anti-Evolutionists. I recommend going over the Science Blog Respectful Insolence by ORAC who examines and dissects the various and numerous Anti-Vaccination proponents who are engaging in propaganda, distortions, pseudoscience and outright lies.