Alton Nolen, the suspect. Telegraph.
A disgruntled former employee of a food processing plant in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, decapitated one woman and attacked another before being shot by the companies CEO. Yahoo/AP Alton Nolen is the suspect and had been fired recently. He was reportedly trying to convert people to Islam before he was fired. The companies CEO, Mark Vaughn, who is also a sheriffs reserve deputy, retrieved a rifle and shot Nolen before he could attack anyone else. Nolen is still alive and is in stable condition. It is unclear if Nolen was inspired by the recent decapitations by ISIS and their affiliates or if he had some other motivation. Nolen is a convicted felon and had been charged with battery on a police officer, and possession of cocaine.
My Comment:
Another case of a good guy with a gun stopping a mass killing. I have no doubt that Nolen would have kept stabbing people if Vaughn hadn't put him down. Sure he was a reserve deputy, but he wasn't a cop on active duty. If he hadn't been there with a gun more people could have died. The Islamic extremism angle will probably make the media unable to ignore the facts of this case. In other words this is a case the gun grabbing left would love to bury but they just won't be able to do so this time. I am glad that it clearly contrasts what happened with the Lee Rigby case in England. When the terrorist killed Rigby and gave an impromptu speech, many Americans commented if he had done the same thing here he would have been shot by a civilian. That's exactly what happened.
The other important angle to this story is that it is very possible that Nolen took the recent calls by ISIS to attack American civilians to heart. It's still too early to tell if he was inspired directly by ISIS or not, but it had to have been in his head either way. Murder by decapitation is incredibly rare, and the fact that he was trying to convert people to Islam builds a strong circumstantial case that he was indeed inspired by radical Islam. Even if he wasn't and was just another disgruntled person attacking people, at the very least his method of attack was probably inspired by ISIS.
In a more personal note I had supper tonight with several older family members and it was clear to me that they were upset about this. Not just because it is horrible but because they think it could happen to them. They were afraid that having something as simple as "God Bless the USA" or "Support Our Troops" as a bumper sticker could get them killed. I haven't heard that level of fear since 9/11. I don't think this kind of thing will be widespread, in the United States at least, but at this point it's something to keep in mind. It's freaking me out a bit since I work somewhere similar to this place but my company has a "no guns" policy. Should some crazed extremist tries to cut someones head off at my job, I'm SOL.
No comments:
Post a Comment