Here's an AP report from half an hour ago: "3 young people arrested in series of random shootings across Austin that left 4 injured." I wonder how do they know its random? They're calling it a "series." It might have been coordinated.Our investigators lost critical hours tracking down today’s shooting suspects because Austin’s City Council chose politics over public safety and prevented APD from using license plate readers and other crime-fighting technology.
— Michael Bullock (@MBullockATX) May 18, 2026
Those cameras could have helped identify suspect… https://t.co/yp4ZKdLc1a
Three young people were in custody following at least 10 random weekend shootings in Austin, Texas, that left four people injured, city officials said. Driving around the city in stolen vehicles, at least two of the suspects fired at two fire stations, apartment buildings and houses during a string of robberies and shootings from Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning, Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said Sunday. Two boys, ages 15 and 17, were apprehended after they were pulled over in a stolen car and attempted to run. A third person who had been in the car also ran and was detained Sunday night at a gas station in Manor, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northeast of Austin....My son was among the Austin residents who received a police warning to "shelter in place."
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If there was any chance the shooters were politically motivated conservatives the media wouldn’t fail to take political advantage, so when there’s language that’s neutral or defending I play the percentages and assume perps side with the left…
They're pro-criminal. Simple as that.
Dems are criminals and they live other criminals
"Crime-fighting technology" is the nice way to say surveillance state.
"Could have," sure, if they happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Indeed, I'm with no Known UnKnown in being hesitant to promote or encourage expansion of the surveillance state.
Austin (the Madison, WI of TX) used stoplight cameras from 2009 to 2019. They stopped when the state of Texas banned the cameras. So, liberal Austin was willing to use license plate readers to hand out driving tickets, but not to help the cops chase murderers.
What is More Important?
protecting the lives of innocent citizens?
or
protecting the rights of criminals?
To Austin.. the answer is OBVIOUS
The targets they showed on a news report did in fact appear to be random. And when no people are hit by 10 shots it's pretty obvious they were not "targeting" anyone in particular.
If conspiracy theorists want to backtrack and try and connect the various targets have at it, but I think the term "random" was used specifically to indicate no person has been established as a target.
Yeah, well that's leftwing land. So what if a couple people have to die so they can virtue signal. I'm sure if you talked to your local Austin libtard he'd defend the council.
my cousin, who grew up in rural iowa; moved to Austin back at the turn of the century.. and loudly and proudly stated that he was a "Texan"
Every time he'd do that (which was often), i'd have to point out that Travis county was NOT part of "Texas".. it was part of California.
Is there a right to privacy when you are out in pubic?
We'd just drive around and listen to rock and smoke weed when I was 15. If we wanted to shoot we'd go out where it was legal and practice. Don't mix the two.
The anti-LPR movement is about one thing: anti-ICE organization. They want to disable or disconnect any tech that can and will be used to help any Feds in any case. That's how hostile blue cities/counties/states are to the Federal government right now. To think the expert class used to worry about right wing militias LOL. Right now blue dots are competing to out-Fort Sumpter each other. Explicitly so in MN and Portland.
They want to protect criminals
When I was 17, no cop would have caught me. I was like the wind, if the wind was an artful dodger.
It's a balancing act, but I'm with Known Unknown and kirk. Yes, an unrestricted surveillance state can certainly catch criminals more expeditiously, but it watches all of us, not just bad guys. Same as shutting down the Second Amendment would certainly reduce the overall number of killings in the country, it isn't worth the cost of our lost freedom.
License-plate readers can be useful in helping find criminal suspects when needed for that purpose. They would also track you, all the time, and store that information forever. Every surveillance technology involves privacy tradeoffs, so consider whether they're worth it.
Benny Johnson on X: "Disgraced Former FBI Director James Comey signals to the resistance career agents at the bureau to wait out the Trump DOJ: “Hang on two and a half years, and then we can rebuild these institutions.” https://t.co/uh3fgl0bMO" / X https://share.google/jCwP4WwlRa98R8ASL
It's the same as a gun control argument that proposes that all citizens should be treated as potential criminals, lest the criminals have a chance to get away with it.
I notice they didn't get away with it, without everybody else's license plate being read.
Not Chrissy!
Is she ok?
Will mama bear be heading down to visit, or did one of Richard's families take them in?
You must be sooooo worried, mama.
Explains the slow posting of late as you waited to see if your child escaped alive....
They were targeting jews, I bet. Christy and Jon look like Richard. You have the recessive gene pool that did not transfer over.... except for maybe a stray freckle or two. Lol
I presume that the Austin City Council got rid of the license plate readers as soon as they realized that their license plates were being read too, the same as the license plates of ordinary citizens.
We have the technology to read license plates on moving vehicles and ID faces from blurry surveillance cameras.
But gosh darn it we just can't seem to be able to make our election system secure and auditable.
A bridge too far, apparently.
Ann said ... "I wonder how do they know its random? They're calling it a "series." It might have been coordinated."
They may not know the facts, but they are certain of their narrative.
If you’re out in public and you’re doing something you don’t want recorded, the solution is simple. Don’t do it.
Two boys and a “person” have been arrested/detained. Well that’s even-handed reporting.
"If you’re out in public and you’re doing something you don’t want recorded, the solution is simple. Don’t do it."
This is a naive interpretation of how recorded and stored data and video can be used to manipulate.
Maybe if cops didnt give reason to ban this technology it wouldn't be an issue.
Milwaukee PD officer Josue Ayala and Flock cameras:
According to a criminal complaint, Ayala was using the cameras to track someone he was dating. Specifically, he looked up the license plate of his dating partner more than 120 times between March 26 and May 26 of 2025. He also looked at a second license plate that belonged to that person's former partner 55 times in the same time period.
Ayala listed the reason for his search in the Flock system as "investigation."
I wonder how do they know it’s random? They're calling it a "series." It might have been coordinated.
You mean there is a group of people in this country that want to take other people’s stuff and any violence they commit is “mostly peaceful” and “random?”
Anyone proven to have used a gun in a crime where someone is hurt should be punished by public hanging. A couple years of that and gun crime will dramatically recede.
Perhaps worse -- The Univ Minn. police have a policy not to identify the race of alleged perpetrators they are looking for.
Mark said...
Maybe if cops didnt give reason to ban this technology it wouldn't be an issue.
Democrats want to take other peoples stuff.
The police try to stop them from doing it.
That is all that is going on here.
I know I'm not the first to think of it, but it would be far less expensive and both more compassionate and effective, if we could just sentence some criminals to a brain surgery that would alter them permanently like a lobotomy, but much more targeted and less destructive. Remove what makes you violent or sociopathic. I think medicine could do that today. Ask A.I. for help.
So, liberal Austin was willing to use license plate readers to hand out driving tickets, but not to help the cops chase murderers.
If they're anything like many other local governments, they also deliberately shortened the duration of the yellow lights when the red light cameras were installed, in order to generate more revenue. This caused a marked increase in rear-end collisions, with many injuries and some deaths.
The thieving, grasping government scum don't give a shit about solving crime, and in many cases sympathize with the criminals, and hate their law-abiding, taxpaying victims, and consider crime and chaos to be a justified form of reparations that will also increase the clamor for aggrandizement of the Nanny Government.
But they are so eager for your money that they will deliberately kill the people who pay their salaries in order to squeeze a few more nickels out of the pockets of the working man.
Government is man's worst enemy, at all times and in all places. Let's work together to tear it down to a tenth its current size.
Sanctuary city? Where abortionists, rapists, et al are protected and the victims, the "burden" of evidence, demos-cracy, dies in darkness. Social justice anywhere is injustice everywhere.
Heartless Aztec said...
"Anyone proven to have used a gun in a crime where someone is hurt should be punished by public hanging. A couple years of that and gun crime will dramatically recede."
There is an argument that a very small percentage of people commit most of the crime. Medieval punishment made even petit property crimes capital crimes. This was an attempt to eliminate those criminals from the gene pool.
They're calling it a "series."
A series is simply a grouping characterized by sequential order. The same group of people shot at one target, then another, and then another rather than three people shooting at three targets at the same time. There's nothing nefarious about calling what happened a series.
Perhaps worse -- The Univ Minn. police have a policy not to identify the race of alleged perpetrators they are looking for.
I totally get why you don't (and shouldn't) identify a possible perp by race: what if the perp is, say, of southern Indian descent, with very dark skin, but you publicly identify him (playing the odds here about the "him") as black? People getting a good look at the person might discount him as a possible suspect because he doesn't look black - he looks Indian.
But if skin color, hair color, hair texture, hair length and style, eye shape, facial hair, and other physical characteristics have been described by witnesses (or are observable on video), I don't see why you can't give out every one of those identifying characteristics in the same way that you would say the person is wearing a red parka or a gray hoodie. Why should you have to hold back skin color and hair texture simply because they might aid in identifying a person as black (again, playing the odds that this ethnicity is the targeted one in the ban), which could hurt the feelings of generic, unnamed black people?
If the "fear" is that white people (maybe I should go to the races with Dinky today, with all the odds I'm playing), not being able to tell the difference between black people, are going to call the cops on every black person they see if the description makes it clear that the sought-after potential suspect is black, well... maybe join the 21st century. Pretty sure most American white people have now seen enough black people to be able to distinguish one from another, as well as to tell the difference between a dark-skinned black person with close-cropped hair and a full beard in a camo jacket from a medium-dark-skinned black person with dreads in a Hawaiian shirt.
Couple of things:
1. Very soon, AI and consumer photography will be able to identify individual cars, without license plates. Record every single scratch, dent, custom lugnut, etc. Maybe even capture the VIN through the windshield. So less need for tags.
2. Private entities already have public-facing cameras, which they often share with local gov, even on a realtime basis. If local gov stops these sharing programs, the private sector might just dump all their cameras into a database run by the HOA or the merchants' association. If a crime takes place, the database owner runs a script to produce a unified tape of the suspect vehicle traversing the whole shared-camera zone. Then offers this to the police and prosecutor.
Unless of course the residents and merchants are already woke or beaten down into a good impression thereof.
CC, JSM
Publish all mug shots, prosecute all violent crimes, punish all criminals. See how easy it is?
--- Is there a right to privacy when you are out in pubic?
AZ, this raises some highly conflicting issues. Here in PA, local ordinances take precedence. There is no right to privacy in Blue Ball, but Intercourse respects that right. Paradise goes even further.
Aggie said...
Publish all mug shots, prosecute all violent crimes, punish all criminals. See how easy it is?
If you do that democrat voters have to get real jobs instead of stealing from people.
I don't get the outrage. They caught the perps, didn't they?
ICE agent charged in shooting of immigrant during Operation Metro Surge
"The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office issued a nationwide arrest warrant, saying agent shot the man and then lied about it."
https://www.startribune.com/ice-agent-charged-in-shooting-of-man-in-north-minneapolis-during-operation-metro-surge/601843874?utm_source=gift
Yeah that state warrant for a federal agent, and $7.95, will get you a grande latte at Starbucks. CC, JSM
This is akin to prosecutorial discretion, judicial rehabilitation, etc, where the freak is released to grope, grift, or enjoy a gay parade perchance leading to an abortion.
As Chuck explains, Democrats only exist to steal from decent people and throw them in jail when they resist.
I almost mentioned in the post about high-speed chases that using Flock cameras is being banned by places under the argument of privacy.
I live in Texas. East Texas... Not Austin. They need to have the book thrown at them...NO MERCY. They violated both federal laws and state (Federal felony to steal guns from a FFL holder.) Try them in both courts. Make an example out of them. Others will not fear justice if there IS NO JUSTICE.
Perhaps they should start holding the parents of the criminals accountable, as well.
I see your grande latte, Mr. Mosby, and I raise you a venti cup of…
https://x.com/i/status/2055806310629740904
Ha!
The Star Tribune motto: When It Absolutely, Positively Needs to Be Publicized and You Don't Have a Legitimate News Source to Refer To
Iman, to your point of holding parents accountable, here in DC, Judge Jeanine, the US Attorney (because fedgov prosecutes DC Code crimes), has said she is going to start charging parents with contributing to the delinquency of a minor when their little darlings violate the curfew and otherwise act out. CC, JSM
A GOOD start!
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is showing the way for the Texas State Legislature to pass legislation that takes away local authority over matters like zoning. See https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/yimby-has-arrived-in-illinois-and-some-cities-dont-like-it-1d21f742?mod=Searchresults&pos=1&page=1. Why not use the same State power to limit the crazy leftists in Austin?
Maybe if red States did that the leftists would move to Illinois, California or New York.
I got pulled over driving my wife’s car on the basis of a tag reader when she forgot to renew her registration. Was my privacy invaded? Or do only criminals fleeing felony crimes have privacy rights.
In Singapore you get 7 years for shoplifting. The first offense for littering gets you a $300 fine, the second offense is $4,000 and the third and subsequent offenses $10,000. There is no shoplifting there and the streets are clear of litter.
I was terrified on my first and only trip to Singapore when I learned there was a fine for neglecting to flush the toilet.
" Is there a right to privacy when you are out in pubic?"
if only the issue were about privacy.
Remember "broken window policing" in NYC under Rudy Giuliani?
Here's a picture I took in a marketplace in 2020 when my wife and I visited Singapore: https://judgejudyandjim.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-5th-floor-pool-at-singapore.html
Gov. Abbott calling for the teens to be tried as adults.
"Gov. Abbott calling for the teens to be tried as adults.
Democrats think they should be allowed to vote, so...
Suspect looks like a Tsarnaev
“One of the three suspects charged in connection with multiple shootings over the weekend in Austin has been identified as 17-year-old Cristian Mondragon, according to law enforcement sources.” Gun theft occurred at “321 W. Ben White Blvd,” which is Central Texas Gun Works, run by Michael Cargill, of the Garland v. Cargill bump stock case.
Info courtesy of Lawrence Person's Battleswarm Blog.
“One of the three suspects charged in connection with multiple shootings over the weekend in Austin has been identified as 17-year-old Cristian Mondragon, according to law enforcement sources.” Gun theft occurred at “321 W. Ben White Blvd,” which is Central Texas Gun Works, run by Michael Cargill, of the Garland v. Cargill bump stock case."
Info courtesy of Lawrence Person's Battleswarm Blog.
Also called an average Tuesday in Chicago.
That's why ShotSpotter, which detected gunshots, saved lives until stupid whiners took the technology away.
It had no bearing on gun rights. It's a ridiculous comparison.
Two First Responder stations were shot at, so there's a clue.
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...
when no people are hit by 10 shots it's pretty obvious they were not "targeting" anyone in particular.
Or it shows they're just bad shots.
Joe Bar said...
I don't get the outrage. They caught the perps, didn't they?
How much harm did the perps commit in the time period between when they "should" have been caught, and when they actually were caught? How many people got shot at, and could have been injured / killed, in that time period?
That's why ShotSpotter, which detected gunshots, saved lives until stupid whiners took the technology away.
This is America in the 2020's. We now have a technology that detects gunshots being fired and allows a rapid, targeted emergency response that is potentially lifesaving and increases the likelihood that the perpetrators can be taken off the street. But since it turns out that the perpetrators of such hijinks are always predominantly black, the Revrunds and self appointed community activists complain that it is racist, and the Democrat politicians who depend on the black vote supinely surrender to their demands to be allowed to continue shooting up their own neighborhoods.
If there were a racist conspiracy to convince the rest of us that black people are unfit for full citizenship, let alone positions of political power, they couldn't do any better than what black people do themselves with the assistance of craven, power-crazed white Democrats.
Whoever said no one was hit by the shots fired is misinformed. A man walking his dog was hit in the back and stomach.
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