The Louisville man accused of shooting and killing a photographer on Saturday was arrested and released twice before this month.
Steven Nelson Lopez has not been charged, but he is in police custody for the shooting of Tyler Gerth, 27, a local photographer.
The shooting occurred at Jefferson Square in Louisville, Kentucky, at a Black Lives Matter encampment complete with tents.
Lopez, who’s 23, was part of the protest when he apparently got into a dispute with another protester and opened fire.
According to reports, Lopez was stopped when “several bystanders returned fire, shooting Lopez in the leg.” Lopez was carrying two full magazines when arrested, according to the citation.
Witnesses said Lopez fired into the air twice before turning the gun on the crowd.
Here’s the part that caught my eye….
On June 17th Lopez was arrested for inciting a riot, disorderly conduct, harassment and buying/possessing drug paraphernalia. Just two days later, records show Lopez was arrested yet again on June 19th. Those charges included unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct.
This guy is arrested twice, once for inciting a riot… And then he’s released twice… And now he’s suspected of shooting and killing someone.
I don’t know if this was just bad policing, or if it was part of this insane bail reform that’s been going around, but authorities had this guy and let him go. And let him go after he had been arrested on numerous charges, including “inciting a riot” — and now someone is dead.
This is just a preview of what’s coming in these Democrat-run cities, of what’s coming from these far-left Democrat politicians who are using these Black Lives Matter-Antifa riots as an excuse to weaken and even abolish the police. Not to mention the politicians who used the coronavirus as an excuse to release a whole bunch of violent criminals.
This is what always happens when politicians go soft on criminals. We saw this in the 60s and 70s when urban blight hit an all time peak.
That’s not to say we can’t reform some parts of the system, but when it comes to those who have proved they are comfortable with or capable of violence, politicians cannot be taking chances because they are always taking chances with someone else’s life.
I am perfectly comfortable with those peacefully protesting the death of George Floyd. But who’s going to protest the death of Tyler Gerth, a young man killed who never should have been killed because the police had his suspected killer in custody on two different occasions and let him go?
The sad thing is the soft-on-crime mentality that is sweeping the country, even as we see case after case after case proving this is a bad idea. Which means things are going to have to get real bad before we snap out of it, and that took decades after we went soft in the 60s.
I don’t even want to think about what’s going to happen in these schools that are removing the police.
Weakness invited aggression… Cities such as Chicago and New York are already collapsing into violence. Sadly, this is only the beginning.
More of this would turn things around, but Democrats want chaos and lawlessness.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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