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Florida Man With Guns Arrested for Trespassing on CIA Grounds and at Preschool

May 24, 2023 by Jennifer Oliver OConnell Leave a Comment

File this under “News of the Weird.” On Tuesday, a young man from Florida decided to visit the gate at CIA headquarters and let them know he was armed. He then traveled to a preschool and attempted to gain access to the school. Thanks to the CIA calling in his description, he was arrested on those school grounds and taken into police custody.

CNN reports:

A man now under arrest walked up to the CIA Headquarters’ gate Tuesday and allegedly said, “I’m here and I have a gun,” a law enforcement source told CNN.
Uniformed federal officers turned him away and notified Fairfax County, Virginia, police of his description, the source said Wednesday.

The man has since been identified as 32-year-old Eric Sandow of Gainesville, Florida.

What is Sandow’s race? Was he spouting any philosophies, left or right-wing? It is amazing how when the narrative does not suit them, the legacy media never mentions race or motives, alleged or otherwise.

Sandow said he was headed to the CIA and had an AK-47 and another weapon in his vehicle as he was arrested Tuesday at Dolley Madison Preschool in McLean, Virgnia, after he trespassed on school grounds around 11 a.m., police said.
The preschool is less than 1.5 miles from CIA Headquarters and about a 10-minute drive to major Washington, DC, landmarks, including the National Mall.

Map of McLean VA Showing Proximity of CIA HQ and Dolley Madison PreSchool

The New York Post included this updated information:

A trespasser carrying an AK-47, handgun and loads of ammo was arrested at a preschool in Virginia, as he claimed he was headed to the nearby CIA headquarters.
Eric Sandow, 32, of Florida, was taken into custody on Tuesday at the Dolley Madison preschool in McLean after he was caught sneaking onto school grounds, police said.
Officials recovered an AK-47 assault rifle with five extra magazines, a handgun with six extra magazines, as well as several boxes and bags of ammo from Sandow’s vehicle.

An AK-47? Unlike the AR-15, that is actually a weapon of war, used by infantry from the U.S. to Bucharest. However, no commentary on that from the legacy media either.

Dolley Madison Preschool issued a statement, saying: “He requested access to the (preschool) building facilities to use the restroom, which was denied by school staff. At no point did he gain physical entrance to the school building.”

That was efficient and smart work by the staff, although Virginia schools, like many other purple and blue area schools, can be easy targets. According to the federal “Gun-Free School Zone Act” and Virginia Code Section 18.2-308.1, firearms are restricted in public, parochial, and private schools, including buildings and grounds. While some Virginia counties provide armed resource officers in schools, not all do. It seems we learn nothing from these school shootings except how to sharpen the particular narrative rather than do the work of protecting children.

Which brings up the sober reminder that today is the one-year anniversary of the horrible Uvalde massacre at Robb Elementary School in Texas. Due to the gross incompetency of the Uvalde police force, two teachers and 19 children were shot and killed by Salvador Ramos.

From reported police conversations with Sandow, he appeared to be acting alone, and wasn’t necessarily focused on the preschool. Sandow never took his weapons out of the car or brandished them. There are still many unanswered questions: Who (or what) was Sandow targeting? Was this a cry for help? According to reports, Sandow openly stated that he had guns, even though he never had them on his person. What is Sandow’s state of mind?

However, no shots were fired, nobody died—not even the person in possession of the guns. So, expect this to fade from the news cycle quickly.

It Sure Sounds Like Rep. Gerry Connolly’s Office Attacker Doesn’t Fit the Media Mold

May 15, 2023 by Sister Toldjah Leave a Comment

Shortly before 11:00 a.m. Monday, Fairfax City police were called to the scene of Rep. Gerry Connolly’s (D-Va.) district office after a man who was allegedly carrying a metal bat entered the office and proceeded to attack some of Connolly’s staffers after allegedly asking for the Congressman himself.

In a statement, Connolly – who was not present at the time of the suspect’s attack – talked about what allegedly happened and noted that thankfully, the two staffers who were assaulted were going to be okay:

“This morning, an individual entered my District Office armed with a baseball bat and asked for me before committing an act of violence against two members of my staff. The individual is in police custody and both members of my team were transferred to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Right now, our focus is on ensuring they are receiving the care they need. We are incredibly thankful to the City of Fairfax Police Department and emergency medical professionals for their quick response.
“I have the best team in Congress. My District Office staff make themselves available to constituents and members of the public every day. The thought that someone would take advantage of my staff’s accessibility to commit an act of violence is unconscionable and devastating.”.

Understandably, this story is getting a lot of media attention considering that it appears a sitting member of Congress may have been sought out by a deranged person who intended to harm him, with the unstated but obvious questions being “was he targeted for political reasons? Can we blame Tucker Carlson?”

The Fairfax City Police and the Capitol Police have launched a joint investigation into the disturbing incident, but as of this writing, a motive has not yet been established.

That said, the information that is currently known about the suspect, who originally resisted arrest and injured officers while in the process of trying to disarm one of them, suggests that he doesn’t fit the media mold, which might be why we haven’t heard much about him on the cable “news” networks like CNN and MSNBC beyond his name and age.

According to the Capitol Police, the suspect has been identified as 49-year old Xuan Kha Tran Pham, who resides in Fairfax. Connolly’s chief of staff Jamie Smith confirmed that Pham is a constituent.

Here’s a photo of Pham, who reportedly has a history of mental health issues:

Police say they’ve arrested Xuan Kha Tran Pham, 49, of Fairfax, Virginia in the attack against the office of Rep. Connolly in Fairfax, Virginia pic.twitter.com/v66wwyMlB6
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) May 15, 2023

Further, NBC Washington reporter Drew Wilder wrote on his Twitter feed about how an hour prior to the attack on Connolly’s office, Pham allegedly harassed and attempted to attack a woman who was parked in a car shortly after asking if she was white:

Police say Xuan-kha Tran Pham went up to a woman in a parked car in the Chantilly area, asked if she was white, then smashed up her windshield with the bat, then took off. She was not injured. He was charged with assault: hate crime & felony destruction of property.
— Drew Wilder (@DrewWilderTV) May 15, 2023

In 2022, Pham filed a lawsuit that alleged the CIA had been torturing and imprisoning him:

“The C.I.A. has been guilty of wrongfully imprisoning me in a lower perspective based on physics called the book world since 1995,” courts documents read. He added the CIA torture him since 1998 “from the fourth dimension.”
[…]
In his lawsuit, Pham said he wanted to be returned “to normal condition by a digital technology” and compensated for his alleged suffering in the amount of $29 million.

Clearly, a lot of issues going on here for Pham, but there’s nothing to indicate the attack on Connolly’s office was politically motivated – much less by the sterotypical “far-right extremist,” something even Connolly himself acknowledged in so many words while suggesting that a “toxic political environment” still might have played an indirect role:

“I have no reason to believe that his motivation was politically motivated, but it is possible that the sort of toxic political environment we all live in, you know, set him off, and I would just hope all of us would take a little more time to be careful about what we say and how we say it,” he said.

Any guesses on how soon it will be before this story disappears off the front pages of local and national media newspapers and websites? Because if the media can’t make the perps in these instances into Trump/Tucker-inspired right-wing villains, then the story isn’t worth it to them to cover any more, because narratives and all that.

Virginia gun store owner issues reminder to customers on guns and pot

May 9, 2023 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

Back in 2021, when Democrats still had a tenuous grip on both the legislative and executive branches of government, lawmakers approved a bill allowing Virginians to legally grow and possess marijuana for personal use. Retail sales are still prohibited, but there’s a thriving gray market that’s sprung up over the past few years and enforcement has been spotty at best. Even state senators have been selling edibles containing delta-9 THC at retail locations and getting away with it, in large part because many prosecutors have simply given up on enforcing state law or are choosing to prioritize crimes involving harder drugs like fentanyl and other opioids.

While it may be legal to partake in Virginia under state law, it remains a criminal offense at the federal level, and as most gun owners know, when you fill out a Form 4473 before undergoing a background check you’re required to say whether or not you’re an unlawful user of drugs. The constitutionality of that provision has been questioned by several federal courts, but it remains in place for the time being, and one Virginia gun store owner is warning customers that they’ll be turned away if they show up smelling like they just spent several hours locked in a room with Seth Rogan and Snoop Dogg.

Have you noticed the smell of marijuana out in public more? So has the owner of Bob’s Gun Shop Steve Dowdy in Norfolk, and he said it’s a problem inside his store.
According to Dowdy, too many people coming in to buy a gun smell like marijuana.
“I would say on a normal business day, we’re probably seeing it once a day,” said Dowdy.
…
He said store personnel have always been on the lookout for people who appear to have been drinking alcohol, but said those cases are rare. He never thought shoppers who smell like marijuana would be a problem and said that too often, they try to buy a gun or use the firing range.
“It’s a crime they could be charged for. Obviously, there needs to be someone here to enforce it. But yeah, it’s definitely a crime,” said Dowdy.

One that Hunter Biden may be able to get away with, but could still ensnare ordinary gun owners. The DOJ is still prosecuting people for lying on the Form 4473, and anyone who shows up at Dowdy’s gun store or any other firearms retailer in Virginia under the influence of marijuana could wind up facing federal charges as a result.

I’m a supporter of both the Second Amendment and decriminalizing marijuana, but it’s still disturbing to hear that people are showing up with a distinct odor of the devil’s lettuce on them hoping to get their hands on a gun. As federal courts have suggested, it may not be constitutional to ban marijuana users from owning a gun, but laws banning them from using a gun while they’re high would likely withstand constitutional muster given that ordinances banning the handling of firearms while drunk have been around since the Founding. Under any reading of the Second Amendment, it’s highly unlikely that the courts would agree you have the right to purchase, rent, or discharge a firearm (except perhaps in self-defense) while you’re stoned off your gourd.

Still, I’d caution both Republicans and Democrats from trying to make too much out of this, or to engage in legislative overreach in response. There were 14,000 DUI convictions in Virginia in 2020, along with at least 272 motor vehicle fatalities involving drunk drivers, but no one in the state legislature has suggested banning either automobiles or liquor as a response. Republicans may look at Dowdy’s anecdotes and see a compelling reason to re-criminalize marijuana possession while Democrats might be more inclined to see his comments as a reason to enact more gun control laws aimed at peaceable gun owners, but I’d much rather educate Virginians on both the current laws in place as well as why it’s just a bad idea to handle (or try to purchase) a gun while high as a kite. That might not be able to eradicate this particular form of dumbassery completely, but neither would going backwards on our Second Amendment rights or decriminalization. The National Shooting Sports Foundation already has the “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy” campaign to combat straw purchases. Maybe its time to roll out the “Don’t Puff Puff Before You Pew Pew” PSAs in states where cannabis has been decriminalized?