We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Updated 2.53pm
A SUSPECT IS in custody after two police officers in the US were shot dead early this morning in ambush-style attacks.
The men were shot while in their patrol cars.
Police had earlier said they were searching for a 46-year-old white male in the shooting death of the police officers.
“It doesn’t look like there was any interaction between these officers, and whoever the coward is… shot them as they sat in their cars,” Des Moines Police Sergeant Paul Parizek said in an early morning news conference.
It looks just like that, that these officers were ambushed.
Authorities said a member of the Urbandale police force was found dead just after 1am (6am GMT).
Twenty minutes later, a second Des Moines police officer was discovered gunned down at an intersection around two miles away. US media said the officer died after being taken to the hospital.
Parizek told reporters police would be doubling up to patrol in pairs in the wake of the shootings.
“There is a clear and present danger to police officers right now and we’ve doubled up our police officers” so that no one is working alone, he said.
A series of tips and leads drew investigators to a suspect, the officers said, although they declined to comment on a motive for the killings.
I think you know that oftentimes in these investigations we don’t figure out what the motive is until we get done and then there’s times we can’t make sense of what their motive is, or they don’t even share that with us.
The incident marks the first time a Des Moines officer has been shot in the line of duty since two police were gunned down in 1977, The Des Moines Register said.
The United States was on edge for weeks in July following the shooting in Dallas of five officers and a similar assault in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where three officers were shot dead by a former military veteran.
Those killings were carried out in apparent retribution for a string of high-profile police shootings of black citizens which inflamed racial tensions in the United States.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Warped place. That country will be the undoing of us all.
Watching their news always makes me feel proud of Ireland as even though we’re behind most of Europe we’re way ahead of the states:
-No medical bankruptcies
-No college tuition fees or debt
-No mass shootings
-Police shooting anyone is rare , shooting unarmed hasn’t ever happened
-Instead of lesser of two evils we’ve multiparty system, proportional representation and instant runoff voting while they’ve s jerrymandered congress where even tho Dems will prob get 1m more votes republicans will have a majority
-No mass surveillance by the govt
-Much better social safety net
-No getthoisation minorities integrate well
-Most major infrastructure is less than 20 years old theirs is collapsing
-Our troops and navy are welcomed on missions abroad not hated or feared
-Lobbyists don’t own our govt through legalised bribery where money is legally considered speech
Well said Ryan!
Ireland is more embarrassing
All you said Ryan is false except the troop thing. A that happens in ireland
Same story, different day. America is a truly wretched place for a lot of people
@The Boogeyman: It’s not at all beautiful places. New York city is the best place on earth. For the population they have you expect this. All you get is negative news articles over here. Most people in the states are just like us and want to get on with there lives. The small percentage of powerful people make a feck of it for them.
Disagree about New York. Lots of much nicer cities.
New York is the safest large city on earth for me. The energy and atmosphere there is unreal. If you like a slow pace it’s no place for you
@John Reese:
It’s not the safest large city on earth by a long shot (no pun).
Low level crime such as vandalism, burglaries, muggings are relatively low, but gun murders are relatively high.
Major Canadian cities and Australian cities, as well as numerous cities in Europe and parts of Asia, such as Japan, South Korea and China are also safer.
On a scale NYC is much much larger than any Canadian , OZ or European city. Some Chinese cities may be safer but would you rather live in china or the US ?
@Ó Connmhaigh: I live in NYC. 95% of gun murders occur in the bad parts of central and outer Brooklyn and in the Bronx. The rest of NYC has less crime than Dublin. Manhattan south of 125th street has had less than 10 murders this year. That is an area where enough people live to fill the entire Dublin metro area
Just wait for Trump to attempt to use this for his own political advancement.
Fair enough Her rhetoric and policies legitimise hate groups like Black Lives Matter and incite hatred against police.
Hate groups trying to get them to stop shooting unarmed people you mean?
You notice those incidents don’t happen here or in Europe? That’s because our forces are trained to shoot as a last resort, Americans are trained to ‘take no chances’, then the racial element doesn’t come from old fashioned overt racism where they think blacks are bad or inferior, they’ve been told blacks commit most crimes so they concentrate effort in black areas and this most arrests are black thus feeding into the circle as it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy with the data.
Whites and blacks use drugs at similar rates, whites sell them at a higher rate, but because of the self feeding circle a voice arrests don’t reflect this.
So if you’re a rookie cop, not racist, you are told most crimes in black areas you’re going to be wary of every stocky black teenager with a hoodie…you’re already nervous, combine that with a training that says TAKE NO CHANCES (some even ridiculously say “your job is to get home safe”!) and…wait what’s he reaching for what’s he reaching for…bang bang bang…and that’s how it happens
@Ryan Carroll:
“they’ve been told blacks commit most crimes”
Which is statistical fact. The black community is responsible for on average between 2.5x to 8x the level of crime that other communities commit depending on the crime in question. Crime per capita in the black community is far in excess of what other communities in the US commit. This is undeniable statistical fact.
“Whites and blacks use drugs at similar rates”
That claim comes from a Huffington Post article (a notable SJW mouthpiece) and it is far from the truth. Statistics from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration show that black people actually use a significantly larger number of drugs compared to other races in the US. The charts can be found here:
“So if you’re a rookie cop, not racist, you are told most crimes in black areas you’re going to be wary of every stocky black teenager with a hoodie…you’re already nervous, combine that with a training that says TAKE NO CHANCES (some even ridiculously say “your job is to get home safe”!) and…wait what’s he reaching for what’s he reaching for…bang bang bang…and that’s how it happens”
Sure, it has nothing to do with the fact that the leading cause of death while on duty for a US police officer is gunshot wound, the group most responsible for the killing of police officers just so happens to be black or that the vast majority of black individuals shot by police were armed and resisting arrest.
Nothing to do with that at all.
Don’t tell me where my claims come from I didn’t get it from news
Most arrests isn’t the same as most crimes
I’ve seen cops say this in interviews I’ve two uncles in NYPD who say it’s the way it’s done partly habit partly for compStat data
I’ve lived there and seen it myself I never got pulled aside they don’t pull aside white middle class preppy kids Because in my uncles words “you don’t know who you’re getting could be councilmans kid or something no way the black kids gonna be connected to anyone powerful”
The data speaks for itself, they’ shoot unarmed civilians 100s of times a year something nearly unheard of elsewhere that’s undeniable proof of a problem
Think about it why the hell would the pigment of someone’s skin affect their likelihood to commit crime don’t be ridiculous
@Jason Culligan: Get onto Politifact and tell them of your findings
The report says, “The prevalence of drug use is only slightly higher among blacks than whites for some illicit drugs and slightly lower for others; the difference is not substantial. There is also little evidence, when all drug types are considered, that blacks sell drugs more often than whites.”
Have I ever told you of the conditions that a huge population of Black Americans are living in?
Come and visit lad,twill do you good..
The United States is far from united and will implode from within, like all previous great empires in history, rather than succumb to any external threat where all their energies are concentrated. What will a post USA world look like, I wonder?
Very much depends. If eu stand up united we would be safe. But one would worry of Chinese or Russian aggression. A break down of power in USA we would want to invest In a good few nukes. Self defence and all
This is just another example of the violence being promoted by the hate group Black Lives Matter. They do nothing but incite disorder and chaos, and especially murderous attacks against police officers. When will someone step up and do something about these god-damned nig…….
…Oh wait, the suspect is white? Oh that poor man, he must have been just terribly mentally ill to do something so terrible. Of course, these actions are his alone, and in absolutely no way can be connected to a discourse that speaks of tyrannical big government, rigged systems to keep freedom-loving people down, and the belief that “second amendment people” might need to do “something” in the near future to preserve their liberties.
@Talleyrand Frye:
No mention of the suspect being white. The police issued an earlier statement saying they were looking for a white male and have since announced that a suspect is in custody with no further details.
For all we know, the suspect could be a Chinese female given the lack of information made public.
@Jason Culligan: Eh just because you are behind on the news Jason doesn’t mean the rest of the world is.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/des-moines-police-shooting-suspect-captured/
Take a look at the picture – that is the strangest looking Chinese female I have ever seen. The name Scott Michael Greene doesn’t sound too Asian or female to me either.
@Talleyrand Frye: That’s another vote gone from Trump right there.
@Talleyrand Frye: Here is his you-tube page :
The suspect is white, waves the confederate flag, totes guns, and guess what election signs he has on his lawn, bigots?? Check mate, tw@s. http://occupydemocrats.com/2016/11/02/heres-proof-iowa-cop-killer-trump-supporter/
Don’t bother with Jason. He’s behind on everything, still living in the 50s when darkies knew their place. He thinks that the melanin count in your skin causes you to engage in criminal activity. I’d love for him to walk around some areas of Dublin where crime is rampant and tell me how the colour of the skin there relates to crime but I suspect he spends most of his time bleaching his hoods snowy white and tugging himself to “Guns and Ammo”.
You live by the sword, you dye by the sword
@Pius Flynn: For all you no these men where brave heroic individuals who never did anything wrong and always up held the law. Stupid comment.
@Vincent Wallace:
Vincent, you may well be right but they carry a gun everyday as part of their work, is that not living by the sword?
@Vincent Wallace, For all you know they could be brutish thugs like most of the people involved in law enforcement in the US
Stupid comment.
Fu(king idiots. Live by the sword die by the sword? Should all grave diggers be bludgeoned to death by shovels? Librarians beaten to death with books? As for pius, most people involved in law enforcement in the US are brutish thugs? Most? There’s over a million police officers alone. The vast majority do their job with distinction from day one to retirement.
Pius, are you insane?? Who will you call when you need help, buddhist monks? It does not matter what city, Dublin itself is just as bad. You need 360 vision walking through the city centre.
The live by die by lesson is meant for people who enforce their will on others by weapons, the points not authorities
In social science it’s called the monopoly on the legitimate use of force, society delegates police and only the police the authority to use force even lethal force to keep society safe.
Your nearest Garda station probably has an armour, go to Dublin Port or Airport you’ll see guys with H&K rifles. It’s not having the weapon that’s bad it’s what you do with it. If an armed intruder breaks into your house and tries to kill you or kidnap your daughter don’t you want the cops who come to help you to have handguns which in that case they would? How else are they to help you against an intruder with a shotgun?
@Ryan Carroll:
In Ireland, the police do not have a monopoly on the use of lethal force. It is within Irish legislation that you may use force, up to and including lethal force, if you find yourself in a dangerous situation where such force is justified.
That means that you may, in theory, shoot an intruder who is also armed with a deadly weapon on your property if all other means of defending yourself are exhausted. It’s still quite subjective and up to the whims of the jury of the day but it is legislated for.
You’re mistaken Jason
Of course self defence exists but police have wide latitude on use of force civilians don’t have. I may be able to draw my gun and blow the head off a home invader no questions asked (though I don’t have quite the same power on the street I’m meant to try to get away first) but I can’t walk up to a gang of skangers, order them to disperse and if they say use force on them, that’s where the monopoly comes in
If I see an armed man outside on my street I can’t take my gun and go disarm him, only the cops can do that. I can’t use that gun on him unless I’m in danger or defending someone else I can’t patrol the neighbourhood with my gun, only the cops can do that. That’s the monopoly it’s the difference between reactive use of force which civilians can use SOMETIMES and proactive use of force which police can use way more
Suspect in custody
I beat the update by a minute
have your say