Friday, August 28, 2020
Thursday, August 27, 2020
Muslim who stabbed, shot NYPD officers yelling ‘Allahu Akbar’ during riots is illegal alien, DOJ reports
The Justice Department said Wednesday that a man who allegedly stabbed a New York City police officer and shot two others in early June is an illegal immigrant from Bosnia-Herzegovina who was motivated by his support for Islamic extremism.
As race-related rioting and violence beset New York City, Dzenan Camovic targeted NYPD officers who were on an anti-looting patrol, the Washington Times reported, citing federal prosecutors.
According to surveillance video footage obtained by the Justice Department Camovic is seen stalking the officers before stabbing one of them in the neck with a kitchen knife and lunging at another, chasing him down a street.
Camovic then returned to the officer he stabbed, grabbed his firearm and shot at responding officers six times, striking two in the hand as he shouted “Allahu akbar,” which is Arabic that is understood to mean “God is great.”
Federal investigators later discovered that Camovic had been studying extremist materials that included some from the defunct Islamic State.
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea roundly condemned the attack on his officers.
“It appears to be a complete cowardly, despicable, unprovoked attack on a defenseless police officer, and, thank God, we’re not planning a funeral right now,” he said during a news conference following the incident.
“Dzenan Camovic, an illegal alien and Bosnian national, is alleged to have used the cover of chaos during recent civil unrest in New York City to launch a premeditated and cowardly attack from behind against two New York City Police officers, brutally slashing one with a knife, stealing his weapon and opening fire, and injuring several responding officers,” added U.S. Attorney General William Barr, in announcing the charges.
NBC New York reported June 5 that “law enforcement sources” suggested Camovic’s actions were being investigated as a terrorist attack.
The New York Post’s Joe Marino reported that as well, via Twitter.
“Authorities are investigating whether the stabbing of an NYPD cop in Brooklyn by Camovic was a terror-inspired assault by an immigrant from the Balkans, according to sources and a report,” he wrote.
ABC New York reporter Candace McGowan noted on Twitter June 4 that Camovic is 21 years old, while also posting what appears to be a driver’s license a photo of him.
California Burns From Democrat Forest Mismanagement...
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| The Big Basin Redwoods State Park Headquarters & Visitor Center is burned to the ground during a blaze in Boulder Creek, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020.Randy Vazquez/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images |
Nine months before Big Basin Redwood State Park suffered its worst fire in recorded history, one of the park’s environmental scientists gave a podcast interview revealing that a prescribed burn had not taken place within the park in three years.
“Does that raise your anxiety at all about the potential for something catastrophic?” asks Peter Jordan, a docent who created the podcast “What the Docents Know” to give the public a deeper understanding of Big Basin.
Sixteen uncomfortable seconds pass — an eternity in radio — during which the scientist, Portia Halbert, can be heard sighing and swallowing (jump to 21:00 of episode 3 to listen). According to Jordan, who was with Halbert in her office, she was in tears.
She finally composes herself and says she’s thinking about Paradise, the city that burned to the ground during the Camp Fire in 2018. “Given the right conditions, we’re poised to have catastrophic wildfires all over California,” says Halbert, who works for the Santa Cruz District of the California State Park System. “So what’s my anxiety level like? I think we’ve been really lucky to avoid something very extreme here in the Santa Cruz Mountains.”
Halbert goes on to say that Big Basin's geographic location, fog and cool summers had seemingly insulated it for a while. But during the 100-plus years the park hadn't seen fire, flammable vegetation had built up, and new trees had grown between other trees, she said. In certain wind conditions, those trees could act as "ladder fuels" that would ignite the canopy.
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| An old-growth redwood tree named "Mother of the Forest" is still standing in Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Calif., Monday, Aug. 24, 2020. The CZU Lightning Complex wildfire tore through the park but most of the redwoods, some as old as 2,000 years, were still standing.Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press |
"I don't know that just the last three years of us not burning really has built my anxiety level," she said. "But witnessing what's happened in California with these wildfires has definitely made me feel, say, more empowered to try and get burns accomplished to sort of prevent that possibility for this area."
The fact that prescribed burns have not taken place in Big Basin for years is a surprise even to people who work for the park and partner organizations.
After the CZU August Lightning Complex fires engulfed the park’s 18,000 acres, destroying its headquarters, main lodge, ranger station and other historic structures, the Sempervirens Fund — a nonprofit organization that helped create the park in 1902 — issued a statement about the fire, including a reference to prescribed burning.
“Big Basin, in particular, has benefited from the longest, continuous program of prescribed burning anywhere in the state since the purposeful burning done by indigenous people who tended this landscape for thousands of years,” the fund’s website states.
Elizabeth Hammack, Big Basin’s manager of interpretation and education, said it wasn’t her...
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