Thank you Sheriff Dupnik
Pima County Sheriff Dupnik had the following to say about the horrific shooting yesterday:
I think it’s time as a country that we need to do a little soul searching. Because it’s the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the tv business, and what we see on tv and how our youngsters are being raised.
When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.
He is taking heat for that statement from Senator Kyl, who said that Dupnik’s comments had no place in a police briefing.
Let’s remember that Giffords’ opponent in last year’s election, Jesse Kelly, invited his supporters to “Get on Target for Victory in November — Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly,” and Sarah Palin offered a map with a gunsight target over Giffords’ district with a tweet urging her supports “Don’t Retreat, instead RELOAD.” And don’t get me started on Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh, who often “joke” about solving political differences by murdering their opponents and their opponents’ supporters. Or Sharon Angle, who nearly became a Nevada senator, and who called for people to exercise their “Second Amendment remedies” if the elections didn’t go her way.
And any regular reader of this blog is familiar with the anonymous comments sent to newspaper Websites that call for killing bicyclists. That kind of rhetoric isn’t funny, isn’t constructive, doesn’t belong in the polis, and its cowardice and repugnance need to be condemned more often.
So I’m here to thank Sheriff Dupnik for doing so in such a public fashion, and you can count me among the thousands of others in this city who are offering their condolences to all the victims of yesterday’s shooting and their families and friends. That includes the family of Mr. Loughner, who are also suffering this day.
Sheriff Dupnik’s address is 1750 E Benson Highway, Tucson, Arizona 85714. I sent him a note already.
–Erik Ryberg
January 9th, 2011 at 11:55 pm
I heard Sheriff Dubnik and wanted to stand up and applaud. One of the news people paraphrased, “We have freedom of speech, but it comes with consequences”. I recently observed an English Language Development class at Catalina High School. Most of the students were Iraqi. They were learning about the Boston Tea Party. The teacher asked if the colonists should have destroyed the tea. One of the students answered that even though they had the right (public disobedience rule) to do it, it might not have been the best thing to do. This struck me as a very wise thing for a teenager to say. However, this wasn’t a kid who was indoctrinated into the deification of our founding fathers from kindergarten. Zoe’s UAE friends wanted to know how Loughner was able to purchase a gun if he was known to be mentally unstable. And….. Fred Phelps and co. plan to picket funerals in Tucson! Tell me again how what Sheriff Dupnik said was wrong.
I met a law enforcment agent today who said he’d been to the Loughner house to investigate. I asked about the parents and he said they were very distraught. I can’t imagine how they feel, but I am praying for them too.
Dowan Stoddard was a member at our church. Like the other 5 who were killed, he was a remarkable person.
January 13th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Latest news is that this was a lone nut with delusions of adequacy and access to massive firepower. I don’t see how to keep the massive firepower out of the hands of the nuts without also keeping it out of the hands of the people that are supposed to have it, if it exists then the nuts will find it somehow.
January 15th, 2011 at 6:25 pm
Dupnik claims connection where there is no evidence. He does not love debate. He does not recognize its benefit in testing ideas. He would render his opposition invalid and powerless. His country is not a place I would want to live.
January 16th, 2011 at 9:04 pm
Sorry Erik, on this one you are totally off base, I must respectfully disagree with you. First,I always came her to enjoy bike related issues and debate bike problems, NOT politics. This has been a cite I enjoy as to a number of bike problems and to try and understand bike related issues that we can work together and resolve.
I have known Sheriff Dupnik for more than 40 years, a close friend for many years and a golf buddy at times. I agree he is entitled to his opinion, he is entitled to discuss his opinion in a political arena. The press conference was not that place, not the right time and certainly not before he had the facts. He only added fire to an already difficult situation. You applauding him for doing so brings in questions of your credibility on this issue. This mad man did not even know what politics are what they mean or how to express a view other than violence. Dupnik was wrong and should be ashamed of himself, he brought discredit to his department, and added fuel to the defenses argument that her client (the shooter) is mentally unstable, all for the few brownie points he might gain from people like you.
I’m sorry Erik, you blew it on this one.
January 16th, 2011 at 9:17 pm
To Ms. Nystrom, may I please answer your question? “How what Sheriff Dupnik said was wrong”? Please understand no one feels more sadness for what happened on Saturday at Safeway than I. I lost a very dear friend that day as did many in Tucson. But , to answer your question, simply Sheriff Dupnik wa there to deliver a press conference and disclosure of the facts of the shooting , nothing more. The Sheriff injected his personal opinion and the worst time possible. NO ONE will fault him for having his opinion or even expressing it in a political speech, this is America , it is what America is all about, but as the Sheriff giving a press conference he does not have that luxury, he brought discredit to law enforcement and professionals still working the case as he gave that political speech. It was as wrong as anything I have ever witnessed a public official do. And , That’s my opinion.
January 17th, 2011 at 11:45 am
It is time for good people to stand up and say enough is enough. We have people spewing vile nonsense out of a megaphone 24/7 who in a rational society would be laughed off their soap boxes in the town square. Yet these people earn fantastic wealth catering to the base fears of the weak.
The answer to the people who are on edge or slightly off balance is to start helping them with medical/mental care. The answer is not have everybody run around toting more weapons than are GIs are carrying in the two wars we’ve forgotten about and are draining our economy.
January 18th, 2011 at 11:27 am
Apparently, Ralph, you forgot about one of those two wars so much that you’ve completely missed the fact that we’ve nearly completely pulled out of one.
As for reading about politics on a bike blog… I disagree with Don. It isn’t distracting. If it becomes an obsessive thing and every post turns to being about the shooting or politics then it becomes distracting. Until then, it’s just Erik having an opinion, one I respect, even though I disagree with it. What DOES annoy me is the fact that every comedian I follow, such as on Twitter for example, has turned their feed or schtick into politics central. Every joke is about the shooting or vitriolic politics and most of them aren’t jokes. That gets old, as does people like Ebert, who lived through Vietnam, acting as if the shooting has shattered his poor little world view. Seriously, get over it, duder. As I said above, Erik’s done none of these things, and I think he gets a pass for it.
As far as what we should do as a healthy society full of vile opinions and unstable people with cheap and easy access to guns… look, you can’t judge every action you undertake by what it might cause a crazy person to do. Sometimes crazy is just crazy. If video games, rock and roll, books and movies don’t cause people to go crazy, then neither will heated political rhetoric. How soon we forget that the protected speech that we know and enjoy also applies to the political party we know and hate. Trying to score points – NOT WHAT ERIK IS DOING! – before the blood was even dry is absolutely sickening and seems to be par for the course in regards to this shooting. Sadly, it also seems to be the left that is doing the most point scoring. Bitter about the elections? Angry about the rhetoric? Merely trying to one-up the right?
Not sure of the reason, but when all I am seeing from the left is calls to strip people, specifically the right, of their gun and protected speech rights, after a Democrat who is more of a balanced Centrist was shot (and who also supports gun rights, a fact hardly mentioned by just about anyone), well, I can’t help but be a bit pissed off.
Dupnik’s right, we’re a country full of assholes that can’t keep our mouths shut. He’s wrong in laying the blame pretty much square on the right, just as almost all of the left is in acting as if they were so innocent during the Bush years. I remember the Bush = Hitler signs in liberal Los Angeles, where he was photoshopped over the Swastika and Cheney was the Iron Eagle. I remember liberals in Tucson publicly celebrating when Ronald Reagan died (I partied hardy too, but in private). Heated rhetoric is nothing new, nor is trying to score political points off of one person’s tragedy. It’s sick, and the only difference between the two parties is that the Republicans fly their colors high (out of ignorance or arrogance, possibly) while the Democrats are slightly more subtle (out of cowardice or elitism, possibly).
January 18th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think Dupnik was blaming the vitriolic rhetoric for the shooting. Read what he said again. It sounds to me like he is despairing over the fact that our culture is lately calling for violent solutions to our problems, and now someone has actually gone and shot a congressperson and maybe it is time to, as he said, do some “soul searching” about whether this really is the sort of place we want to live in.
It’s always been pretty clear to me that Loughner is totally unhinged and was not responding to calls for Giffords’s death, and I would be surprised if Dupnik thought any differently.
My point, and what I have always thought was Dupnik’s point, is that when it actually happens, when a person is actually shot in the head and murdered in cold blood, it isn’t funny any more. It isn’t funny to hear the things that come out of Ann Coulter’s mouth pretty much daily. The giant “Straight Shooter” advertisement with painted bullet holes on the Rush Limbaugh billboard isn’t funny. The gun sights aren’t funny. Angle’s “Second Amendment remedies” comment isn’t funny.
Bicyclists are especially attuned to this because we read about people joking about killing us all the time, and it hits home for us. Dupnik was only pointing out that maybe all that political vitriol should hit home now. That maybe we don’t actually want to live in a place where political assassination is accepted or even joked about, because it isn’t funny.
Erik Ryberg
January 19th, 2011 at 11:52 am
FWIW
I believe Sheriff Dupnick has and continues to ( http://www.kgun9.com/Global/story.asp?S=13855773 ) blame the vitriolic rhetoric for the shooting.
I bristle at your continued one sided examples of the vitriolic rhetoric and offer this link for balance…
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/01/10/the-progressive-climate-of-hate-an-illustrated-primer-2000-2010/
Scott A.
January 19th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
No doubt Dupnik is part of that vast left wing conspiracy…
Anyway, back in the high school day, you couldn’t graduate without taking the class that studied “Lord of The Flies.” Golding’s fine novel devolved to The Simpson’s “Das Bus.” Guilty as charged. And yes, of course, the opposition always wants the opposition to sit down and shut the fuck up. So there.
January 19th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
We shouldn’t need global warming to be responsible with our earth and resources. We shouldn’t need a shooting to be civil and charitable in our discourse.
January 20th, 2011 at 8:06 am
Erik , I’m glad you commented on my remarks, maybe this is not the right place to debate the issue, but somethings are very clear. I will defend your right to have an opinion different than mine, hopefully like John Roll did in saving Ron Barber’s life lying on him to shield him from a bullet. They are as politically opposite as you get. However the venue in which Dupnik spoke was totally wrong at the wrong time and place. He changed the investigation. Trust me on this one, I have talked to many doing the investigation, and after his comments interviews changed and political points of view came out in many interviews, the depth of his comments are profound and destructive to the investigation. You can not get away with calling Arizona the “tombstone of America”. This shooting had nothing to do with right or left until Dupnik spoke at the press conference. We will agree on many things, music is not the same, movies are not the same and many comedians are not funny anymore. We will never need Dupnik’s opinion to pull us into reality. But , I think you have done one thing for me, allowed me a place to vent even on a bike web cite, so I retract and apologies my last comment, it’s your web cite you can put on it what ever you wish and in the long run maybe help others to come closer to understanding America and what we are all about.
January 22nd, 2011 at 6:22 am
“Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think Dupnik was blaming the vitriolic rhetoric for the shooting.”
What? That’s exactly what he was doing, without any investigation, or as he said “very early in the invesigation”. All he had at the time was an arrest, accompanied by bodies and a weapon, with NO understanding of motive. It was despicable.
January 27th, 2011 at 4:54 pm
But Robert don’t you feel just a little bit small and mean when you characterize a public official as “despicable” because he admonished us to treat one another with respect and kindness?
January 28th, 2011 at 9:01 pm
Hi Erik. I’m sorry , but I have to toss my two cents in here. I have to agree with Robert on this one. No one would blame anyone for asking us treat each other with respect and kindness. That is not what happened with Dupnik at the press conference. What Dupnik did was “despicable”, he violated his own departments rules and regulations by giving an opinion in the wrong forum. Now a movement to recall him is under way. “recall or retire”, If someone hands me a petition to sign to recall, I will.
January 30th, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Perhaps DON could stop playing the victim game long enough to tell us how to get a copy of Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (Shurf Joe’s) rules…
January 30th, 2011 at 9:32 pm
Hey RED….. He was NOT at a press conference, giving information about a shooting he knew little about. DO NOT disrespect the real victims here. And what the F— does Joe have to do with this issue? Last I knew we live in PIMA county, not Maricopa.
January 31st, 2011 at 12:37 pm
Well, DON, It’s called “compare and contrast” and is an accepted teaching/learning tool (worldwide: not only Pima, Maricopaland, AZ, USA). Red Star is sad, so very sad, that you have not learned of this.
January 31st, 2011 at 1:04 pm
RED…. Fine compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges, you might get someplace. You still have no clue nor do you understand the simple fact that When in law enforcement acting as a spokes person for your agency at a press conference to disclose factual information about a shooting, you DO NOT give your political opinion, you DO NOT call Arizona the “tombstone of America”, or call what ever your political belief the cause of the incident. It’s just not done by true professionals except the ones who have lost touch with reality. Until you learn this you will NEVER understand and trying to chat with you about it is a waste of time. Excuse me , you were probably one of those at the U of A MEMORIAL shouting “you love Mrs. Obama’s husband”? That makes about as much sense as your argument.
January 31st, 2011 at 1:27 pm
@DON
Thanks!
February 2nd, 2011 at 1:15 pm
So exactly why should Sheriff Dupnik be ashamed, and how has he discredited his profession? How about the hot-heads on the ballot this past election who used violent metaphors and took the low road to campaigning? I would say that is something to be ashamed of. No one knows what sets off a loose cannon like the shooter, but it is plausible that rabble-rousing political talk could affect someone like that. Some rabble was roused enough to break a window at Congresswoman Gifford’s office last year.