Patterico's Pontifications

8/29/2015

Texas County Sheriff’s Deputy Ambushed And Killed

Filed under: General — Dana @ 2:57 pm

[guest post by Dana]

In what is being referred to as a “cold-blooded execution,” Deputy Darren Goforth, 47 years old and a 10 year veteran of the Sheriff’s Dept., was ambushed and gunned down at a gas station in Houston last night.

Goforth, who was in uniform, was approached from behind by a man who said nothing as he opened fire on Goforth. Law enforcement officials said that the suspect fired more shots at Goforth even after he was already down on the ground.

Deputy Goforth was pronounced dead on the scene. Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman said:

He was literally gunned down in what appears to be an unprovoked, execution-style killing. I have been in law enforcement for 45 years, I have never seen anything this cold-blooded

After the slaying, Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott said that “heinous and deliberate crimes against law enforcement will not be tolerated in the State of Texas. Texas reveres the men and women in law enforcement who put their lives on the line every day to protect and serve their communities.”

He expressed his belief in local law enforcement to “work tirelessly to apprehend the killer and ensure justice for Deputy Goforth is served.”

Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman expressed law enforcement’s outrage while noting the current inflammatory rhetoric against America’s police officers. :

Hickman condemned what he characterized as “some of the very dangerous national rhetoric that’s out there today.”

“So any point where the rhetoric ramps up to the point that calculated, cold-blooded, assassination of police officers happen, this rhetoric has gotten out of control,” he added.

“We’ve heard ‘black lives matter,’ ‘all lives matter’ — well, cops’ lives matter too. So why don’t we just drop the qualifier and say ‘lives matter,’ and take that to the bank.”

Just moments ago it was announced that a suspect has been arrested in relation to the fatal shooting:

Earlier Saturday, investigators questioned a man they called a person of interest. They also executed a search warrant at a two-story brick home where they found a pickup truck that fit the description of the gunman’s getaway vehicle. The house was about a quarter-mile from the gas station.

The man being questioned was turned over to deputies by his mother, according to Fox affiliate KRIV in Houston.

ABC13 Houston is reporting that the Harris County Sheriff’s Office has released the name of the suspect as Shannon Jaruay Miles. ‪

Deputy Goforth leaves behind a wife and two children, 12 and 5. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family at this difficult time.

–Dana

UPDATE from Houston County Sheriff’s Office twitter feed:

CORRECTED Mugshot of Defendant Shannon J. Miles #HouNews #DarrenGoforth #ThinBlueLine

Comments (61)

61 Responses to “Texas County Sheriff’s Deputy Ambushed And Killed”

Hello.
Dana (86e864) — 8/29/2015 @ 2:57 pm
AP and CNN failed to mention the guy was black. AP in particular disgusting since they described everything about him except his skin color.

Suffice it to say if the victim black and alleged suspect white, oh boy.

FWIW, same thing happened in Virginia. Media simply putting aside the same factors it so loves to talk about when it is white on black.
Rodney King's Spirit (ab8c0d) — 8/29/2015 @ 3:01 pm
Jaruay?
happyfeet (831175) — 8/29/2015 @ 3:04 pm
I’ve added a video of the press conference to the post.
Dana (86e864) — 8/29/2015 @ 3:05 pm
speaking of names you gave him too many g’s and not enough t’s, the governor
happyfeet (831175) — 8/29/2015 @ 3:08 pm
Interesting to hear the law enforcement official say at this moment there is no other apparent motive other than the uniform Deputy Goforth wore.
Dana (86e864) — 8/29/2015 @ 3:12 pm
3. The reticence about his race seems to have originated with the police,going by this link which I posted in the other thread but which has been updated with info on Miles
http://abc13.com/news/harris-co-officials-appeal-to-public-to-help-find-deputys-killer/961336/

A motive remains unclear. Officials say Deputy Goforth had no previous interaction with Miles.

Miles has a criminal history that includes Resisting arrest, trespassing, evading detention and disorderly conduct with a firearm.
kishnevi (91d5c6) — 8/29/2015 @ 3:16 pm
I have no idea if this is correct but this website claims the original mugshot that was released is not correct.
DRJ (1dff03) — 8/29/2015 @ 3:20 pm
Breitbart Texas has learned that Miles attended Prairie View A&M University, according to what appears to be his Facebook page. This is the school where Sandra Bland was arrested following a traffic stop and alleged assault on a police officer in July. Three days later Bland killed herself in the Waller County jail and became a prominent icon in the #BlackLivesMatter movement. It appears he attended the predominantly black university for one year from August, 2003 to May, 2004. Following that he attended other colleges including Houston Community College and the University of Houston Hilton College.*

ok so that explains a lot
happyfeet (831175) — 8/29/2015 @ 3:22 pm
First, the knock-out game, then this. And we know some of the instigators by name, such as Al Huckster and Deeeeeeeeee ray.
John Hitchcock (652672) — 8/29/2015 @ 3:24 pm
I remember when obama was first elected. The MSM went gaga and proclaimed finally we have a president that will fix race relations. Some president.
MooseOtto (e39d7f) — 8/29/2015 @ 3:28 pm
NFL Father?
mg (31009b) — 8/29/2015 @ 3:31 pm
the new photo makes him look like a pinhead…
redc1c4 (a6e73d) — 8/29/2015 @ 3:53 pm
The NYT neglects to mention the suspect’s race, nor do they post the video photo released by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. They do however quote Sheriff Ron Hickman’s statement (linked in this post) as well as the following:

The Harris County district attorney, Devon Anderson, who appeared with Sheriff Hickman, said it was time for “the silent majority” to come forward to support law enforcement.

“There are a few bad apples in every profession,” she said. “That does not mean that there should be open warfare declared on law enforcement.”

State Representative Garnet F. Coleman, a Houston lawmaker who is heading a legislative inquiry into the death of Sandra Bland, an African-American woman found hanging in a Waller County jail cell in early July, criticized the sheriff’s remarks.

“It strikes me as politicizing a death that I don’t know that anyone knows what was in the mind of the shooter,” Mr. Coleman, a Democrat, said. “I think black lives matter. I think deputy sheriffs’ lives matter. But I think the statement shows a lack of understanding of what is occurring in this country when it comes to the singling out of African-Americans.”

Dana (86e864) — 8/29/2015 @ 3:59 pm
I’ve read on another news site that this suspect has “learning disabilities.”

My immediate reaction is that’s why Texas has the death penalty. For killers who can’t learn.
Steve57 (3b2e7d) — 8/29/2015 @ 4:05 pm
I had a hunch but held my tongue. Now I’m shocked, Shocked! to see the killer was a noble African American. Another oppressed individual whose life is just a mess because of white privilege finally struck back at the man. Black Lives Matter, damn it! And they will keep killing until that motto replaces In God We Trust (which we all know establishes a religion and therefore is illegal). I’m so glad we have Obama to fix race relations in America and also so glad we censored that evil confederate flag. See how things have gotten all better?
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 8/29/2015 @ 4:08 pm
According to the NYT policy, race is only mentioned if it’s relevant and the reader is informed of why it is relevant:

A “Japanese” man, a “white” woman, an “Irish Catholic” network executive — common descriptors, perhaps, in everyday talk. But put identifiers like these in a newspaper story and you are playing with fire.

For decades, The Times has had clear policies warning reporters and editors to be careful about using ethnic, racial and religious labels. Only when “pertinent,” its stylebook says.

Making the judgment call of what is pertinent, though, is easier said than done. Even when the judgment call can be justified, errors of execution can provoke strong responses from readers, as two recent examples illustrate.

And the AP’s policy:

“We don’t identify people’s race in most stories, unless that is an issue,” said Tom Kent, deputy managing editor for standards and production at The Associated Press. “Say for example, it’s a story about a hate crime allegation, or you have a situation where there’s a manhunt going on and the police issue a description of the person. We may include the description, but once a person is captured, it probably would not be germane to the story.”

Dana (86e864) — 8/29/2015 @ 4:11 pm
As a Houston resident, I have only three comments, because I don’t think I have anything else meaningful to say at this point:

(1) The defendant is constitutionally entitled to a presumption of innocence, to diligent and competent representation by qualified legal counsel, and to complete due process of law. I believe in all of those things, and I have every confidence that this defendant will receive them all.

(2) I frequently work with members of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, and have for the past 34 years: Deputies from that office serve as the bailiffs in the courtrooms in which I regularly appear (I always take time to greet them, respectfully and by name, every time I set foot in any courtroom); and of course I see them on duty around Harris County in all sorts of other settings too. Like the overwhelming majority of their brothers and sisters in front-line law enforcement roles in Houston (including the Houston Police Department, Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Rangers, etc.), the members of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office are, as a general rule, extremely professional public servants — to whom my community owes a collective debt we can never adequately repay. I grieve with them and with almost all of my fellow Houstonians for the senseless murder of Deputy Goforth, and my prayers are with him, his family, and all of our law enforcement personnel.

(3) I am glad that Texas is a state that makes the murder of a police officer a capital crime. I am glad that the Harris County District Attorney’s office has some of the most experienced and professional prosecutors, with the deepest and broadest experience, in the nation, and that the death sentences they obtain, when appropriate proof beyond a reasonable doubt is made, are indeed meaningful and not just theoretical — because those sentence are indeed regularly and methodically enforced in accordance with the Constitution of the United States and the Rule of Law.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/29/2015 @ 4:13 pm
We may include the description, but once a person is captured, it probably would not be germane to the story.”

Note to AP: All information is germane to the story since your job is to report the details, not determine what’s germane.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 8/29/2015 @ 4:19 pm
Hm… ABC 13 Houston is now posting a different photo of the suspect, one that matches the link at #8.

Further, the link I provided in the post now says, “Sorry, this content isn’t available now.” So perhaps they did originally get it wrong.
Dana (86e864) — 8/29/2015 @ 4:19 pm
Shannon Jaruay Miles could have been Obama’s son.
Diffus (4a5ca6) — 8/29/2015 @ 4:24 pm
The NYT neglects to mention the suspect’s race

That paper also avoids mentioning how much leftwing looniness infects both its staffers and pages.
Speaking of which, this murder case really wouldn’t necessarily be an illustration of ideology or socio-political bias if the politics favored by Obama’s sons if he had a son were very diverse, spanning the spectrum from staunch conservative to dyed-in-the-wool liberal. But when surveys indicate that an unhealthy 90-plus percent of black America is mindlessly, nonsensically tilted to the left and easily taken in by the rhetoric of flaming liberals (hello, Al Sharpton!), then, yes, it’s a matter of liberalism gone berserk far more than it’s a matter of race.

However, all the wonderful “progressives” at, for example, the New York Times claim that, no, such stories are in fact a matter of race, race, race, and racism, racism, racism — all exacerbated by people who they don’t align with politically — yet — as in the instance of Michelle and Barack — they sure as heck don’t want their own dear children attending schools where most of the student body will look like Obama’s son if he had a son.

Incidentally, although some of the cases of deranged people going out and randomly murdering people have involved people of rightist bent, far more such cases — as this one in Texas — involve extremists of the left. Which is surprising since liberal sentiments tend to make humans so generous, compassionate, sophisticated, humane and wonderful [snerk].
Mark (dc566c) — 8/29/2015 @ 4:35 pm
The much better looking Dana quoted the Associated Press:

“We don’t identify people’s race in most stories, unless that is an issue,” said Tom Kent, deputy managing editor for standards and production at The Associated Press. “Say for example, it’s a story about a hate crime allegation, or you have a situation where there’s a manhunt going on and the police issue a description of the person. We may include the description, but once a person is captured, it probably would not be germane to the story.”

And that’s why no one ever mentioned that Dylann Roof is white after he was captured.
The Dana who noticed (1b79fa) — 8/29/2015 @ 4:37 pm
Update added, Houston County Sheriff’s Office did indeed release an incorrect photo of suspect.
Dana (86e864) — 8/29/2015 @ 4:51 pm
Whenever I hear these stories I immediately look for a photo. If there isn’t one, I look for a name.

They are either black or Muslim or both. The media was orgasming when that white schizophrenic kid killed those back churchgoers.

Tom Wolfe nailed it in “Bonfire of the Vanities: with “Great White Defendant.”
Mike K (90dfdc) — 8/29/2015 @ 5:03 pm
Dog bites man is not news; man bites dog is news.
nk (dbc370) — 8/29/2015 @ 5:07 pm
chupacabra bites vegan red velvet cupcake

now that’s how you sell papers
happyfeet (831175) — 8/29/2015 @ 5:19 pm
Black and/or Democrat is the default position in a news story about a crime. If the perpetrator is white and/or Republican, they’ll tell us. Otherwise, go with the natural probability.
nk (dbc370) — 8/29/2015 @ 5:24 pm
#26 NK, which is which? It so so difficult to tell sometimes.

I have family members who are law enforcement, I have worked extensively with many police and sheriff deputies. I must say that I had a much higher respect for cops before I worked with so many of them. That hash tag thinblueline just irritates the devil out of me. I have been in a vehicle where a cop was pulled over for many dangerous traffic infractions, including DUI. He was let go as soon as he showed his badge. I have seen too many times where cops are caught red handed, but given a pass for things that would have sent you to I to jail.

I know there are many “good cops”. But how good are they really if they don’t enforce the rules on their coworkers? I understand the reluctance to rat out another officer. After all, that officer may be the one who is supposed to back them up someday. However, if the cops won’t police themselves, where is their moral authority to police us?
Easy Target (d7a02c) — 8/29/2015 @ 5:28 pm
“We don’t identify people’s race in most stories, unless that is an issue,” said Tom Kent, deputy managing editor for standards and production at The Associated Press.

Yea, an “issue” as filtered through your socio-political prism.

I wouldn’t be so disgusted by the two-faced nature of people like Kent or the rest of the latte liberals dominating the MSM, most certainly at the New York Times, if their own lives at least exemplified a non-racial, non-race-conscious edge, such as the neighborhoods where they’ll do their house or apartment hunting or the schools where they’ll send their pre-teen kids to, or even the particular foreign nation they’ll threaten to move to, or muse about moving to — and, believe me, it probably — probably — won’t be a society along the lines of South Africa, Liberia or Mexico — if the politics in or president of the US no longer pleases them.

nytimes.com, June 18, 2015: The mass murder of nine people who gathered Wednesday night for Bible study at a landmark black church has shaken a city whose history from slavery to the Civil War to the present is inseparable from the nation’s anguished struggle with race.

Fourteen hours after the massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in which the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, the church pastor and a prominent state senator, was among the dead, the police in Shelby, N.C., acting on a tip from a motorist, on Thursday arrested Dylann Storm Roof, a 21-year-old white man with an unsettled personal life and a recent history of anti-black views.
Mark (dc566c) — 8/29/2015 @ 5:31 pm
These cold blooded homegrown killers better knock it off or Donald Trump just might add a few choice words about ’em to his stump speeches. Point is, in order to make America Great Again, we can’t have murdering thugs roaming the streets randomly killing pretty girls or cops in uniform. And, while we’re at it, it wouldn’t hurt the cause to root out as many Muslim terrorists as we can grab up.
ropelight (b338ce) — 8/29/2015 @ 5:53 pm
I think most of all I don’t want to grant this piece of dirt, the shooter, political dignity. Thugs will thug; anti-social food stamp recipient lowlifes will be anti-social food stamp recipient lowlifes. He was not making a political statement; he murdered a random person who attracted his attention because he was a police officer. It could as easily have been somebody who reminded him of his high school principal who gave him detention.
nk (dbc370) — 8/29/2015 @ 6:06 pm
failmericans are so tiresome how they stop every five seconds to gnaw on whatever fresh pitiful half-masticated anecdotal bone is thrown to them by their sick fornicating cable news propaganda sluts

as if this one here

this one

has significance for a nation of hundreds of millions

granted yes a good half of them are depraved illiterate foodstampers

but the other half should know better

we have to do something about all this rhetoric they mutter
happyfeet (831175) — 8/29/2015 @ 6:25 pm
Can we ban the LGBT Flag now too in light of the Virginia shootings?
Rodney King's Spirit (ab8c0d) — 8/29/2015 @ 6:28 pm
How long until the media links him to the TEA Party and Donald Trump?
WarEagle82 (44dbd0) — 8/29/2015 @ 6:49 pm
I blame Obama’s rhetoric and all his racial healing. By far, the Worst. President. Ever.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/29/2015 @ 10:13 pm
Tragedy struck a group of monkeys after one of them was strangled to death when its neck was caught by the goal net in a football field in Saudi Arabia.
happyfeet (831175) — 8/29/2015 @ 10:19 pm
Acted STU-PID-LY
Obama said of the COPS
He is an azz hole.
Gus haiku (7cc192) — 8/29/2015 @ 10:19 pm
The MONKEY was a female, and was not being chaperoned by a brother or her father. She also was not permitted to drive a car. An infidel monkey.
Gus (7cc192) — 8/29/2015 @ 10:22 pm
Statement from Deputy Goforth’s wife

“There are no words for this. All the language that I know is inadequate for what I want to express. But for Darren, I will try. I can’t describe him with cliches and platitudes. I need to do better than that; he deserves better than that.

“My husband was an incredibly intricate blend of toughness and gentility. He was loyal…fiercely so. And he was ethical; the right thing to do is what guided his internal compass. I admired this quality, perhaps, the most. For that was what made Darren good. And he was good. So, if people want to know what kind of man he was…This is it. He was who you wanted for a friend, a colleague, and a neighbor.

“However, it was I who was blessed so richly that I had the privilege of calling him my husband and my best friend.

“Kathleen Goforth”
mike in houston (7fb899) — 8/29/2015 @ 11:05 pm
Mike in Houston. Again. God bless Deputy Goforth and his wonderful wife and family.
Gus (7cc192) — 8/29/2015 @ 11:06 pm
I have to say, the pointed-head, vacant stare mug shot makes a lot more sense to me that the other mistaken mug. The “learning disabilities ” will turn out to be the usual case of bad brain.
SarahW (67599f) — 8/30/2015 @ 8:27 am
A Tuesday night radio/blog call-in show, possibly from Dallas, discussed how blacks should kill whites and cops.
DRJ (1dff03) — 8/30/2015 @ 9:39 am
From the files of blaming the victim. Alison Parker was not a racist. See. She had a black friend in college!

If she were a racist, well my God…. But she wasn’t see. She was a “good” white person, with a black friend.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 8/30/2015 @ 10:23 am
If Obama had a son . . . .
AZ Bob (ddd066) — 8/30/2015 @ 10:23 am
Now quit interrupting the media while they bury Vester Flanigan’s racist hate speech and taunts he sent in a media package, too graphic and true to life ever to be seen by future victims.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 8/30/2015 @ 10:27 am
indeed, AZ Bob… indeed.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/30/2015 @ 10:45 am
they bury Vester Flanigan’s racist hate speech and taunts

And sidestep the face he was also homosexual.

Black and homosexual.

What are the odds he was also socially, politically conservative or even a devout centrist?

Hmmm.
Mark (dc566c) — 8/30/2015 @ 11:01 am
Since he was a card carrying cork sucker, you would think he’d have at least one white friend to come and speak well of him.

“He didn’t use to be this way. He’d drop the soap. Give the reach around.” his white friend would say, “It was after Charleston. Cinched up the gluteous maximus and it was never the same between us.”
papertiger (c2d6da) — 8/30/2015 @ 11:37 am
#48 black crazy slob homosexual. was his gay porn collection all of white males? why did he not wash his sex toys?
I thought gay man were all fabulous and talented, but unwashed sex toys? throwing cat feces (of which he apparently had in abundance around the house) at neighbors? this man blew up some stereotypes.
not sure I’d be baking him a wedding cake
steveg (fed1c9) — 8/30/2015 @ 11:42 am
“He didn’t use to be this way. He’d drop the soap.

Our culture and political scene have become so dark and decadent, that I wouldn’t put it past quite a few folks out there (hello, friends of Hillary!!) to misconstrue your locker-room humor as being legitimate and real, and say, “ohhh, how sad. That quote from the dear friend needs to be given wide public airing to illustrate to all Americans that the shooter in Texas had a good side!”

Flanigan is merely one of many killers of the past several years whose background, when delved in for a political angle, revealed a leftist orientation—sort of in keeping with the symbolism and irony of the assassin most infamous in modern US history, Lee Harvey Oswald, and who brought down a US president most beloved by many liberals, John Kennedy, was an anti-US ultra-liberal.

(And, fwiw, the sentence in my previous post should have been “and sidestep the fact…”)
Mark (dc566c) — 8/30/2015 @ 11:58 am
Soap is very slippery but you can get these cool liquid soap dispensers now what mount on the wall cause of it’s the future
happyfeet (5ecb0a) — 8/30/2015 @ 1:44 pm
Did he just call me old?

Ageist.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 8/30/2015 @ 2:05 pm
Easy target @29 Nice comment really appropriate to the thread. Glad you got that off your chest, hope you feel better. Got any comments relevant to this incident?
labcatcher (4495c9) — 8/30/2015 @ 3:59 pm
Lets turn this thread back to death row bound dude who is not the guy on the video shown above… can someone sue the Harris County for labeling you as a cop killer?
What if he was a first time offender drunk in public? “Oops wrong mugshot. Sorry all those deputies pissed in your food and told everyone you raped a 3 year old”
steveg (fed1c9) — 8/30/2015 @ 4:04 pm
@ steveg (#55): Anyone who can pay the filing fee can sue anyone for anything. The question is what comes next.

If the individual displayed in the mug-shot that was mistakenly released ended up being released without charges of anything at all — he’s an altar boy who was wrongly accused of some other crime, and Harris County has subsequently apologized for detaining him, and he’s now back singing at morning and afternoon Mass and helping orphans and widows in between, but he lost his job because someone wrongly believed that he’s a murder suspect based on recognizing his shining visiage as misreported by mistake — then maybe he might have a claim in some other states besides Texas, whose Supreme Court has been and continues to be spectacularly hostile to anything like “false light” defamation claims, and whose Supreme Court regularly throws out cases in which the press has been slightly wrong on grounds that “substantial truth” is pretty much equivalent to “truth.”

He’d have a hard time finding an experienced trial lawyer who knows anything much about defamation law in Texas (which, generously speaking, is less than 1% of the practicing civil trial bar, which in turn is a small fraction of the tens of thousands of lawyers in Texas, many of whom are underemployed and hungry) who’d take this engagement on a contingent-fee basis.

Which is a long-winded way of saying: No, not really.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/30/2015 @ 8:27 pm
Note: The people who could conceivably have been misled by the mistake, and who could have changed their opinions regarding his reputation, comprise a tiny intersection of three Venn diagram circles: (1) Those who recognized the individual’s face, who (2) didn’t know him well enough to realize that the reported name of the person arrested who didn’t match that face, and who (3) previously had a strong positive impression of this individual and his reputation that was spoiled by viewing the mistaken mug shot.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/30/2015 @ 8:31 pm
Hurt his reputation? In his milieu (that’s French for social environment, a cop-killer is the biggest man around.
nk (dbc370) — 8/30/2015 @ 10:20 pm
Our garrulous Greek wrote:

Hurt his reputation? In his milieu (that’s French for social environment, a cop-killer is the biggest man around.

Well, yeah, he is, when he’s in jail. Maybe it’s just the white cisheteronormative patriarchist in me, but I’d think that having no reputation and being free trumps being the Big Man in Prison.
The realistic Dana (f6a568) — 8/31/2015 @ 3:54 am
There is a report that Miles was found incompetent to stand trial in connection with 2012 criminal charges, but was later released. If so, the next question is whose gun did he use?
DRJ (1dff03) — 8/31/2015 @ 4:15 pm
Vester Flanigan was fired because he skipped out on a scheduled visit with a shrink, as ordered by the news director of WDBJ7. This is reported in the UK Guardian.

To me, this being a Guardian report says the news crew of WDBJ7 fears backlash over telling the truth about who Flanigan was. WDBJ shopped the story out of country.

The murderous homo got up in their faces, just like Obama urged him to do.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 8/31/2015 @ 6:13 pm

8/29/2015

Texas County Sheriff’s Deputy Ambushed And Killed

61 Responses to “Texas County Sheriff’s Deputy Ambushed And Killed”

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