>> Two Los Angeles Sheriff's Department deputies were ambushed by a lone shooter at a metro
station in Compton Saturday night. Fortunately, both of the cops have survived the shooting
even though both of them were shot in their head. They are in serious yet stable condition
and hoping that they make a full recovery.
We don't know too much about the story so far other than the fact that this ambush happened.
The suspect is still out on the loose, we don't even have any specific details identifying
what the suspect looks like. The only thing authorities have released is that the suspect
is allegedly a male.
With that said, we do have video of what happened in this ambush. It's surveillance footage,
let's take a quick look at that. Walking up to the vehicle, the cops are just parked,
they were just patrolling the metro station in Compton minding their own business and
this ambush happened.
Again I wanna emphasize that we don't know anything about the suspect other than what
the authorities say, which is that he is a male. Other than that we don't know what the
motive is, a lot of people are already jumping to conclusions which I get that's definitely
a tempting thing to do.
But we have to hold and wait until we know all the details. Now one of the deputies only
identified as a 31-year-old mother of a 6-year-old boy, was shot in the jaw and arms but is in
critical but stable condition. The other deputy, a 24-year-old man was struck by gunfire in
the forehead, and arm and a hand, he's described as alert.
Neither of their names have been released to the public. Both deputies were sworn in
only 14 months ago. And there's a different element to the story that I'll talk about
in just a second and it has to do with protest of the hospital. But Cenk I wanted to give
you an opportunity to jump in.
Yeah, so first of all, the authorities in the latest news pieces say, male black 20
to 30 years old. So we don't know if that's exactly right, of course, that's just their
first attempt to try and identify. First and obviously there's a reward, police officers
being shot, $100,000 reward to help find the person.
And so in terms of assumptions about who it is, well, based on that description you can
make a couple of assumptions. A lot of times is right wingers who shoot police, great majority
of the time the cops are shot in this country is by right-wing fundamentalist and militia
members, etc.
In this case, that is less likely, obviously, with an African-American suspect. There's
not a lot of African-Americans at right-wing militia groups. And now, there's one thing
that complicates this, is it's in Compton where the Sheriff's Department has been accused
of having gangs within the Sheriff's Department by other police, other police have accused
them of that.
And God, first of all, it doesn't mean anybody in that Sheriff's Department is involved in
gang violence, or having their own gang. But it is a substantial accusation and it came
up in a court hearing one side on a wrongful shooting and they want to pay out $7 million
in a settlement, rather than get into the details of what gangs might exist there.
But even if that is all true, it doesn't mean that the two police that were involved had
anything to do with it, it might still be random in that sense. So there are complicating
factors here, it's not just a clean cut case of, somebody just shooting police or somebody
shooting left wingers or right wingers etc.
Now, in terms of what is clean cut and very obvious, the shooting is immoral, under any,
and all circumstances. Those are two innocent people, 31-year-old woman there has a 6-year-old
son as Anna read to you guys. These two folks, 24 or 31 years old shot in the forehead and
shot in the jaw.
Super lucky that they survived, thank God for that, and so that's crystal clear. Now
the second thing that's clear is this will help in any efforts to reform the police.
So if it was in any way shape or form in that person's head, at least and in their mind
politically connected, well then it's the most counterproductive thing I've ever seen.
It makes police far more likely to shoot quicker because of safety concerns like this one,
and it makes- >> Right.
>> Bearing the breach much more difficult. Yeah, definitely, so if the suspect is in
any way connected to the protesters or whatever, yeah, it is absolutely counterproductive and
he should be condemned 100% no matter what, as you said.
I wanted to give a little more context into what you were mentioning earlier Cenk about
how the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department had a very credible allegations of engaging in
gang activity themselves. This was a very big story that broke not too long ago and
that is something that complicates the story a little bit.
So the Bandidos, the 3000 boys, the Regulators and the Lynwood Vikings are only a few of
the estimated 17 gangs that operate in jails and sheriff's stations across the county.
Members often have matching tattoos connecting them to the secret groups entrenched at all
levels of the department and so that was a big report.
And as you also alluded to, the way that reporters found out about that was there was a sheriff's
deputy who actually spoke out against it. And tried to raise awareness about it because
he thought he was doing the right thing in trying to get this toxicity out and this criminality
out of the sheriff's department.
But he was retaliated against and referred to as a rat, he received a text message referring
to him as a rat, and so that is a credible story to keep in mind. One other thing to
also keep in mind that I think is incredibly counterproductive is outside of St. Francis
Medical Center in Lynwood, where the injured officers were being treated Saturday night,
a small crowd including some apparent demonstrators gathered.
Witnesses say members in the group were chanting anti law enforcement slogans and at one point
tried to get inside the hospital. There was a pastor there with a group of people who
was trying to like pray for the officers. And he talked to the press and said that the
demonstrators are actually blocking the entrance.
So when people were trying to get into the emergency room, it was being obstructed. All
of this stuff is just gross and yes, it's counterproductive, if you care about strategy
and actually reforming police, which needs to be done, this is counterproductive. But
more importantly, it's just morally wrong, it should be condemned.
These are people, I get that right now everything is very politically charged. But that woman
has a six-year-old son at home who's terrified right now, these are people who weren't doing
anything wrong. They weren't caught on tape doing anything brutal to anybody, they were
sitting in their police vehicle when they were ambushed.
What are people doing right now? This is insane, I just don't accept that.
>> Yeah, so in terms of the gangs within the cops in the sheriff's offices, that's pretty
close to the fact. The question is, how big a presence is it? The wise says it's not closer,
it is a fact, one of the sheriff leadership that was fired was part of the Vikings gang,
tends to be more white supremacist, I know it's shocking.
And the gang that the other officers accused them of being part of is called the Executioners.
And that's for police that get tattoos of skulls on their bodies after they execute
a member of the public. So if that gang actually exists, that's something that is massive story
and it should be investigated.
But again, those two folks, there's 0% evidence the two cops were involved in any of that.
So it's innocent people that are being targeted here and so none of this is productive, it's
all insane. The protesters have a better chance of being, honestly, the left wingers as opposed
to the shooter who nobody knows.
And there is no left wing group that's gonna encourage anyone to commit violence like that.
Right wing says, Second Amendment rights, so you got to act, you got to do something.
There's no group on the left that says that, so someone went rogue, that's a different
story. But in terms of the protesters, what are you guys doing in front of people who
were shot?
We're against anyone innocent being shot, so I don't know why you would show up there,
what? To protest the people who were shot? That's insane, so if they think they're on
the left wing or they're progressives, that is not the way to do it, and you're totally
wrong about that action and apparently the principles you think you have.
But no, you don't go to the hospital to protest people who've just been shot.
>> Yeah and it goes beyond protesting, it's the stuff that they were reportedly shouting,
and you guys can watch the videos for yourselves. We're gonna grab a video to show you on the
show, but the language was littered with all sorts of words that we just can't air.
So lots of stuff about, I wanna deliver a message to the families, I hope they effing
die, I hope they effing die like god, it's pretty terrible. So those are the facts of
the story, that's what we have now and we'll update you as we learn more.