Media Blackout: Armed, Off-Duty Cop Prevents Mass Shooting In San Antonio
SAN ANTONIO - Gunfire erupted at the Mayan Palace Theatre on Southwest Military Sunday night just before 9:30 pm. This shooting comes just days after a deadly rampage at a school in Connecticut and sparks memories of the the mass slaying at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.An armed off-duty deputy working security was able to take down the shooter before he could kill anyone.
Investigators tell News 4 WOAI the gunman is 19-year-old Jesus Manuel Garcia. They say he worked at the China Garden restaurant right next to the Mayan Palace Theater. Police say Garcia opened fire at China Garden because of relationship problems with his girlfriend who also worked at the restaurant, although she was not present at the time. Officers explain that Garcia then continued to fire his weapon across the parking lot and into the theater. Garcia even opened fire on a San Antonio Police Department patrol car explained Detective Lou Antu, spokesman for the Bexar County Sherriff's Office.
“Everybody was just coming out of the side of the theater, running out the emergency exits. And everyone was screaming and running,” explained a moviegoer named Megan.
Garcia was finally stopped by a deputy who was working an off-duty job at the theater. The deputy shot Garcia four times. "The officer involved, she took the appropriate action to try to keep everyone safe in the movie theater," Antu said. Antu says the gunman never made it into the theater itself, thanks largely to the heroic work of the off duty deputy. "She did what she felt she had to do," Antu said. "I feel that she saved a lot of lives by taking the action she had to take." Garcia has since undergone surgery and is in stable condition at San Antonio Military Medical Center (SAMMC). He's being charged with aggravated assault for shooting at an officer and shooting a bystander. That bystander is listed in stable condition.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/12/17/Armed-Off-duty-cop-prevents-mass-shooting-in-San-Antonio
In the wake of shooting, relying on government is the wrong answer
In the wake of such a tragedy as Friday’s school shooting in Newtown, Conn., I’v gotta say, America, you’ve let me down a bit.If this sounds cynical, it’s because it is. I’m getting cynical, folks.
I’ve turned off the 24-hour cable news coverage because aside from very specific details, I can follow the unfolding story without it. America seems to have mindlessly developed a sort of cookie-cutter approach to managing crises and instead of helping us to prevent another, the inaction underlying all of this “action” only guarantees it’ll happen again.
What do I mean by this?
With so much exposure to various media nowadays, our country (and the world) have become focused more on image than actual action. In other words, mere appearance is generally enough to convince people. Politicians are notoriously familiar with this concept: Speaking to an audience of soldiers will show people I support the military. Touring the damage of a natural disaster will show people that I’m serious about repair. A photo-op in front of a big green tractor means I support farmers and spending a day in a soup kitchen will show I care about the poor. You get the gist.
So now, just three days after a crazed madman stormed through an elementary school in Connecticut, the country is running through the motions: Politicians are debating legislation on gun control; President Obama has relocated his podium; pundits aren’t agreeing on anything; Michael Moore is blaming America’s “gun culture”; and the media are working overtime to produce appropriately somber music and graphics to accompany its wall-to-wall & around-the-clock coverage.
Don’t get me wrong — each and every one of these things plays an important role in helping the country heal after such a tragedy, but none of them offers solutions for the future.
Consider this: It’s been 13 years since two anti-social deviants unleashed hell on their classmates in a school shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. After murdering 12 students and one teacher, the mentally ill gunmen turned the murder weapons on themselves, opting for suicide rather than life in prison. Sound familiar?
Also consider:
- The Columbine massacre sparked widespread debate over gun control laws, specifically the availability of firearms in the United States. The tragedy also spurred discussions on bullying and social outcasts, the use of pharmaceutical anti-depressants by teenagers and the prevalence of violence in television, movies and video games.
- In a speech to the students and families of Columbine High School,
President Bill Clinton told the audience that the shooting had “pierced
the soul of America.”
He also said the tragic incident should be used as a tool for change, telling the students to speak about their experiences in order to effect changes in attitudes towards America’s youth. - Michael Moore turned the tragedy into political commentary in Bowling for Columbine.
- And to hear the media tell the story at the time, you’d think it had been the first act of school violence EVER.
There are common threads running through each of these tragedies — crazy people.
Did you think I was going to say guns?
While guns were involved in each of these incidents, they aren’t the
cause. On the same day as the Connecticut shooting, 22 schoolchildren
were stabbed by a knife-weilding lunatic at a primary school in China.
No guns involved, but 100% of the craziness.
Look also at the Bath School Disaster of
1927 which claimed the lives of 38 elementary school children, two
teachers, and four other adults and left another 58 people seriously
injured. The perpetrator — a suicidal school official — used bombs, not
guns, to enact his murderous rampage and set off planned explosions at
the Bath Consolidated School in Clinton Township, Michigan. Before
disgruntled school board treasurer Andrew Kehoe offed himself, he
murdered his wife and set fire to his property.
After each one of these tragedies, the
second-most heartbreaking detail to emerge (after the names of the
victims) is all of the witnesses who come forward to confirm that the
perpetrator was indeed a troubled individual and that they weren’t
surprised to hear who had carried out the atrocities.
We can argue gun control if you want. We
can even argue knife and bomb control. We can point fingers and call
each other names. We can walk through the motions and carry on as usual
until the next tragedy occurs. But we should do all of this realizing
that none of it will do a thing to prevent further tragedy in the
future.
Changing distressing patterns in society requires societal
change, and societal change requires change in our local communities
and within our own families. Relying on the government &
image-focused politicians to make these important changes for us —
whether through regulation or legislation — is a grave mistake that
welcomes future heartache for more families.
Grappling With It All
John Tabin spotlighted this assessment from a forensic psychiatrist:
- If you don’t want to propagate more mass murders…
- Don’t start the story with sirens blaring.
- Don’t have photographs of the killer.
- Don’t make this 24/7 coverage.
- Do everything you can not to make the body count the lead story.
- Don’t make the killer some kind of anti-hero.
- Do localise this story to the affected community and as boring as possible in every other market.
The Face of the Enemy
I avoided watching television this weekend. I didn’t think I’d be able to stand the stock phrases, the helpless tears, or the journalists losing track of themselves in order to grab useless interviews with traumatized 8 year olds. (I needn’t add “shame on them.” I suspect that, deep down, they’re already ashamed.)
Most of all, I couldn’t tolerate the politicians, celebrities and commentators using the slaughter of innocents to promote their pet causes. It’s not about guns: Connecticut has very tough gun laws. It’s not about the culture: Hitler enjoyed watching Disney’s Snow White. Put your ever-so-urgent issues back in your pockets and let the mourning bury their children.
When, prior to writing this, I checked on the commentators I respect, I found, with no surprise, that Charles Krauthammer, speaking on the Fox Special Report panel, had said best what little there is to say:
The first thing I think we have to say is: in trying to look at this or analyze this requires a huge amount of humility. The true factors that we do not know often — even after these events are analyzed and thought through, we really don’t know. This is the problem of evil and it’s been struggled with forever.The problem of evil, right. Whenever my fellow Christians talk about Satan — the devil, the enemy, the adversary — I always get a little uncomfortable. Difficult enough for a cultural cove like myself to pierce the veil of sophistication in order to accept a personal God. Much harder to think of evil as having a will and consciousness of its own. But as I’ve said before, whether or not the devil exists, the world behaves exactly as if he does. And I know of only one valid response to that:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.Without those two commandments — and unless we see all our scriptures, all our philosophies, all our actions in the light of those commandments — our religions are worthless, our politics are meaningless, our laws are helpless, our good will means nothing.
Without those two commandments, the world belongs to the enemy.
http://pjmedia.com/andrewklavan/2012/12/16/the-face-of-the-enemy/
A False Sense of Security
This morning, when I took my children to school, there was a guard at the gate for the first time. Obviously, the school intended it as a thoughtful gesture for anxious mothers.But that's the point. Most of the "solutions" being touted offer only a false sense of security. To that point, Ron Fournier had a compelling piece in today's National Journal, titled "What If Nothing or Nobody is to Blame for Adam Lanza?" Fournier writes:
What if there is nothing or nobody to blame? Would that make this inexplicable horror unbearable?
What if we didn't rush to judgement? What if we didn't waste our thoughts, prayers and actions on assigning blame for the sake of mere recrimination? What if we calmly and ruthlessly learned whatever lessons we can from the massacre -- and prevented the next one?
What if it wasn't one thing, but everything, that set off Lanza?
Indeed. What if, like most things in life, Lanza was the product of genetics and environment? In his remarks last night, the President had this to say:
If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from the grief that has visited Tucson, and Aurora, and Oak Creek, and Newtown, and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that -- then surely we have an obligation to try.But what if there isn't "one step"? What if it required banning guns, AND violent movies, AND violent video games -- and even then, you knew that killers would just turn instead to homemade bombs, and cars, and knives?
It's easy to hold out the simplistic, false hope that there is "one step" that can stop heartrending tragedies like this. But in the long run, is it really doing anyone a service to pretend that there is a "one step" answer that will work, when evidence indicates -- over and over -- that it isn't one factor but many that result in this kind of evil and the resulting suffering?
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/carolplattliebau/2012/12/17/a-false-sense-of-security-n1468856
6 simple things parents can do in the wake of massacres without government
By Michelle Malkin
1. Teach our kids about the acts of (real) heroes in times of crisis.
Tell them about Newtown teacher Vicki Soto’s self-sacrifice and bravery. Tell them about Clackamas mall shopper Nick Meli, a concealed carry permit-holder whose quick action may have prevented additional deaths. Tell them about Family Research Council security guard Leo Johnson, who protected workers from a crazed gunman. Tell them about the heroic men in the Aurora movie theater who gave their lives taking bullets for their loved ones. Tell them about armed Holocaust Museum security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns, who died fighting back against the museum’s nutball attacker. Tell them about armed private citizen Jeanne Assam, who gunned down the New Life Church attacker in Colorado Springs and saved untold lives
2. Train our kids: When they see something troublesome or wrong, say something. If a young classmate exhibits bizarre or violent behavior toward himself/herself, other students, teachers, or parents, report it right away. If it gets ignored, say it louder. Don’t give up. Don’t just shrug off the “weirdo” saying/doing dangerous things and don’t just hope someone else will act.
3. Limit our kids’ time online and control their exposure to desensitizing cultural influences.
Turn off the TV. Get them off the bloody video games. Protect them from age-inappropriate Hollywood violence. Make sure they are active and engaged with us and the world, not pent up in a room online every waking moment.
4. If you see a parent struggling with an out-of-control child, don’t look the other way. If you are able to offer any kind of help, do it. Don’t wait.
5. We still don’t know the medical condition of the Newtown shooter. But we do know that social stigmas are strong. We don’t need government to take immediate, individual action to break those stigmas. There are millions of children, teens, and young adults suffering from very real mental illnesses. Be silent no more about your family’s experiences, your struggles, your pains, and your fears. Speak up.
6. Teach our kids to value and respect life by valuing and respecting them always.
http://michellemalkin.com/2012/12/17/6-things-parents-can-do-in-the-wake-of-massacres-without-government/
Civility: NRA Leaders and Members Getting Death Threats
Are you a member of the National Rifle Assocation? If so, you might
want to keep your head down. Unhinged liberals are calling for NRA
President David Keene and NRA members to be shot. More from Twitchy:
It should be pointed out the NRA promotes respect
for, proper use of and provides proper training for those handling
firearms. The NRA has zero resposibility for the horrific tragedy in
Connecticut last week.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/12/17/civility-nra-leaders-and-members-getting-death-threats-n1468555
All decent Americans are heart-sick and outraged over the Newtown, Conn. school massacre. But some citizens have completely lost their heads and souls. On Twitter, there’s a growing proliferation of sickos calling for NRA president David Keene and anyone else who belongs to the gun-rights organization to be shot.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/12/17/civility-nra-leaders-and-members-getting-death-threats-n1468555
The Facts about Mass Shootings
It’s time to address mental health and gun-free zones
A few things you won’t hear about from the saturation coverage of the Newtown, Conn., school massacre:
Mass shootings are no more common than they have been in past decades, despite the impression given by the media.
In fact, the high point for mass killings in the U.S. was 1929, according to criminologist Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections.
Incidents of mass murder in the U.S. declined from 42 in the 1990s to 26 in the first decade of this century.
The chances of being killed in a mass shooting are about what they are for being struck by lightning.
Until the Newtown horror, the three worst K–12 school shootings ever had taken place in either Britain or Germany.
Almost all of the public-policy discussion about Newtown has focused on a debate over the need for more gun control. In reality, gun control in a country that already has 200 million privately owned firearms is likely to do little to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals. We would be better off debating two taboo subjects — the laws that make it difficult to control people with mental illness and the growing body of evidence that “gun-free” zones, which ban the carrying of firearms by law-abiding individuals, don’t work.
First, the mental-health issue. A lengthy study by Mother Jones magazine found that at least 38 of the 61 mass shooters in the past three decades “displayed signs of mental health problems prior to the killings.” New York Times columnist David Brooks and Cornell Law School professor William Jacobson have both suggested that the ACLU-inspired laws that make it so difficult to intervene and identify potentially dangerous people should be loosened. “Will we address mental-health and educational-privacy laws, which instill fear of legal liability for reporting potentially violent mentally ill people to law enforcement?” asks Professor Jacobson. “I doubt it.”
Gun-free zones have been the most popular response to previous mass killings. But many law-enforcement officials say they are actually counterproductive. “Guns are already banned in schools. That is why the shootings happen in schools. A school is a ‘helpless-victim zone,’” says Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff. “Preventing any adult at a school from having access to a firearm eliminates any chance the killer can be stopped in time to prevent a rampage,” Jim Kouri, the public-information officer of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, told me earlier this year at the time of the Aurora, Colo., Batman-movie shooting. Indeed, there have been many instances — from the high-school shooting by Luke Woodham in Mississippi, to the New Life Church shooting in Colorado Springs, Colo. — where a killer has been stopped after someone got a gun from a parked car or elsewhere and confronted the shooter.
Economists John Lott and William Landes conducted a groundbreaking study in 1999, and found that a common theme of mass shootings is that they occur in places where guns are banned and killers know everyone will be unarmed, such as shopping malls and schools.
I spoke with Lott after the Newtown shooting, and he confirmed that nothing has changed to alter his findings. He noted that the Aurora shooter, who killed twelve people earlier this year, had a choice of seven movie theaters that were showing the Batman movie he was obsessed with. All were within a 20-minute drive of his home. The Cinemark Theater the killer ultimately chose wasn’t the closest, but it was the only one that posted signs saying it banned concealed handguns carried by law-abiding individuals. All of the other theaters allowed the approximately 4 percent of Colorado adults who have a concealed-handgun permit to enter with their weapons.
“Disarming law-abiding citizens leaves them as sitting ducks,” Lott told me. “A couple hundred people were in the Cinemark Theater when the killer arrived. There is an extremely high probability that one or more of them would have had a legal concealed handgun with him if they had not been banned.”
Lott offers a final damning statistic: “With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.”
There is no evidence that private holders of concealed-carry permits (which are either easy to obtain or not even required in more than 40 states) are any more irresponsible with firearms than the police. According to a 2005 to 2007 study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Bowling Green State University, police nationwide were convicted of firearms violations at least at a 0.002 percent annual rate. That’s about the same rate as holders of carry permits in the states with “shall issue” laws.
Despite all of this evidence, the magical thinking behind gun-free zones is unlikely to be questioned in the wake of the Newtown killings. Having such zones gives people a false sense of security, and woe to the politician or business owner who now suggests that a “gun-free zone” revert back to what critics would characterize as “a wild, wild West” status. Indeed, shortly after the Cinemark attack in Colorado, the manager of the nearby Northfield Theaters changed its policy and began banning concealed handguns.
In all of the fevered commentary over the Newtown killings, you will hear little discussion of the fact that we may be making our families and neighbors less safe by expanding the places where guns aren’t allowed. But that is precisely what we may be doing. Both criminals and the criminally insane have shown time and time again that those laws are the least of the problems they face as they carry out their evil deeds.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335739/facts-about-mass-shootings-john-fund#
A Few Questions Before The Next Big "National Conversation on Guns"
It was the third time it happened -- and each time, the federal government looked the other way.
Fast forward to last week. Following the deaths of a dozen migratory birds in Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska several years back, a Denver-based oil company was fined $22,500. The company was also ordered to make an additional $7,500 payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
The disconnect demonstrates what critics call a blatant double standard that has to change. While the federal government aggressively pursues oil and gas companies for wildlife deaths, it often gives wind producers a pass.
Proponents say going soft on the wind industry allows it to compete. But environmentalists say, in this instance, it’s unacceptable.
“The playing field is not leveled,” American Bird Conservancy spokesman Bill Johns told FoxNews.com, recalling the West Virginia incident. “If there had been a serious consequence the first time, there wouldn’t have been a second time and a third time. All they do now is go, ‘Whoops, my bad’ and it’s forgiven.”
The most recent mass bird kill in West Virginia didn’t involve collisions with wind turbines at the sprawling 61-tower complex but instead resulted from a combination of exhaustion and collisions with the substation as the Connecticut warblers, yellow-billed cuckoos and Virginia rails got trapped in the light’s glare and circled in mass confusion before dying.
The ABC is among a growing group that believes the government is playing favorites and does not hold the wind industry to the same standards as other energy generators.
The wind sector has had an exemption from prosecution under two of America’s oldest wildlife-protection laws: the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Eagle Protection Act. A violation of either law could result in a fine up to $250,000 or two years imprisonment. To date, the Obama administration -- following in the footsteps of the George W. Bush administration – has not prosecuted a single case against the wind industry. What they have done is gone after oil and natural gas providers for similar infractions.
“How does an industry kill more than 2,000 eagles and not be fined once?” Johns said. “It’s a head scratcher.”
A few months ago, the Justice Department brought charges against Oklahoma oil company Continental Resources as well as six others in North Dakota for causing the death of 28 migratory birds in violation of the Bird Treaty Act.
Continental CEO Harold Hamm called the move “completely discriminatory.”
Continental was accused of killing one bird “the size of a sparrow” in its oil pits. “It’s not even a rare bird. There’re jillions of them,” Hamm said during an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
Yet in central California, 70 golden eagles were killed by wind turbines at Altamont Pass, without prosecution. The findings follow a 2008 study by the Fish and Wildlife Service that estimates wind farms kill nearly a half million birds per year in the United States. The department has since backed off from that number but requests for clarification by FoxNews.com were not returned.
“They are thumbing their noses at the environmental mess they are making,” Johns said.
A study funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency estimated that 10,000 birds – almost all that are protected by the migratory bird act – are being killed every year at the wind farm in Altamont Pass, Calif.
“The Altamont Pass wind farm does not face the same threat of prosecution, even though the bird kills at Altamont have been repeatedly documented by biologists since the mid-1990s,” Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Energy Policy and the Environment, said.
“Biologists believe Altamont, which uses older turbine technology, may be the worst example. But that said, the carnage there likely represents only a fraction of the number of birds killed by windmills,” Bryce told FoxNews.com.
In 2009, ExxonMobil pleaded guilty in federal court to killing 85 birds that came into contact with crude oil and other pollutants in uncovered tanks and wastewater facilities on its property. The birds were protected by the federal act and the company agreed to pay $600,000 in fines. Over the past decade, federal officials have brought hundreds of similar cases against big energy companies operating across the country.
Oregon-based electric company PacifiCorp was ordered to pay $1.4 million in fines for killing 232 eagles that were electrocuted by power lines in Wyoming.
In March, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released new guidelines for land-based wind developers trying to avoid or minimize impacts to birds and their habitat. But bird advocates say it’s an empty gesture because the guidelines are voluntary and wind farms are not required to follow them.
The backlash against the wind industry is spreading to issues across other parts of the country.
In October, 60 residents of Hermiker County in upstate New York sued the owners and developers of a 37-turbine wind farm. They claim the turbines are bigger and noisier than developers had promised and say the farm is decreasing property values in the area and causing health problems.
Noise from the property has at times clocked in above 72 decibels, 22 decibels more than local law allows. Iberdrola Renewables owns the project and has installed some noise-reduction equipment on a handful of turbines but not on all of them.
Complicating matters with the wind industry are the ongoing negotiations with the Obama administration and House Speaker John Boehner over spending cuts, tax increases and other ways to avert the looming fiscal crisis.
The wind industry has benefited from a tax credit that some say rigs the energy market. Whether to continue the tax credit, which is set to expire on Dec. 31, has become a bargaining chip in D.C.
The credit was created 20 years ago to help wind compete with other sources of electricity generation such as coal, hydropower and natural gas. The wind industry says it still needs help from the taxpayer and warns thousands of jobs could be in jeopardy if the credit is allowed to expire. Supporters bill wind generation as a clean energy that doesn’t tap into water supplies and warn that letting the credit expire would mean a death sentence for the industry.
Critics say it’s time for the industry to stand on its own or call it quits -- having benefited not only from the production tax credit but a de facto grant of immunity from federal prosecution under some of the country’s oldest wildlife laws.
Also Reads:
A Few Questions Before The Next Big "National Conversation on Guns"
SO IF WE’RE GOING TO HAVE A “NATIONAL CONVERSATION ON GUNS,” HERE ARE SOME OPENERS:
Why do people who favor gun-control call people who disagree with them murderers or accomplices to murder? Is that constructive?
Would any of the various proposals have actually prevented the tragedy that is the supposed reason for them?
When you say you hope that this event will finally change the debate, do you really mean that you hope you can use emotionalism and blood-libel-bullying to get your way on political issues that were losers in the past?
If you’re a media member or politician, do you have armed security? Do you have a permit for a gun yourself? (I’m asking you Dianne Feinstein!) If so, what makes your life more valuable than other people’s?
Do you know the difference between an automatic weapon and a semi-automatic weapon? Do your public statements reflect that difference?
If guns cause murder, why have murder rates fallen as gun sales have skyrocketed?
Have you talked about “Fast and Furious?” Do you even know what it is? Do you care less when brown people die?
When you say that “we” need to change, how are you planning to change? Does your change involve any actual sacrifice on your part?
Let me know when you’re ready to talk about these things. We’ll have a conversation.
UPDATE: John Lucas emails:
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/159800/ Why do people who favor gun-control call people who disagree with them murderers or accomplices to murder? Is that constructive?
Would any of the various proposals have actually prevented the tragedy that is the supposed reason for them?
When you say you hope that this event will finally change the debate, do you really mean that you hope you can use emotionalism and blood-libel-bullying to get your way on political issues that were losers in the past?
If you’re a media member or politician, do you have armed security? Do you have a permit for a gun yourself? (I’m asking you Dianne Feinstein!) If so, what makes your life more valuable than other people’s?
Do you know the difference between an automatic weapon and a semi-automatic weapon? Do your public statements reflect that difference?
If guns cause murder, why have murder rates fallen as gun sales have skyrocketed?
Have you talked about “Fast and Furious?” Do you even know what it is? Do you care less when brown people die?
When you say that “we” need to change, how are you planning to change? Does your change involve any actual sacrifice on your part?
Let me know when you’re ready to talk about these things. We’ll have a conversation.
UPDATE: John Lucas emails:
Joe Scarborough, who claims to be a “proud NRA member” just said there is no reason to allow someone to have an “assault weapon” that shoots “30 rounds a second.”Well, yes. It’s MSNBC. But it is interesting that Scarborough — like Mark Shields and Rupert Murdoch — seems entirely ignorant of actual gun law. But to be fair, the National Firearms Act has only been around since 1934.
The ignorance is appalling.
Feds look other way as wind farms kill birds -- but haul oil and gas firms to court
Lights left on during a foggy night last year at a West Virginia wind farm are thought to be behind the grizzly deaths of nearly 500 songbirds.It was the third time it happened -- and each time, the federal government looked the other way.
Fast forward to last week. Following the deaths of a dozen migratory birds in Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska several years back, a Denver-based oil company was fined $22,500. The company was also ordered to make an additional $7,500 payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
The disconnect demonstrates what critics call a blatant double standard that has to change. While the federal government aggressively pursues oil and gas companies for wildlife deaths, it often gives wind producers a pass.
Proponents say going soft on the wind industry allows it to compete. But environmentalists say, in this instance, it’s unacceptable.
“The playing field is not leveled,” American Bird Conservancy spokesman Bill Johns told FoxNews.com, recalling the West Virginia incident. “If there had been a serious consequence the first time, there wouldn’t have been a second time and a third time. All they do now is go, ‘Whoops, my bad’ and it’s forgiven.”
The most recent mass bird kill in West Virginia didn’t involve collisions with wind turbines at the sprawling 61-tower complex but instead resulted from a combination of exhaustion and collisions with the substation as the Connecticut warblers, yellow-billed cuckoos and Virginia rails got trapped in the light’s glare and circled in mass confusion before dying.
The ABC is among a growing group that believes the government is playing favorites and does not hold the wind industry to the same standards as other energy generators.
The wind sector has had an exemption from prosecution under two of America’s oldest wildlife-protection laws: the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Eagle Protection Act. A violation of either law could result in a fine up to $250,000 or two years imprisonment. To date, the Obama administration -- following in the footsteps of the George W. Bush administration – has not prosecuted a single case against the wind industry. What they have done is gone after oil and natural gas providers for similar infractions.
“How does an industry kill more than 2,000 eagles and not be fined once?” Johns said. “It’s a head scratcher.”
A few months ago, the Justice Department brought charges against Oklahoma oil company Continental Resources as well as six others in North Dakota for causing the death of 28 migratory birds in violation of the Bird Treaty Act.
Continental CEO Harold Hamm called the move “completely discriminatory.”
Continental was accused of killing one bird “the size of a sparrow” in its oil pits. “It’s not even a rare bird. There’re jillions of them,” Hamm said during an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
Yet in central California, 70 golden eagles were killed by wind turbines at Altamont Pass, without prosecution. The findings follow a 2008 study by the Fish and Wildlife Service that estimates wind farms kill nearly a half million birds per year in the United States. The department has since backed off from that number but requests for clarification by FoxNews.com were not returned.
“They are thumbing their noses at the environmental mess they are making,” Johns said.
A study funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency estimated that 10,000 birds – almost all that are protected by the migratory bird act – are being killed every year at the wind farm in Altamont Pass, Calif.
“The Altamont Pass wind farm does not face the same threat of prosecution, even though the bird kills at Altamont have been repeatedly documented by biologists since the mid-1990s,” Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Energy Policy and the Environment, said.
“Biologists believe Altamont, which uses older turbine technology, may be the worst example. But that said, the carnage there likely represents only a fraction of the number of birds killed by windmills,” Bryce told FoxNews.com.
In 2009, ExxonMobil pleaded guilty in federal court to killing 85 birds that came into contact with crude oil and other pollutants in uncovered tanks and wastewater facilities on its property. The birds were protected by the federal act and the company agreed to pay $600,000 in fines. Over the past decade, federal officials have brought hundreds of similar cases against big energy companies operating across the country.
Oregon-based electric company PacifiCorp was ordered to pay $1.4 million in fines for killing 232 eagles that were electrocuted by power lines in Wyoming.
In March, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released new guidelines for land-based wind developers trying to avoid or minimize impacts to birds and their habitat. But bird advocates say it’s an empty gesture because the guidelines are voluntary and wind farms are not required to follow them.
The backlash against the wind industry is spreading to issues across other parts of the country.
In October, 60 residents of Hermiker County in upstate New York sued the owners and developers of a 37-turbine wind farm. They claim the turbines are bigger and noisier than developers had promised and say the farm is decreasing property values in the area and causing health problems.
Noise from the property has at times clocked in above 72 decibels, 22 decibels more than local law allows. Iberdrola Renewables owns the project and has installed some noise-reduction equipment on a handful of turbines but not on all of them.
Complicating matters with the wind industry are the ongoing negotiations with the Obama administration and House Speaker John Boehner over spending cuts, tax increases and other ways to avert the looming fiscal crisis.
The wind industry has benefited from a tax credit that some say rigs the energy market. Whether to continue the tax credit, which is set to expire on Dec. 31, has become a bargaining chip in D.C.
The credit was created 20 years ago to help wind compete with other sources of electricity generation such as coal, hydropower and natural gas. The wind industry says it still needs help from the taxpayer and warns thousands of jobs could be in jeopardy if the credit is allowed to expire. Supporters bill wind generation as a clean energy that doesn’t tap into water supplies and warn that letting the credit expire would mean a death sentence for the industry.
Critics say it’s time for the industry to stand on its own or call it quits -- having benefited not only from the production tax credit but a de facto grant of immunity from federal prosecution under some of the country’s oldest wildlife laws.
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