Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey has posted a video to Facebook, which ends up being an ad for an upcoming Tactical Shooting course offered by the department. He implores people in his county(“citizen heros” as well as military veterans) to arm themselves and obtain CC permits, so that in an “active shooter” event, the “good guy with the gun” (his actual words) prevails. He conflates a recent local domestic violence shooting with “Terrorism” in the next breath.
This is my county. I went to high school with this guy’s daughter. The family is by no means a Florida stereotype, they’re solidly vanilla upper middle class in every way.
I should also add that this county is one of several “ground zeros” for the MIC, but the wealth disparity here keeps the county one of the lowest median income areas in FL. We have the newly expanded Harris Corp, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, etc etc — I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few. Law enforcement definitely benefits from its largesse, they routinely get a proportionally large percentage of the state’s police military gear, and even new goodies and experimental toys to test out: most recently Harris Corp’s “Stingray” eavesdropping device.
A darkly humorous retort to an antagonistic comment posted to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office FB comments section, regarding the power of this county’s law enforcement apparatus.
“they own 9 Apache helicopters so better get on the good side before the lines are drawn”
At the time this diary was written, there were already 12K likes, and 1400+ mostly supportive comments(with the odd sprinkling of ridicule). I recognized several names. My husband’s best friend’s baby momma is flaming out there right now. Not a good day, but thankfully I’m not actually on FB, or I’d have been drawn in myself.