This information makes me shake with rage. The gunman who opened fire at a restaurant inside a casino near Green Bay, Bruce K. Pofahl, had made threats toward an employee of that restaurant. Pofahl had been a supervisor at that restaurant, and he was fired for undisclosed reasons earlier in the year. In filing for a restraining order, that unidentified employee specified as follows:
The employee, in documents filed that month, said Pofahl sent her threatening text messages and emails over the course of a few weeks that included pictures of her home and threats against her family.
He was contacted by police several times before the harassed woman filed for the restraining order, but he did not stop. He had been banned from the casino/hotel/restaurant property based on her reports of harassment. Apparently, his persistence was enough to warrant a permanent restraining order, but not to remove his guns. According to the article from my local paper (apologies in advance if the above link is behind a paywall):
Court Commissioner Paul Burke granted a permanent restraining order with the employee on March 23, but records indicate that the court did not find "clear and convincing evidence that the respondent may use a firearm to cause physical harm to another or to endanger public safety."
Pofahl was looking for his victim on May 1 when he entered through a side entrance (according to a different article) the building where the restaurant is located, and not finding her, instead murdered two men, ages 32 and 35, and seriously wounded a 28-year-old man who was flown to a Milwaukee trauma center for emergency surgery. The young victim is, according to reported comments from his sister in a related article, suffering from multiple injuries, including one requiring wiring shut his jaw.
I have no comprehension of how one can be a serious enough threat so as to necessitate a permanent restraining order, yet have it determined that his guns are not a multiplier of the threat. Our blind devotion to “second amendment rights” seems to block out any other clarity of vision and common sense. I’m furious, on behalf of these young people who have lost their lives so senselessly and tragically, the young man who is now struggling to recover, all their families, and the woman and her family who received these threats and now are survivors to her co-workers whom the murderer assassinated in her stead. It is time to make such seizing of weapons automatic when a restraining order is issued. This never had to happen, and should not have happened. We need to fight for uniform gun restrictions around the nation.
Tuesday, May 4, 2021 · 3:11:32 AM +00:00 · Chaplain M
There are questions below about whether the shooter had supervised the employee who took out the restraining order. He had supervised her. This is an additional paragraph from my source, the Appleton Post Crescent:
According to court records, Brown County Court Commissioner Phoebe Mix granted a temporary restraining order against Pofahl on March 9 on behalf of a restaurant employee who Pofahl had previously supervised.