| I should have known better.
I was thinking a few days ago that we hadn't heard anything appalling out of Dale Volker for awhile. Maybe, it seemed to me, being in the minority finally made him learn he couldn't go around fearmongering, making things up, and generally acting sleazy.
But no, like the monster in some bad 1950s horror movie, Volker has apparently crawled back out of the recesses of the State Senate to once again prove that when it comes to lying and fearmongering, he's second to none.
It's about the budget, again.. In order to try and stop the bleeding from the NY state budget, Governor Paterson has proposed a number of cost-cutting measures including for the State Troopers not to commission new recruits this year (same as last year) to replace retirements. That means the overall force will shrink by about 130 people this year out of the current 5,000.
To partially compensate for this and maintain the force, the Governor is planning on pulling back to regular duty the 90 State Troopers currently assigned for use as "school resource officers," basically a combination of security guard and public information officer, who are right now permanently stationed at various NY school districts.
But Volker doesn't like these moves one little bit. Via WIVB:
Senator Dale Volker(R) said, "You had better be darn careful what you're doing. Prison riots, I mean God forbid, we haven't had one in so many years."
Got that New Yorkers? Not having State Troopers in the schools = Prison riots.
Wait, what? Seriously, Dale, what the (expletive deleted) are you smoking? Please tell us, because if we can find it and tax it, that'll solve New York's budget problems once and for all.
It's no surprise that Volker chooses to make things up as usual, but this time he got a little assist from a trooper lobbying against the budget cuts:
Moretti tells News 4 a school resource officer stopped a potential massacre at a school in Erie County within the last three years.
"Weapons were there. It was almost identical to a Columbine. He was by himself," said Moretti.
Seriously? That's odd, since nothing like that was ever in the local news...
Neither Senator Volker or the PBA representative would give more details on the problem avoided locally.
In other words, you don't want people to research the details and find out that you're making things up again. If there really were such an event, it would have resulted in arrests, convictions.
Fortunately, WGRZ did a little digging and found out some of the details on this alleged "plot." In January of 2008, they arrested a 17 year-old after he told a fellow student that he wanted to kill the school vice principal and a teacher. A search of the kid's home turned up a rifle, though apparently one belonging to a family member and not the 17 year old, and no other evidence of intent. The kid was charged with "menacing in the third degree." (Which is, I believe, one step up from "conspiracy to commit rudeness.")
"Almost identical to a Columbine." Right. Pull the other one Dale, it's got bells on it. |
