OCT 2021 Blues Vol 37 No. 10.1
OCT 2021 Blues Vol 37 No. 10.1 WE REMEMBER: We say good bye to a true hero, Senior Police Officer William “Bill” Jeffrey. FEATURE STORIES: • Biden Try’s To Eliminate Border Mounted Officers • Washington Try’s To Shift Focus From Drone Strike To Baseless Whipping Story At The Border • Who Wants To Be A Cop Part 6 DEPARTMENTS • Publisher’s Thoughts Part I. • Editor’s Thoughts • Your Thoughts • News Around the State • News Around the Country • Products & Services -Alternative Ballistics • Honoring our Fallen Heroes • Warstories • Aftermath • Open Road-Mustang Mach E Goes to Patrol • Healing Our Heroes • Daryl’s Deliberations • HPOU-From the President, Douglas Griffith • Light Bulb Award • Running 4 Heroes • Blue Mental Health with Tina Jaeckle • Off Duty with Rusty Barron • Parting Shots • Now Hiring - L.E.O. Positions Open in Texas • Last Page -Take Out the Trash
OCT 2021 Blues Vol 37 No. 10.1
WE REMEMBER: We say good bye to a true hero, Senior Police Officer William “Bill” Jeffrey.
FEATURE STORIES:
• Biden Try’s To Eliminate Border Mounted Officers
• Washington Try’s To Shift Focus From Drone Strike
To Baseless Whipping Story At The Border
• Who Wants To Be A Cop Part 6
DEPARTMENTS
• Publisher’s Thoughts Part I.
• Editor’s Thoughts
• Your Thoughts
• News Around the State
• News Around the Country
• Products & Services -Alternative Ballistics
• Honoring our Fallen Heroes
• Warstories
• Aftermath
• Open Road-Mustang Mach E Goes to Patrol
• Healing Our Heroes
• Daryl’s Deliberations
• HPOU-From the President, Douglas Griffith
• Light Bulb Award
• Running 4 Heroes
• Blue Mental Health with Tina Jaeckle
• Off Duty with Rusty Barron
• Parting Shots
• Now Hiring - L.E.O. Positions Open in Texas
• Last Page -Take Out the Trash
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In an instant, 10 people were<br />
killed, including at least seven<br />
children, Ahmadi’s brother Emal<br />
said Monday. Among the dead<br />
were Ahmadi, 40, who the family<br />
said worked for a Southern California-based<br />
charity; a 25-yearold<br />
nephew who was about to<br />
be married; and five kids who<br />
were 5 years old or younger.<br />
In the driveway, what remained<br />
of the Corolla was a blackened,<br />
incinerated heap of metal, melted<br />
plastic and scraps of what<br />
appeared to be human flesh<br />
and a tooth. Somewhere near<br />
the passenger’s side was a hole<br />
where a projectile had punched<br />
through. Two Los Angeles Times<br />
journalists who visited the site<br />
examined metal fragments consistent<br />
with some kind of missile.<br />
U.S. forces, who pulled out<br />
of Afghanistan on ???, say they<br />
launched a drone strike that destroyed<br />
a car loaded with explosives<br />
and suicide bombers heading<br />
for Kabul’s airport, where a<br />
terrorist attack killed more than<br />
180 people, including 13 U.S. service<br />
personnel.<br />
It remained unclear whether<br />
the drone strike was linked to<br />
the blast that hit Ahmadi’s car.<br />
In an initial statement after the<br />
strike, U.S. Navy Capt. Bill Urban,<br />
a spokesman for the U.S. military’s<br />
Central Command, said the<br />
strike had hit its intended target<br />
and that there were no indications<br />
of civilian casualties.<br />
But in a subsequent statement,<br />
Urban said the Pentagon<br />
was aware of reports of civilian<br />
casualties and was investigating.<br />
“We would be deeply saddened<br />
by any potential loss of innocent<br />
life,” he said.<br />
He said the U.S. strike “disrupted<br />
an imminent ISIS-K threat,”<br />
a reference to the Afghan affiliate<br />
of the militant Islamic State<br />
group, which claimed responsibility<br />
for the deadly bombing on<br />
the outskirts of the Kabul airport.<br />
In the wake of that attack, the<br />
Pentagon launched an airstrike<br />
in eastern Afghanistan that it<br />
said killed both the “facilitator”<br />
and “planner” of the bombing.<br />
Urban said there were powerful<br />
secondary explosions from<br />
Sunday’s drone strike, which he<br />
said indicated a large number<br />
of explosive materials inside the<br />
targeted vehicle. Those secondary<br />
explosions “may have caused<br />
additional casualties,” he said.<br />
In Khwaja Burgha, members of<br />
Ahmadi’s family said there had<br />
been only one explosion and that<br />
the resulting fireball had partially<br />
burned a crimson Toyota SUV<br />
that was also in the driveway.<br />
“We heard a loud bang, and the<br />
whole house shook,” said Abdul<br />
Khalil, the Ahmadis’ neighbor.<br />
One of the rooms in his house is<br />
adjacent to the Ahmadis’ driveway;<br />
the blast had dislodged<br />
large chunks of plaster from the<br />
wall.<br />
The outside walls of the Ahmadis’<br />
home were spattered<br />
with bloodstains that had begun<br />
to brown.<br />
If the deaths of Ezmari Ahmadi<br />
and his family members are<br />
determined to be the result of<br />
an errant U.S. drone strike, the<br />
horrific tragedy would lay bare<br />
the dangers of the Pentagon’s<br />
long-term plans for so-called<br />
over-the-horizon attacks as a<br />
centerpiece of its counterterrorism<br />
mission. Even when U.S.<br />
troops were fully deployed in<br />
Afghanistan, with CIA operatives<br />
and American special forces<br />
working alongside Afghan security<br />
forces, mounting civilian<br />
casualties soured many Afghans<br />
on the U.S. presence and boosted<br />
the Taliban’s popularity.<br />
Family members insisted there<br />
was no way Ahmadi was involved<br />
with ISIS-K. If anything,<br />
they would have been considered<br />
targets by the extremist group,<br />
which counts all who worked<br />
with the U.S.-backed Afghan<br />
government and its foreign allies<br />
as spies, traitors, and collaborators.<br />
The family said Ahmadi had<br />
worked for the last 16 years with<br />
Nutrition & Education International,<br />
a nongovernmental<br />
organization based in Pasadena.<br />
Ahmadi’s business card identifies<br />
him as a technical engineer, and<br />
it bears the logo of the organization,<br />
whose homepage carried<br />
this message Monday: “Due to the<br />
security issues in Afghanistan,<br />
our website is temporarily disabled.”<br />
Ahmadi had applied for a special<br />
U.S. immigration designation<br />
that would allow him to leave<br />
Afghanistan and go to the U.S.,<br />
his brother Emal said. Thousands<br />
of Afghans who worked<br />
with Western organizations have<br />
fled since the Taliban took over<br />
Afghanistan earlier this month,<br />
but thousands more are in danger<br />
of being left behind as the<br />
U.S. wraps up its airlift at Kabul<br />
airport Tuesday.<br />
Ahmadi’s nephew Nasser, who<br />
was also killed in the explosion,<br />
had worked with U.S. special<br />
forces in the western Afghan city<br />
of Herat, and had also served as<br />
a guard for the U.S. Consulate<br />
there before joining the Afghan<br />
National Army, family members<br />
said. The 25-year-old, who relatives<br />
said was to be married this<br />
week, had come to Kabul to see<br />
if he could push along his own<br />
application for a special immigrant<br />
visa.<br />
Sitting on a pile of sandbags<br />
outside the family compound,<br />
Ezmari Ahmadi’s other brother,<br />
Ramal, could barely speak<br />
through the grief of having lost<br />
three children in the explosion:<br />
Binyamin, 5; Arwin, 3; and Aya,<br />
just 1.<br />
He had been in his room when<br />
the missile struck. “There was<br />
just this big explosion. I was totally<br />
in shock. I didn’t understand<br />
what happened,” he said, his<br />
eyes red from crying.<br />
For two hours after the blast,<br />
he remained dazed, but then<br />
began to understand that his<br />
three children had piled into the<br />
car with their uncle Ezmari and<br />
cousin Farhad and had been<br />
killed.<br />
Mohammad Fawad, a relative,<br />
stood enraged in front of the<br />
incinerated Corolla.<br />
“I want Joe Biden to know<br />
about this. Why do you attack<br />
these people and say it’s Daesh?”<br />
he said, referring to Islamic State<br />
by its Arabic acronym, which is<br />
considered a pejorative by the<br />
group.<br />
“All of these kids were martyred,”<br />
Fawad said, furiously<br />
scrolling through pictures of<br />
those killed on his phone. “Look<br />
at them. Which one of these<br />
people is Daesh? These people<br />
worked with the government —<br />
with the U.S. And look at these<br />
kids. Do you think they’re Daesh?”<br />
Emal Ahmadi was also distraught.<br />
“They shouldn’t do this kind of<br />
action, killing civilians,” he said.<br />
“I lost my family.”<br />
70 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 71