CORTEZ: Recent ODU, Fairfax Violence Points Toward Wider Spanberger Issues

Instead of the moderate centrist, Spanberger's inability to stand up to the Democratic fringe is creating a groundswell prepared to speak their minds on April 21st, writes Cortez.

by Daniel Cortez

The tragedy of a decorated Middle Eastern Army veteran losing his life to a convicted felon at Virginia’s Old Dominion University remains more than troubling.

ROTC instructor Lt. Col. Brandon A. Shah was perhaps on his last military assignment. He was an ODU alumni and an Iraq and Afghanistan war hero. Shah knew about facing an enemy in battle, but like every patriot did not expect to lose a life by the hands of a ISIS sympathizer who was a former veteran.

Clearly as distressful was how two Sierra Leone men with the last name Jalloh, shocked the Fredericksburg community. Are investigators examining the recent murder of Stephanie Minter of Fredericksburg, allegedly stabbed to death at a Fairfax County bus stop by illegal immigrant and ISIS sympathizer Abdul Jalloh?

Entering the U.S. from Sierra Leone in 2012, Jalloh’s rap sheet read like a criminal whose primary profession was committing more crime. Rape charges, malicious wounding, drug possession, trespassing, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, pickpocketing and assault are just a few crimes listed. Incredibly, Northern Virginia officials allowed Jalloh to be released 30 times prior to attacking Minter with multiple stab wounds to her upper body.

There’s further outrage finding one responsible medium reporting such actions and opining on the need to keep such individuals confined.

Spanberger’s Reactions Miss the Mark

So how culpable should Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger be regarding such incidents? Spanberger’s actions and comments appear as pandering to her base rather than instituting tough on crime policies as her predecessor Governor Glenn Youngkin along clearly influenced by President Donald Trump and his administration. The governor’s recent executive order prohibiting the Virginia State Police from working with ICE officials helping to eliminate the threat of undocumented bad actors on Virginia’s streets, adds to the crisis.

This clearly affected the issue of an El Salvadorian illegal alien Israel Flores Ortiz, an 18-year-old junior from Fairfax High School. Ortiz has been charged with assault and battery of about a dozen young ladies who according one parent would sneak up behind them grabbing them by the crotch. Such actions according to victims had been occurring for months and parents remain upset with how Principal Georgina Aye dealt with the issue.

Adding more insult to injury, the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office has not honored the ICE detainer for deportation thanks to Spanberger.

Now without a doubt, the ongoing debate of legal immigrant need in America remains a valid one. But it remains insulting to the law abiding with the attack at ODU by Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, an ISIS sympathizer also from Sierra Leone, who according to the FBI was allowed early release from prison after pleading guilty in 2016 attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State. A pox on officials who sanctioned Jalloh’s freedom leading to the death Lt. Col. Shah.

The Sierra Leone tie and both perpetrators named Jalloh should send alarm to Trump administration officials diligent with removing criminal immigrants from our shores. Was there a family tie or did both just share their common name? Spanberger should be concerned as well with the possibility veterans are now targets in Virginia’s universities.

Jalloh committed his crime, utilizing a Glock 44 .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol, illegally purchased from Kenya Chapman, of Smithfield, Virginia who was later arrested himself by authorities for illegal arms dealing and making false statements purchasing firearms.

Two others were wounded.

Will any Democratic official accept blame for this monster walking the streets as a free man? Governor Spanberger commenting on the attack indicated the need for the FBI to focus more on their core priorities to include “investigating and thwarting terrorist attacks against the American people.”

What Spanberger did not state was whether these actions by less than savory individuals affect her support of gerrymandering caused by redistricting. In 2016 Spanberger stated:

“Gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy and it weakens the individual voices that form our electorates. Opposing gerrymandering should be a bipartisan priority.”

Opponents suggest redistricting will allow new liberal districts with a soft on crime focus by officials regarding criminal rights over victim’s rights, particularly with immigrants. Nor has Spanberger according to news reports, reached out to Minter’s mother Cheryl, or criticized actions of Fairfax Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano who refused to listen to police who pled with him not to allow Abdul Jalloh who killed her daughter, to roam free.

What Will Washington Do? How Will Virginians Vote?

No doubt this entire issue will be the focus of discussion by White House operatives as they present on March 25th at the America First Policy Institute Round Table Series, “Ending Human Trafficking: An America First Priority” with former GOYA CEO Bob Unanue who served on President Trump’s Hispanic Prosperity Commission.

Unanue is considered a national Hispanic expert on the subject.

He’s been the Latino face of human trafficking with his Goya Cares program, a global initiative that fought child trafficking; and was executive producer of the movie Sound of Freedom chronicling rescued trafficked children from Colombia.

All of this manifests itself as yet another problem for Spanberger, who due to her redistricting politics may not be able to prevent criminal immigrant individuals from more misdeeds by the very powers and constituencies who helped elect her.

Does she find it hard to sleep at night with thoughts of needing to protect innocent children who may be victimized and sent to places like Sierra Leone with their history of human trafficking or fall prey to sexual predators such as Ortiz?

Great credit must go to President Trump for taking actions to secure our southern border and perhaps now is time for the administration to rethink the need to reformat and reinstitute the Voice of America in an effort to use responsible media professionals to communicate to the world and nation such conduct will not be tolerated by America.

If Virginia’s special elections are demonstrating anything, it is that by bungling the General Assembly session with a litany of bad bills no one campaigned on, by further refusing to crack down on violent illegal immigrants and enforce the law, and by reaching even further with a heavy-handed and unfair power grab via redistricting, Virginians are going to have their opportunity to speak out by using the referendum as a bullhorn.

It’s not just redistricting that’s on the ballot, but Virginia Democrats and their arrogance in the face of common sense. Certainly, that earns a NO vote on April 21st.

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DANIEL P. CORTEZ is a presidential and gubernatorial appointee, political writer, and broadcaster who lives in Stafford County.