Police have a suspect in custody for the ambush killing of Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer. He should have been locked away for mental treatment but wasn’t. Kevin Cataneo Salazar “has an alarming history of severe mental illness.” He also “was repeatedly refused help and was still able to legally buy guns.” When cops surrounded the home Monday morning, he barricaded himself inside. “SWAT officers and hostage specialists negotiated with Salazar for several hours before he finally surrendered when chemical deterrents were fired into the home.”
Police announce arrest
As soon as the police announced the arrest of 29-year-old Kevin Cataneo Salazar in connection with the brutal ambush killing of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy on Saturday, September 16, his family went public with their side of the story. Kevin’s mom Marle relates that “she repeatedly tried to get help” for her troubled son. The family has been through a lot “in the five years since he was diagnosed with schizophrenia,” she explains.
He “heard voices and had twice attempted to kill himself.” They didn’t even know that he had guns. He hid them well but cops assured them he bought them all legally. Despite “him being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and having undergone psych holds.”
“It’s not my son that did it, it’s the disease that did it,” the distressed mom points out. Police knew all about his history as well. “They are putting all this out there that my son killed someone, but nobody is saying that my son is sick,” she notes through a Spanish language interpreter.
Mother of cop killer Kevin Cataneo Salazar said her son recently in Sylmar psych facility. Sylmar is a locked facility, patients can't leave on their own. He should've been flagged b4 gun purchase. 2003 LATimes: 50 patients escaped Sylmar locked mental facilities. #backtheblue pic.twitter.com/yGC0P7qB3M
— Saint James Hartline (@JamesHartline) September 18, 2023
“They’re only saying that he was the one that shot the deputy, but nobody is saying he has a record for needing mental help.” That’s a dirty little fact of liberal life that the Democrats running California don’t like to talk about.
Long before he ambushed Deputy Clinkunbroomer, the local officers had already encountered the “suicidal, paranoid schizophrenic who had been off his medications for nearly a year.”
According to the suspect’s mother, “I have called the police several times. In the end, they would say, ‘He’s an adult, so if he doesn’t want to take [his medication], we can’t do anything.‘” He hasn’t been taking them for about 10 months now. Something bad was bound to happen sooner or later.
Multiple 72-hour holds
Jessica Salazar, Kevin’s sister, relates that they have been doing everything they could think of to keep everyone safe from an impending mental health crisis. She told reporters “that her brother has been put under multiple 72-hour psychiatric holds, only to be released.”
Up and down the California coast, mental patients go through a big revolving door. “Just know that we tried helping my brother,” she declared officially, for the record. It’s not their fault police wouldn’t hold him long enough to force him back on his meds.
All the advocates and social service workers who spend day and night protesting for more liberal social service programs are as equally silent as the overworked, overextended and defunded police are.
This appears to be Kevin Cataneo Salazar:
If he were a white person, LAT's would have had his picture up. Standard practice.
Next question – is he an illegal immigrant? pic.twitter.com/DDQ9fza4dd
— Gary Hall (@GaryWHall) September 18, 2023
Instead of doing something to get those with serious and dangerous mental illness the help they require, they shuffle them off to the side and hide them in stacks of statistics. They would rather those like Kevin Salazar shuffle along the street like zombies, heavily sedated on fentanyl. The zombies may be everywhere but they don’t usually shoot anyone.
The family sympathizes with what the deputy’s family is going through. They are fully behind the police, law and order. They wish they could have seen some real policing ahead of the tragic crisis.
“We feel for [Clinkunbroomer’s] family. It hurts. Nobody wishes to go through that, but I do want you guys to know that my brother had schizophrenia. He had paranoia. He heard voices.“