Rory O’Neill, WOR national correspondent Interview

Mendte in the Morning talks to Rory O’Neill about the rise in violence in this country and if there is any place where people can feel safe anymore.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'll tell you what. When you hear these stories, it's like,
what is going on? Somebody in North Carolina on a
boat fires into a waterfront bar, killing three people. Eight
people are injured. And then you have that awful story
out of Michigan where somebody shut up a Mormon church

(00:20):
and then set it on fire. They still if the
two more are dead, there's a total a four dead
there too. And I guess the answer the question is,
and it's a great question posed by Rory O'Neill, the
wr National Correspondent, is any place safe these days? Because
you have a church, you have a waterfront restaurant. What's next?

(00:44):
There's just far too many of these, Rory. I know
it's a question that you're posing that probably doesn't have
an answer, but it has everyone thinking. I mean, it
makes me think when am I safe? And I guess
the answer is no place.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, right rhetorical question, but certainly it does make you
think every time you go out, whether it's not to
go out on a Saturday night to the waterfront restaurant
or even then Sunday morning to church services. Both the
scenes of attacks interesting. In both cases, the suspects are
forty years old. And both cases are ex Marines who

(01:23):
served in Iraq. That's a connection we don't know. But
the FBI is now leading the investigation in the Michigan case.
In that North Carolina case, the guy was on a
boat open fire in what was called or is being
described as a planned, meticulous attack. Now the Coastguard was
able to arrest that guy, so he will be in

(01:45):
court today. He's facing multiple counts of first degree murder.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Do we know motives for either of these shootings yet not.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Really in either case. You know, in the Michigan church case,
the guy pickup truck drives into the church. Witnesses say
there were some people actually running toward the truck to
help the driver, thinking they were in distress. Then the
driver gets out with his assault rifle and start shooting.
As you said, we know that four people had been killed,

(02:15):
eight others wounded, one of them very critical. But because
that person also set fire to the building, they really
couldn't do a thorough search. And sadly they are expecting
to find more bodies at that Michigan church, especially now
that the sun is up the scene has cooled down
literally and they could start doing the debrisearch.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
How about in North Carolina.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
No motiv there either, no motive there. There have been
some speculation. I won't get into it until we get
some confirmation about what may have motivated things there. In
that case, we do know that this person claimed to
have had PTSD. He was sort of well known as
the guy that's always suing the local government. There's always
suing somebody. He had some brushes with police, but no

(02:57):
sense that there was any violence there. But again that's
part of the ongoing investigation.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, you asked a great question in what you sent
to us about is any place safe? And it got
me thinking where would be safe? You know, you're not
safe in your home. Really, you're not safe when you
go out, when you're where you're traveling, when you go
to work. I mean, there seems to be no rhyme
or reason to these shootings. For a while, there was

(03:24):
all these church shootings, but now it can be anywhere.
The waterfront one really is frightening to me. The fact
that people were just out trying to enjoy themselves for
an evening and somebody, for no apparent reason, just opens fire.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, from a boat, which is the most bizarre ankle
of all this. So Yeah, there's a lot, a lot
of moving parts there right.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
And just walking down the streets of New York City
people are being hit with random bullets. It's just too
many bullets are in the air. That's part of the problem.
Thanks so much, Rory O'Neill, War National correspondent. He is
with us every day at this time. We'll talk to
you again tomorrow Rory.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Thank Larry