Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott Vordiez yesterday morning. At this time, we were in
about the third hour of wondering whether we were in
the midst of losing an Omaha Police officer. As we
heard an officer was shot in the head responding to
a disturbance that really should not have been that big
a deal at a gas station near one hundred and
(00:20):
twentieth in Dodge. The guy was in there ranton being crazy.
This happens all the time. Go talk to a cop.
How often you gotta move a crazy guy off of
private property? What time is it? You know they do
this all the time. So this guy shows up at
the gas station, grabs the business phone, starts calling nine
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to one one himself, and then a nine to one
one employee also calls nine one one. Officers show up,
and there's contact. This guy is talking about the KKK
and how his car and his phone are bugged. People
are spying on him, people are following him, and they said,
(01:10):
all right, man, you well, I'm sorry to hear that,
but you've got to go. You can't stay here, and
if you don't leave this property, you're going to be
arrested for failure to leave the property. The guy then
as the officers like, all right, well we told you,
they go to put handcuffs on the guy, and that's
when this guy reached into his waistband, pulled out a
(01:33):
handgun and pointed the weapon at a sixteen year officer
of the Omaha Police Department, Steve Mursek. And we heard
yesterday was shot in the head. He was shot in
the head, but it was about as good a head
wound as if you're going to have a bullet wound
(01:54):
to the head, this is the one you want. It
was thankfully something that he won't be able to recover from.
And they're talking to a stable condition for this officer.
But the reason why this police officer was shot, this
whole interaction goes back earlier than yesterday. Now, if maybe
(02:18):
you heard, hey, I heard that these guys had prior history.
Is that what you're talking about, Yes, they had prior history. No,
it's not what I'm talking about. I'll address it, though.
This was about over ten years ago. Geez, fifteen years ago.
(02:43):
The officer, so brand new officer on the force ends
up pulling over a then twenty one year old guy
who ends up being the person who fifteen years later
would shoot him the charges for this traffic stop, no insurance,
no valid registration, following too close, and then later he
(03:06):
decided that appearing in court to stand for these charges
was not for him, so failure to appear in court.
The arresting officer in that case was a brand new
Omaha police officer named Stephen Mrsek. And if you're thinking
this guy has played the long game fifteen years of
(03:27):
waiting to try and draw this police officer out so
we could draw a gun on him, that's a good story.
No chance, because since that moment in the spring of
twenty ten, this guy who ended up at the gas
station yesterday has had several run ins with the law.
(03:48):
If he had it in for every single police officer
who'd ever arrested him, he'd have to bring a lot
of bullets. He's had several run ins with the law
going back well over fifteen the convictions theft, forgery, false
information of police, drug possession, and then driving and probation
(04:11):
violation several of them. Why is he still out good question,
especially since he currently has a case that is under
investigation involving domestic assault, property damage, and theft. This guy
has a very long rap sheet. Now did the officer
(04:32):
yesterday recognize this guy? Probably not, just like this guy
has had several run ins with police. This police officer,
now with sixteen years under his belt with the Omaha
Police Department, has had several run ins with crazy, dangerous criminals.
So I doubt he was like, Hey, aren't you that
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guy I pulled over in May of twenty ten. I
don't know, unless he's got a photographic memory. Probably not.
Just one more guy who's ranting someplace, probably homeless, crazy
on or off whatever thing he should or should not
be taking. And now it's the question of so what
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do we do with this guy? Because we've been battling
at the Omaha City Council, right will you can't criminalize homelessness,
because everyone who says you can't criminalize homelessness they think
they think every single person on the streets is someone
who that day suddenly got a medical bill that they
(05:40):
couldn't pay, got laid off from their job because the
man doesn't care about the little guy and laid this
guy off. And then the wife said, I'm pregnant, and
so this suddenly this guy's got like he's down in
his luck. He's got nowhere to turn, and he's out
there just begging for scraps so he can get back
(06:00):
to his pregnant wife. The people say you can't criminalize homelessness.
They think every single person on the street is that guy.
Does that guy exist? I don't know some variation thereof sure,
but you know that guy is otherwise law abiding, and
he goes to seek help at the places that provided
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without worrying about, Hey, I've been using a bunch of
drugs and alcohol. Am I gonna be able to I've
got felony warrens? Am I gonna be able to get
the help I need? That guy is getting the help
he needs from the people who provided. The people the
police officers run up against are these people who are
dangerous criminals with unchecked mental and addiction issues that are
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just in and out of private businesses and public places
and homeless encampments and jail, and like this just happens
over and over again until suddenly one of them somehow
gets a firearm, which it was probably a lot easier
than any of us would realize, Like, how does a
guy who seems to have nothing, how does he suddenly
(07:07):
have a gun? Probably pretty darn easy. But I'm not
even talking about the homeless issue being the reason why
this police officer got shot. It goes back a little
further than that. I don't know if the suspect yesterday
was homeless. We heard that there was some details regarding
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he had stuff in his car, like a security placard
and a bulletproof vest or something like that. I don't know.
We're still still waiting to find out more details on
that guy. But I'm I would bet everything I have,
which admittedly is not a real daring bet. I don't
(07:51):
have much, but I'd be willing to bet everything I
had that the reason why this police officer was shot
yesterday goes to the activists who have been telling these
police two things. First of all, you show up at
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the scene, If you check the rear view mirror and
you see that your face is that of a white guy,
and then you look out the dashboard or you look
out the windshield and you see that the person you're
about to have some sort of interaction with is a
black guy, you better not shoot him because there's no
(08:34):
justification for that. Your career is done, your family will
have to go into hiding, and we might find you
guilty of murder. Now, if you show up and you're
a white guy and the suspects a white guy, have
at it, fill that guy full of lad I promise
you no one will care. But if you're a white
(08:56):
police officer and that's a black suspect, hey good luck.
You know how this works. So don't draw that weapon,
which then goes into the other part of the activists.
The activists who say we have a homeless problem in Omaha,
well they don't call it a problem. We have unsheltered
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citizens in Omaha, and the police show up and they
escalate the situation by drawing guns. You don't need to
draw a gun. In fact, if you've got a person
who's out there clearly having some sort of mental episode,
you don't need to send a police officer at all.
How many times have you heard this. You don't need
to send a cop out there. CoP's just gonna draw
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his gun and be trigger happy and shoot the guy.
You got to send a mental health expert. These police
officers aren't trained therapists. They're not mental health experts. Don't
send a cop out there. You're gonna get a good
man killed. These guys, they're not dangerous they don't have guns.
(10:01):
The officer knows that this guy doesn't have a gun.
Shoot he pulled him over fifteen years ago. He knows
he's just a regular guy who's a bad driver. You know,
we need to send mental health experts out there to
look at the guy who's ranting about the KKK and
how the man is bugging his phone and his car.
(10:25):
And the therapist is supposed to go out there and go,
uh oh, looks like someone has a case of the mondays,
Do you need a hug? Because it turns out I
got two arms ready to hug you. And then they
hug the guy, and the guy's like I never felt
so seen. And then they make him the superintendent of
schools in Des Moines. That's how this is supposed to go.
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Don't send a cop out there. Cops just gonna get
trigger happy. So the activists have been telling you this
stuff for years, right, the cops know this. So here
comes the he does check the mirror. He's like, darn it,
I'm still white and that guy does seem black. That's
gonna be a problem if I draw my weapon, even
(11:09):
if nothing happens, could be a problem. So I'll do
what the activists have been telling me to do. I'll
be ready to go with non lethal force. So this
guy is acting crazy, I don't know whether he's armed.
I'll have my taser. So he has his taser in
his right hand. That's when this guy pulled a gun
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from his waistband and as he is training it on
the police officer the gun, the officer realizes I just
brought a taser to a gunfight. Didn't know there's going
to be a gunfight. Officers should be ready to go
in any situation in case this happens, but they're not allowed.
(11:53):
I'm not saying this is the Omaha Police Department procedure.
I don't know. I know that the activist weighing on them, saying,
don't you dare draw your gun on these guys. They're
just poured down on their luck, people who just need
their medication. So don't you pull a gun because that
guy's going to try and reach for his phone to
call his mom, and you're gonna think he's grabbing a
(12:13):
gun and you're gonna shoot the guy. And so the
officers got all that weigh in on him, and now
the suspect pulls a gun from his waistband and is
pointing it at the CoP's face, and he looks in
his right hand and says, shoot. Can't shoot with this,
(12:37):
it's a taser. And so now he's trying to move
the taser to You can see this on the bodycam
footage which has been released. Cop moves the taser from
his right hand to his left hand as he's pulling
his gun too late, gets shot in the head, Thankfully,
(12:58):
the kind of a wound that won't in this man's life.
I don't know if this guy's married. I don't know
if he has kids. I don't have any idea, but
I know that he didn't deserve to get shot yesterday.
He didn't deserve to be put in a situation that
Pete loud mouth blowhards like me said for years as
(13:18):
activists were like, don't you have that weapon ready to go?
There's nothing wrong with having a weapon ready to go,
whether you got a ranting guy outside a gas station
or you got someone speeding around downtown and you see
a gun on the floor and you're like, let me
just pull my gun and be ready to go. Here.
I don't know what the situation is all about. This
guy might be Bud Crawford. He might not. I don't know,
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he's gonna draw my gun and be ready to go
just in case I need it. That's the reality of
being a cop. And these activists don't get it, and
these alleged community leaders don't get it. And I said,
another blowhard said that you tell cops to show up
in situations like this and not be allowed to pull guns,
(14:00):
send mental health experts out there, you're gonna get people killed.
This officer yesterday really should have been killed because he
wasn't ready to defend himself in the public. The activists
would say, why don't you go out there ready to
give him a hug rather than give him a gunshot wound,
(14:21):
So the officer gets shot. If that guy wanted to,
and I don't know why he didn't want to, he
could have gone running into the gas station shooting. He
could have gone running down the street. He went into
a fast food restaurant, could have gone in there shooting.
Several people could have been killed yesterday because an officer
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was told, don't pull your gun, just a taser and
you better be careful. You don't want to tasee this
guy and elicit What is it excited delirium or whatever
they call it and cause the guy to die, because
that's the same as just shooting him full of hot lead.
You know this, If this guy ends up catching his
(15:03):
death due to your stop here, that's gonna be really
bad for you. So you probably don't want to use
the taser either. It's gonna get cops killed. We're so
lucky that this officer yesterday was not among the officers
who have met their end in a situation that never
(15:24):
should have escalated this far. This guy, this suspect, never
should have been out on the streets, one thing after
another with this guy, one arrest after another, drug possession,
giving false information to police, theft, forgery, domestic assault, property damage,
(15:45):
more theft. What do we have prisons for? What do
we have a justice system for? Why is it that
some people feel like I want to go out and
hit the town with my family. We're gonna stop up
at a gas station and get some gas. We're gonna
stop at a fast food restaurant, get a happy meal,
and then we're gonna go to a park and we're
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gonna have a nice day. Why is it that so
many people don't care whether or not there might be
a dangerous criminal at any of these locations who should
be behind bars? Do you people, do you not go out?
Do you not take your families out? Do you not
yourself go out and think you know, I'd prefer that dangerous,
crazy people not be around my family. Scott Voyes, mornings
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nine to eleven on news radio eleven ten KFAB