Struggle for Camera Turns Fatal for Retired Police Officer as Chaos Boils Over in CA
Kevin Nishita, a retired police officer working security for a California news crew, was shot in Oakland on Wednesday — a day before Thanksgiving.
He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries on Saturday, according to NBC.
Oakland has experienced a violent year. “This unfortunate loss of life marks the City of Oakland’s 126th life lost to violence,” the city’s police department stated.
Nishita retired from the a career in law enforcement in 2018. His former departments, including the San Jose Police Department, identified Nishista as the murdered security guard.
It is with heavy hearts and sadness that we share the news of the passing of former Officer Kevin Nishita #3740.
Kevin served the San José community with pride from 2001-2012. He was a crime fighter, even in retirement.
— San José Police Media Relations (@SJPD_PIO) November 27, 2021
Kevin Nishita made a difference in a lot of people’s lives — as a police officer, a security guard, a family man and as a friend https://t.co/ehWXJ9e0X9
— KPIX 5 (@KPIXtv) November 28, 2021
The Alameda Sheriff Department escorted Nishita’s body from the hospital with full law enforcement honors.
We mourn the loss of retired police officer Kevin Nishita who honorably served our Bay Area Community. He was protecting/guarding a local news crew when he was senselessly murdered. Today, we escorted his body from the hospital with full law enforcement honors. ? pic.twitter.com/ZbKRn7J732
— Alameda County Sheriff (@ACSOSheriffs) November 27, 2021
Nishita was on location with a reporter, covering a recent smash-and-grab. He lost his life during an attempted armed robbery when somebody tried to steal a video camera from the KRON television news crew. The robbery went wrong, and the thief opened fire.
Nishita is survived by his wife, two children and three grandchildren, as reported by the Daily News.
Detectives are investigating the shooting as a homicide.
In the 1995 encyclical “The Gospel of Life,” Pope John Paul II warned that we are in danger of succumbing to a “culture of death.” When a man who spent his life protecting the rights of others is gunned down over a video camera, the chaos that has become California descends ever further into this cultural abyss.
While Pope John Paul II targeted abortion in “The Gospel of Life,” the document underscores the fact that all life is sacred, in the womb or outside of it. Kevin Nishita’s life was sacred. A video camera is not.
The gunman who murdered Nishita was either blind to these facts or did not care. In the instance of the latter, which one can assume was the case, nihilism — the belief in nothing — reigns triumphant, or so it would seem.
According to The Center Square, murders in California were up a record 30% from 2019 to 2020.
Proposition 47, passed in 2014 and supported by Democrats and the American Civil Liberties Union, was designed to reduce some non-violent felonies to misdemeanors, so police and prosecutors could focus on violent crimes, according to Fox News.
Since the passage of Proposition 47, criminals have transformed shoplifting into organized crime rings, which have sprung up in cities like San Francisco, Fox reported. There has been an increase in theft across the state.
Violent crimes such as murder are up, theft is up, and chaos is on the rise.
This is the face of the culture of death.
How bad does it have to get before the Democratic leaders in California do something about it?
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