A Worcester police officer is dead and the woman who allegedly shot him is still walking the streets — another casualty in an era where demonizing law enforcement has become official policy while ordinary Americans pay the price.
Officer Kurt Solomon, a 31-year-old veteran of the Worcester Police Department, was fatally shot shortly before 5:30 a.m. Tuesday on Wildwood Avenue. The New England Police Benevolent Association confirmed his identity. His alleged killer, 58-year-old Karen Solomon, remains at large. Authorities have released Ring camera footage showing her walking near Westcott Street in a tank top and pajama shorts around 5:40 a.m. She is considered armed and dangerous.
District Attorney Joseph Early indicated at a Tuesday evening press conference that the case falls under "domestic violence rules and regulations," according to Boston.com. Few other details have been released. Worcester police are asking anyone with information to call 508-799-8606 or the detective bureau at 508-799-8651.
Meanwhile, in Charlottesville, Virginia, a different kind of violent crime is working its way through the system. Nysoun Malik Gardner, 20, turned himself in Wednesday for an Aug. 6 shooting that left three victims — a 74-year-old man, a 19-year-old man, and a 17-year-old juvenile — suffering from gunshot wounds, according to Augusta Free Press. The incident began as an altercation in a parking area before shots were fired from within a vehicle. Gardner faces a malicious wounding charge, the most serious of three counts.
Two cities, two violent incidents, one common thread: the people charged with keeping the peace are stretched to the breaking point while the political class debates whether police are the problem. An off-duty officer is dead in Massachusetts, and the suspect wasn't caught at the scene. In Virginia, a 20-year-old allegedly opened fire on three people including a teenager and a senior citizen, and it took nearly two weeks for him to turn himself in.
Progressive prosecutors and anti-police politicians have spent years telling Americans that law enforcement is the enemy. Officers hear the message. The public lives with the consequences. When a 31-year-old cop doesn't make it home and his accused killer is still out there — captured only on a doorbell camera — the bill for that rhetoric comes due.
The question isn't whether Karen Solomon will be caught. It's how many more officers and citizens will fall before the country remembers that public safety is government's most basic obligation.
