A woman who allegedly shot up a Bakersfield newsroom twice in four days was arrested driving back to the station with a loaded gun — exposing the same press that lectures Americans on gun control can't even secure its own doors.
Thomashana Renee Zeigler, 46, was pulled over in a traffic stop Thursday night while en route to the KBAK/KBFX studios, according to the Bakersfield Police Department. Cops found a loaded .40 caliber handgun and an additional loaded magazine inside her vehicle. Search warrants executed afterward turned up more guns and evidence of further threats against the station.
The arrest capped an investigation into two separate shootings at the Sinclair-owned station on October 9 and October 13. Surveillance video from the first incident showed a black vehicle pulling up to the building before muzzle flashes erupted from the driver's side window. Police said 10 shots were fired into a conference room and an office. Days later, the suspect returned and fired again — leaving nearly a dozen .40-caliber shell casings and multiple bullet holes in the building.
Several people were inside the newsroom during the shootings. Nobody was injured.
The case illustrates a familiar double standard. The same media institutions that champion stricter gun laws for ordinary citizens operate in workplaces that, like most soft targets in America, are one determined attacker away from catastrophe. No armed security stopped Zeigler. No metal detector caught her. It was automated license plate readers and surveillance cameras — the surveillance apparatus both parties have expanded year after year — that finally identified her.
Police credited the arrest to "the effective use of investigative technology" including ALPRs and city surveillance cameras. The coordinated efforts of multiple units — Robbery/Homicide, RTIC, VCAT, and SEU — were needed to apprehend one suspect who had already struck twice and was heading back for a third attempt.
Sinclair Inc., the station's owner, said in a statement it was "deeply relieved that a suspect has been arrested" and "thankful that no one was injured," according to ABC News 4.
Zeigler faces multiple charges including carrying a loaded firearm and shooting at an inhabited building. Her bail was set at $220,000. She is due in court October 20.
The Patch, meanwhile, ran an unrelated story about a woman jumping from a moving car to escape a kidnapper in Fremont — another California violence incident that raises the same question the press won't ask: when the system can't protect people in their own workplaces or on the roadside, who exactly is it serving?
A newsroom got shot up twice in four days by the same suspect. The suspect drove back with a loaded gun and was only stopped by a traffic stop. The people inside survived on luck alone. The press will cover this as a crime story and move on. The real story is what didn't happen — and what still won't — to protect the people inside those buildings, or anywhere else.
