San Jose shooting: Who is Pat Brosnan? Ex-NYPD detective says Covid vaccine emboldened mass shooters to come out
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA: On Wednesday, May 26, 2021, a public transit worker allegedly shot nine people to death and then himself in a rail yard. Samuel James Cassidy, 57, apparently worked for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, which serves San Jose and Silicon Valley. But when former New York Police Department detective Pat Brosnan was brought on by news anchor Harris Faulkner on Fox News to give his expert opinion on the massacre, he made seemingly bizarre statements claiming that getting the Covid-19 vaccine has somehow encouraged would-be mass shooters.
Giving his expert opinion on Faulker's show, Pat aka Patrick J Brosnan made a connection between mass murders and the rolling out Covid-19 vaccinations. He also mentioned that suspected shooter Cassidy was almost certainly vaccinated.
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'Crimes are no longer illegal'
Anchor Harris Faulkner began the segment by asking Brosnan how the proximity of a sheriff’s office next door to the rail yard might have made a difference with respect to the speed of the police’s response to the San Jose shooting. Brosnan, who is a frequent Fox News guest, offered a response in which he referenced "the summer of love 2020" — an allusion to the country-wide mass protests in the wake of George Floyd's death.
"In a rational world where there is adherence to the rule of law and respect for law enforcement — say pre-the Summer of Love of 2020 — I think there would be more nuanced response in terms of opening a shooting, an active shooting right next door to where there is a load of armed professional shooters under law enforcement," he said on the show.
"But the rules have changed, you know? Crimes are no longer illegal. There’s no longer enforcement of lots of laws and there’s an empowerment of these active shooters." And that is how he not-so-subtly connected mass shootings with police reform movements and social justice protests.
'Shootings are up dramatically' because of vaccinations
Then Brosnan suggested that would-be shooters "were scared to come out" before the Covid-19 vaccine became available.
"And you know, Harris, this is a time that I wish I was wrong with my prediction, which I mention to anybody who’d listen, that once Covid starts to lift, these cowardly shooters will come out exactly in tandem with the number of vaccinations. You can be sure they probably got vaccinated. They were just scared to come out. And they’re coming back, and you see the numbers don’t lie. The shootings are up dramatically — skyrocketing, actually — on active shootings throughout the United States as we’ve come through this pandemic. It’s really terrifying stuff."
Who is Pat Brosnan?
The former NYPD detective is the founder and CEO of Brosnan Risk Consultants, which has apparently grown from a "local detective agency" into a "full-service investigative, protective and intelligence firm with over 5000 employees that serves a global network of clients". He founded The Brosnan Group in 1996 and then in 1999, the firm transitioned into Brosnan Risk Consultants.
According to his site, he has "extensive field experience in the Robbery/Gun Squad and the Organized Crime Control Bureau."