Whipped Cream Difficulties

Steven Brooks was arrested last night near Barstow, California.

The arrest followed a high-speed chase that ended when police used spike strips to disable the runaway vehicle in which the driver was throwing metal objects at police, including a handgun, according to the Victorville Daily Press.

Up until Thursday, Mr. Brooks was a member of the Nevada State Assembly (a Democrat, representing District 17, which includes North Las Vegas). He was expelled from office earlier in the day.

Mr. Brooks has had an interesting few months. On January 19th, he was arrested on allegations that he had threatened Assembly Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick. The Reno newspaper states that there was “a gun and dozens of rounds of ammunition” in his car; however, no charges have been filed against Mr. Brooks as of this writing.

Mr. Brooks was arrested and charged after an incident in February “after a disturbance at the home of his estranged wife, when police say he tried to grab an officer’s gun”.

He was kicked out of a Reno restaurant, denied a gun purchase and posed bare-chested for a newspaper photographer, allegedly to show bruises and said he suffered while being arrested, though none were clearly visible. A Las Vegas veterans’ advocate said he sold Brooks a bulletproof vest, but didn’t give him night-vision goggles that he sought.

He’s also “been banned from meetings with party colleagues in the Assembly and was banished from the Nevada Legislature Building“.

I don’t know what to make of this: the fact that he hasn’t been charged in the alleged threats against Speaker Kirkpatrick after two months is strange. The domestic violence incident, well, this is why we have a legal system: to sort out conflicting claims. The denial of the gun purchase was probably a result of the domestic violence incident. The rest of his behavior could charitably be described as “eccentric”, but I’m not sure, based on the reporting, that it rises to the level of “danger to himself and others”. There are reports in both articles that Mr. Brooks was under psychiatric observation for a period of time: the Reno paper says his commitment was involuntary.

Leading the police on a high-speed chase and making them use spike strips to stop you? That goes past “eccentric” and into full-on “crazy”. Speaking of crazy:

Authorities said it was unclear why Brooks was in California.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 29th, 2013 at 4:42 pm and is filed under Clippings, Guns, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.