“Who’s Brian O’Donnell?” you ask. And that’s exactly why I want to talk about him.
This is Brian O’Donnell:
#NYPD Det. Brian O’Donnell leaves hospital after he was slashed with meat cleaver in midtown #Manhattan #nbc4ny pic.twitter.com/ufq0h25OZ0
— Steven Bognar (@Bogs4NY) September 16, 2016
Now, if you’re a stupid child or a liberal asshole, you just see another fat Irish cop. Surrounded by a bunch of other pigs, congratulating themselves. That’s because you suck.
What did you do Thursday evening? Here’s what Detective O’Donnell did.
Jonathan Dienst, Checkey Beckford and Michelle Kim, NBC New York:
The off-duty detective who was gashed from his temple to his jaw when he tackled a man fleeing police with an 11-inch cleaver in a chaotic attack near Penn Station at the height of Thursday’s evening rush left the hospital Friday afternoon…
O’Donnell was walking to Penn Station shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday to catch a Long Island Rail Road train home after work when he saw the suspect, 32-year-old Akram Joudeh, running from police, the weapon in his hand, law enforcement officials told NBC 4 New York. He went to tackle the suspect.
The two struggled, and Joudeh hit him in the head with the cleaver, leaving a large laceration.
He saw a guy with a knife running down the street, and he did something about it. I honestly can’t tell you whether or not I’d have the presence of mind to do that. Probably not. How about you?
Keeley Ryan at the Irish Mirror has more on Det. O’Donnell:
The hero Irish cop who was slashed in the face by an attacker wielding an 11-inch meat cleaver in New York has insisted he was “just doing his job”…
And the Dublin-born dad-of-three, who was raised in Offaly, admitted he didn’t think twice before intervening…
“I saw what was happening and I had to help my fellow officers and protect the public.
“That is what I am paid to do…”
Tributes have continued to pour in for the Detective, who moved Stateside in 1993 and has been working at the NYPD’s 19th Precinct for 16 years.
That’s right, Det. O’Donnell is an immigrant to the United States. A legal immigrant. He came here from Ireland as a young man to make his way in the world. Last week he was seriously wounded in the line of duty, putting his life on the line to protect others, and he insists that he was only doing his job.
This is why I still believe in America.
And what about the scumbag who hurt him? Akram Joudeh is a “Palestine national” (Palestine is not a nation) who was in midtown Manhattan to appeal a deportation notice. In July, he was arrested for pacing back and forth outside a synagogue, screaming in Arabic, with a couple of knives in his car. I think Mr. Joudeh has definitively demonstrated why we don’t want him around.
It’s not because he’s a Muslim. Plenty of Muslims from other countries come to America and make peaceful, productive lives for themselves. No, because he’s a violent lunatic. We’ve got enough of our own violent lunatics to deal with already, without shipping them in from everyplace else.
Immigration — legal immigration — is good. America is enriched by the influx of people like NYPD Detective Brian O’Donnell. Good people of all races, colors, creeds, and/or genders. That’s what this country is all about.
That’s what our enemies, foreign and domestic, want us to forget. They want to make us afraid and turn us against each other. They want to make us ignore the things we have in common and obsess over the things that set us apart. They want us to forget what America is.
I hate them for it, and you should too. No matter which political party they’ve taken over.
All of which is just my way of saying: Hats off to Brian O’Donnell. May you never pay for another drink in your life, lad. Sláinte!
P.S. Okay, maybe legal immigration isn’t so great after all…
AP: DHS IG says more than 800 immigrants from countries of concern mistakenly granted citizenship https://t.co/NAM40kfG19
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) September 19, 2016
