Virginia State Police hired a state trooper, later accused of killing three people, and then himself, as a result of “human error.” An administrative review found “human error resulted in an incomplete database query” in the hiring of Austin Lee Edwards, who allegedly killed the mother and grandparents of a California teen he’d catfished online, the department said Wednesday, per NBC News. “Although we believe this to be an isolated incident, steps are currently underway to ensure the error is not repeated going forward,” it continued, adding it is “also proactively auditing existing personnel records and practices.”
The statement follows reporting showing Edwards was held at a Virginia psychiatric facility in 2016 after threatening to kill himself and his father. He joined the Virginia State Police Academy in July 2021 and became a trooper after graduating on Jan. 21. The agency previously said it was unaware of his past troubles and a background check found no issues of concern. “He never exhibited any behaviors to trigger any internal administrative or criminal investigations,” Wednesday’s statement said, per WTVR.
But they’d know if you complained at a school board meeting.
“Although we believe this to be an isolated incident, steps are currently underway to ensure the error is not repeated going forward,”
Well, that’s reassuring.
What the Hell?…Damn!
Other than mental illness, he was the perfect applicant.
Human error my ass.
He looks like a younger Congressional Representative Adam Schiff….There would be a similar outcome if the roles were reversed….
Human error, my ass. It was intentional as hiring pedophiles as school teachers.
^^^^ Would you hire a guy named Austin Lee Edwards? Me neither. Didn’t he shoot up Texas from a clock tower once?
I think that was Charles Whitman, something like that. But what’s the harm in giving a guy off the street a badge and a gun? What could go wrong?
One glance at this guy would result in a HELL NO from me.
Too many LEO’s are closet psychos. Don’t believe it? Watch Youtube videos of them going crazy.
But you can trust red flag laws.
This crazy MFer came to MY city and killed three people, set their house on fire, and kidnapped a young woman.
I live in Riverside CA. It is bad enough when our own f’ing state government wants to harm us, but now we’re getting a-holes like this showing up.
Just wait until the IRS gets those 87,000 new armed agents on-board. This will be commonplace.
Yeah PHenery, he don’t look right. Tell that human error crap to the family of the people killed.d
I guarandamntee you that the staff person at the State Police personnel department was a fat-ass quota hire, too lazy to do her job. A job she still has and will until she retires with a fat pension.
Brad, that was Charles Whitman.
Preview of coming attractions; we voted the police out, every swinging dick that can retire is trying to get out. The jobs have a funnel in place to slow the mass exodus. One or two people can only process a limited number of retirees.
As it is, the academies can only process a limited number of trainees at a given time. They can’t keep up …unless they shorten the length of the academy. Too, qualified people are not applying and the pool of applicants is at low ebb. Those square badge security guards that couldn’t get anywhere near a police job? They will be our new cops. Welcome to “our democracy.”