Gerald <nowomr@protonmail.com> wrote in
news:u5t2tq$1is1q$2@dont-email.me:

> Blue states fuck up all the time. Make the bastards pay.

LOS ANGELES (AP) � A California family is suing a Virginia sheriff�s
department that hired a deputy who sexually extorted and kidnapped a 15-
year-old girl at gunpoint, killed her mother and grandparents, and set
their home on fire.

Austin Lee Edwards, 28, died by suicide during a shootout with law
enforcement on Nov. 25, hours after the violence in Riverside, a city
about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of downtown Los Angeles. The
teenager was rescued.

Edwards had been hired as a Washington County sheriff�s deputy in Virginia
just nine days before the killings, even though a 2016 court order
prohibited him from buying, possessing and transporting a firearm. The
court order stemmed from a psychiatric detention after Edwards cut himself
and threatened to kill his father.

The girl�s aunt, Mychelle Blandin, and her minor sister filed the lawsuit
Thursday in federal court in the Central District of California against
the Washington County Sheriff�s Office and Edwards� estate. The lawsuit
says the department was negligent in hiring Edwards and seeks damages
through a jury trial. The sheriff�s office did not immediately respond to
a request for comment.

Authorities have said Edwards had posed online as a 17-year-old boy while
communicating with the teenager, a form of deception known as
�catfishing,� and asked her to send nude photos of herself.

The girl stopped responding to his messages, prompting Edwards to travel
across the country to her home in California. The lawsuit alleges that he
showed his law enforcement badge and service weapon to Mark Winek and
Sharon Winek, the girl�s grandparents, and said he was a detective and
needed to question the family.

The suit says Edwards slit the throat of the teen�s mother, Brooke Winek,
and tried to asphyxiate her grandparents by tying them up with bags over
their heads. At least one of them was still moving when he set their home
on fire, the lawsuit says.

Blandin said the killings �destroyed our family.�

�I am bringing this lawsuit because my family wants to know how Edwards
was hired as a sheriff�s deputy and given a gun when the courts expressly
ordered he could not possess a firearm,� Blandin said in a statement. �He
used his position as a sheriff to gain access to my parents� home, where
he killed them and my sister. I want the Washington County Sheriff�s
Office held accountable for giving a mentally unfit person a badge and a
gun.�

Edwards was hired by the Virginia State Police in July 2021 and resigned
nine months later. He was then hired as a deputy in Washington County last
year.

The slayings � and their connection to Virginia � prompted Virginia Gov.
Glenn Youngkin to ask the state�s inspector general for a �full
investigation,� which found that a background investigator for the state
police failed to check the correct database that would have pulled up the
mental health order.

The state police, which is not listed as a defendant in the lawsuit, has
since changed its employment processes and background investigation
policies and training.

A spokesperson for the state police did not immediately respond to a
request for comment Thursday.

https://apnews.com/article/california-virginia-catfish-kidnap-
c84d556dc4f4cc47f54f34b7a408fc64