-By Warner Todd Huston
Nevada Democrat Steven Brooks has become the first elected official ever expelled from the Nevada State Assembly. But in a strange twist, the lawmaker was arrested in California only hours later charged with assaulting police.
The arrest in California isn’t the first time that Steven Brooks (D, N. Las Vegas) has been arrested.
On January 19, Brooks was arrested by North Las Vegas Police for threatening another lawmaker with violence. It was said he waived around a gun while making the threats.
Not long after he was released on the first charge, Books was arrested again for assaulting a family member.
After this behavior, especially the threats to Nevada Assembly Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick, also a Democrat, a committee was convened to consider what to do with Rep. Brooks.
For some time the committee hemmed and hawed about whether to censure Brooks or expel him from their midst but after several false starts on making the decision, the members finally decided to expel him. By late Tuesday morning, the bi-partisan committee voted 6-1 to oust the troubled pol.
But only hours later, Brooks had made his way to Victorville, California where he was arrested by California police for resisting arrest and attacking a police dog with a wrench after leading police on a car chase.
“Brooks continued to resist the officers and not comply with their orders,” the Barstow police department said. “A Taser was utilized on Brooks and after this, handcuffs were applied.”
As of Friday, Brooks was being held on $100,000 bail and charged with four felonies including resisting arrest with force, willfully harming a police dog, felony evading arrest, and throwing objects from his vehicle with intent to harm the police.
Brooks’ behavior has been increasingly bizarre over the last two months. The now ex-lawmaker has made various charges that police have attacked and abused him, he has tried and failed to purchase firearms, and was discovered to have purchased body armor from a Nevada talk show host.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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