For at least the second time this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has killed an American in his own home. What makes the most recent slaying so heinous is the status of the suspect — a man his family described as a completely disabled veteran who was unarmed when he was gunned down.
On Aug. 16, FBI agents executed the fatal arrest operation at a residence in Henderson, Tennessee.
The noise from the early morning operation woke at least one neighbor, who witnessed some of the chaos of the deadly raid.
FBI SWAT team guns down yet another American citizen in another early morning raid on the person’s home. Henderson, Tennessee. No details on nature of suspect or incident. https://t.co/m9GUqiFOZp
— J Michael Waller (@JMichaelWaller) August 17, 2023
“I was woken up at about six o’clock this morning,” neighbor Alex Morris told WBBJ-TV in Jackson, Tennessee.
“I heard a loud bang. Then I heard a couple more. I heard the loudspeakers, ‘Come out with your hands up. We’re the FBI. We’re not going anywhere.’ Before I knew it, I was coming out to see what was going on and watched them bust out their windows. I reckon they got him in there.”
Yesterday FBI agents killed one person while conducting a SWAT operation on a home in Henderson, Tennessee. The identity of the deceased individual hasn’t been released. pic.twitter.com/nLDwizZu7N
— Expose Them (@ExposeDarkDeeds) August 18, 2023
Neighbors also reported the presence of local law enforcement, according to WBBJ, but said these officers only arrived on the scene half an hour after the feds.
According to another WBBJ report, the FBI released a statement Aug. 16 acknowledging the fatal raid.
“The FBI is reviewing an agent-involved shooting which occurred today at approximately 6:40 a.m. while FBI SWAT was conducting an arrest operation in Henderson, TN,” the statement said. “The subject is deceased. The FBI takes all shooting incidents involving our agents or task force members seriously. In accordance with FBI policy, the shooting incident is under review by the FBI’s Inspection Division. As this is an ongoing matter we have no further details to provide.”
Later reporting by WBBJ identified the deceased as Theodore Deschler, but did not include his age or other details.
His family was left to pick up the pieces and is now speaking out about the killing.
The family’s review of Deschler’s house found multiple broken windows. Other damage to the property included a yard destroyed by heavy trucks driving over it, shattered lights and a shot-up refrigerator.
“There’s three [windows] up front and two on the sides they broke out,” the victim’s brother Russell Deschler told the outlet. “… They were shooting flash… smoke grenades.”
Theodore Deschler’s mother, who told WBBJ she was at the home when shooting erupted, revealed the thuggish behavior she saw when FBI agents finally made contact. According to her, agents pulled her from the home and rudely dismissed her questions in the minutes before her son was shot.
The grieving mother revealed another tragic aspect to the killing — Theodore Deschler was a completely disabled veteran.
“It was a senseless act. You know Teddy was a 100 percent disabled veteran,” Deschler’s mother said. “He had problems. He had severe PTSD. He had depression but he was getting help for it. But this was senseless. He didn’t have a weapon on him. He was just trying to get out of the house because it was filled with tear gas.”
Although the FBI has been largely quiet about the incident, the family asserts Deschler was unarmed at the time he was shot.
Unfortunately, the Deschlers are not the only American family mourning a death after an armed FBI raid.
On August 9, the federal bureau killed a man in Provo, Utah in the course of its forceful attempt at serving search and arrest warrants. The 75-year-old man killed then, Craig Robertson, was alleged to have made threats toward President Joe Biden and other Democrats. The elderly man’s body was left visible for hours after the shooting.
Neighbors described Robertson as a “teddy bear” and were outraged at the killing.
And there might have been yet another American killed by the FBI in August.
One day before the killing of Robertson, the FBI was found to have quietly executed another fatal raid, but details are being kept under wraps so the identity and nationality of the dead individual have not been released.
On the morning of Aug. 8, hundreds of miles south of Utah in Albuquerque, New Mexico, an individual was shot during an armed FBI action. The bureau has remained tight-lipped about the incident, confirming only the time of the incident and that a shooting had taken place.
The deadly matters in Albuquerque, Provo, and Henderson apparently still remain under investigation.
While details of Deschler’s killing, as well as those of Robertson and the individual in New Mexico, are currently being kept quiet by the FBI, it’s clear that a disturbing pattern is beginning to unfold in this federal bureau’s treatment of civilians it suspects of wrongdoing. The Americans involved and the general public both deserve more from the agencies tasked to protect them and the nation.
A GoFundMe aiming to fund repairs of the Deschlers’ home is currently live, claiming damages to the residence will cost more than $25,000 to fix. As of late Sunday morning Eastern Daylight Time, it had raised only $1,127.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
